Nice To Be Home

To sleep in your own bed and to take a shower in your own shower is heavenly! I've had several days to relax and re-introduce myself to my family. I'm also very happy to be blogging once again, kinda missed it. Since January 27th, I've slept in my own bed 13 days. I have a lot of catching up to do, one thing is to clean my basement/studio. It seems every time I get home, I drop things on the floor, re-pack and head out again.

I want to revisit my Saudi Arabian workshop experience in this post. I going to discuss the set up and the execution of the following photo.

This photograph was taken in the late afternoon, but by no means was it even the slightest bit dark. This photograph was taken at about 4 o'clock in the afternoon in open shade. My intent was to create a "day of night" type feel to the photography.

At the Safwa sports facility where my workshops were held, there is a large soccer field with stadium seating. I used the stadium seats which were in the shade, to demonstrate this technique. Let's take a look at the progression of photographs below.



The first image on the left was my base exposure, basically doing exactly what my camera told me to do. My exposure was 1/250th @ f/4.5. and my color temperature was set to daylight. In the second image, I set my color temperature to a custom kelvin temperature of 3030*k. with the same exposure settings. The third and final image above is a deliberate under exposure
in order to place my shadow value. 1/250th @ f/9.0. Remember, any daylight contained in the photo will turn cool when the WB on the camera is set to a lower kelvin temperature than the actual source.

Next, I bring in my voice activated light stand (VALS). I used a single SB-800 with a full cut CTO (color temperature orange) gel on the flash. This CTO gel will render a neutral "normal" color light. I simply set the flash power to give me the f/9.0 that I had set on my camera.

I teach this and many other techniques at my workshops, whether it's a Small Strobes, Big Results workshop or teaching for other organizations.

I'll be teaching a two day workshop in the Bay Area for the Nikonian's Organization on May 14th & 15th. This workshop is designed for the Nikon user, I'll be teaching advanced lighting techniques using the Nikon CLS system. The workshop is being held at the Crowne Plaza Hotel in Union City/Oakland, CA. More more information about the workshop and reserving your spot to attend, contact Nikonian's.

I think I'm going to take another well deserved nap! DT