Philly Nikonian's Lighting Workshop Results

What a busy week! I've been in Philadelphia for a week now and I looking forward to getting home. I started the week teaching a Popular Photography/America PHOTO "Mentor Series Trek", and the last 2 days of the week teaching a Nikonian's lighting workshop.

I must say, the Nikonian's workshops are a blast, we had a great group of people who left the workshop in full command of their flashes. During a two day workshop, you too can learn to master your flash!

I want to send a special thanks our model for the day, Diamandi! Thanks so much for your time and efforts during the workshop, you were a true delight.

The photo at the top of the post was the last image of the day. I used a small boom with a 43" shoot through umbrella with one SB-800. The background light was created using another SB-800 on a Justin Clamp and aimed at the back wall. You might think that I had a blue gel on this strobe in order to get the blue light on the background. Keep reading.

This photograph was taken way down in the basement of a fantastic studio in Philadelphia. I rented the Power Plant Productions Studios for the workshop, and if you ever need a studio in this past of the country give Jim Graham a call.

Rather then carrying all my gear down to the basement, we hand carried what we thought needed for the few shots we were doing. As I mentioned above, the main light was a 43" inch umbrella boomed over Diamandi. This flash had a full cut CTO gel placed over the flash head and my white balance was set to 3030* Kalvin (a bit lower than incandescent). With this combination, the light coming from the main light has a natural balanced look.

In order to get the blue cast on the wall, the strobe behind Diamandi had no gel on the strobe and therefore, turned blue due to the White Balance setting on the camera. One of the things that we did not carry down to the basement was a grid or some other light shaping tool for the background.

Out of pure desperation, I took the lens shade off of my 80-200 mm zoom lens, and placed it over the flash in order to shape the light on the back wall. You do what you need to do in order to make a shot.

Diamandi brought candles with here and they made for a nice effect in the photo. One of the students in the workshop, Roberta, took out here iPhone and played some music to set the mood. Here is a photo of the lens shade over the flash aimed at the back wall.


I'll post more from this workshop as well as from the Mentor Series portion of my week in the next several days. I have a busy schedule over the next few weeks and I will do my best to keep up the blog.... hang in there please. DT

More "We Deliver" Images

I've been working on an annual report which has the message "We Deliver" as it's theme. I mentioned this project several posts back, the one shooting the agricultural images from the San Luis Valley in Southern Colorado.

The annual report design calls for 4 specific full page spreads at the front of the annual. The size of the annual report is 8 1/2" X 11", and the cover is only about 7 1/2" inches wide. Under the this shortened cover are these 4 specific images each progressively getting larger by a 1/2" inch until the last image reaches the final size of the book of 8 1/2" inches. Here is a pdf of the design to help grasp the idea.

Each of these 4 spreads reveal a half inch of the right side of the image, the graphic designer and I had several discussions regarding how to handle that 1/2" inch reveal. During the design phase of the annual report, the designer had no idea what subject matter was going to make up these first 4 pages. We wanted the revealed area of each photo to be clean, lacking any distracting elements. I didn't want to cut someones face in half in the reveal or some other sort of distracting element, you know what I mean.

You can see from the example layout above the images that are revealed seem busy. My job is to smooth them out. As you open the cover to the annual, you are still able to view the additional 3 spreads.

And in the photo below you see the final image of the comp that was provided.

One of the images recently taken and discussed on this blog was the wheat field image. I believe that image, the one shown below will be the last spread of the 4 spread set. I just pasted in the text from the layout to give you the sense of what it would look like.

Part of this assignment took us to the small mountain community of Ouray, Colorado. Ouray is also known as the Little Switzerland of America. The town of Ouray recently changed all of it's street lights to LED lights, saving the town thousands of dollars of energy costs. Erik and I flew down to Montrose in the companies private plane and shot both the evening we arrived as well as pre-sunrise. Here is my favorite image from that shoot and how it might look in context.

The image below was shot last week in Taos, NM. This is a solar plant that provides power to a school next to the solar plant. I have other shots earlier in the morning I prefer, however, I think the client will opt for the one shown here with people in the photo. The two people in the photo are the local energy CoOp and a representative of the school.

I'm not exactly certain what the final image is going to be, perhaps a stock image I've previously taken at one of their many facilities.

I'll be in NY for the Photo East Expo, if you see me wondering around the floor on Thursday please say hello. DT

Parade

Have you ever tried Parade? I can't remember where I heard about them, pretty cool though. Parade is a really easy way to get your images online. Their designs are clean and the price is right. I use the free one to post special galleries for myself. Here is one I put together showing the photos taken on a family reunion cruise over the 4th of July holiday.

They have 4 basic plans: Free, Basic $9 monthly, Standard $15 monthly, and Professional $24 monthly. The Free version allow you 30 images, Basic 150 images, Standard 500, and Professional Unlimited images.

Have a look, it might be something of interest for you.

Small Strobes, Big Results in Saudi Arabia!

I am very excited to be teaching two very special (2 day) Small Strobes, Big Results workshops in Saudi Arabia Dec 13-16, 2009. My host and friend Abdullah S. Al-Saeed has put this workshop together, for more information regarding it please contact Abdullah HERE.

The Wonders of CLS

At a recent SSBR workshop here in Denver, I tested the limits of using CLS outdoors in the shade. I was amazed at the distance I was able to use the build in commander on my Nikon D700. I was able to shoot at a final distance of about 60 or 65 feet from the strobes, just amazing.

You can see from the image above that I am pretty far from my subject and my lights. Erik is holding a Lastolite Tri-Grip with a one stop diffusion strength. The strobes are Nikon SB-800's they are powered with my Quantum Turbo SC batteries.

Here is another shot we did during the workshop. In this first shot I am establishing my ambient fill light. My white balance (WB) is set to Tungsten, this allows any daylight to shift to the cool spectrum and the scene is under exposed by about 2 stops, this is my fill light.


I than had Erik hold an SB-800 with 2 full cut CTO gels on the flash fitted with a grid. The reason for the two full cut CTO's; the first to bring the flash back in balance with the Tungsten WB and the second CTO for the warmth of the light.

Another demonstration during the day was, how to get a clean white for knock out. By using a globe attachment on my strobe, I was able to scatter the light evenly for a clean white. More about the globe attachment on a later post.


In this photo of Chris, I demonstrated the use of the Orbis Ring Flash.


While I'm thinking about the CLS system; For you Nikon users I'll be teaching a two day CLS Small Strobes, Big Results workshop in Downtown Philly for the Nikonians Org. The workshop will be held at the Power Plant Studios on Nov. 3rd & 4th. You will need to contact Nikonians to book a spot for you.

I might also mention that there is still space for the Philadelphia, PA Mentor Series "Master Lighting" Trek at the end of the month. Check the Mentor Series website for details. DT