Tuesday, August 12, 2008

Western Slope Shoot

Working as a corporate location photographer in Denver, I am fortunate to travel throughout the state of Colorado as well as else where.  I was recently on the western slope of Colorado shooting some editorial images for a corporate magazine for a client of mine.

We spent 3 days shooting various subject matter dealing with agricultural tourism in the state.  We stopped by several fruit stands and wine tasting establishments along the way and met some really nice folks.

The photo above was shot at one of those wine tasting establishments.  We photographed the owner out by the collection bins they use when harvesting various fruits.  I was using a 12 mm lens on my D300 and a SB-800 for fill.  You can see my Voice Activated Light Stand below.


I had Erik hand hold the SB just off to the left side directed at the subject.  As a standard practice, I keep an 1/8 CTO permanently attached to each of my strobes.

Thursday, August 07, 2008

For Sure! Detroit Workshop

There will differently be a Detroit Small Strobes, Big Results workshop on September 6th.  The workshop will be held in the town of Ferndale, MI.  which is about 15 miles north of Detroit.

If you are interested in attending, please contact me ASAP.  DT

Tuesday, August 05, 2008

Small Strobes, Big Results Workshops

The first Small Strobes, Big Results workshop was held this past weekend in Denver.  We had a wonderful workshop, I enjoyed meeting and getting to know all the participants.

I want to thank our models Enki and Oscar for their time.  We got some really nice photos of both of them throughout the day. We had no less than 7 or 8 demo set-ups that all the participants had an opportunity to shoot for themselves. 

We started the day in the studio talking about light, lighting and the use of grip equipment as well as a few lighting demos before lunch. This photo of Enki was lit using a single SB-800 strobe placed overhead and bounced into various panels.

After lunch we moved out of the studio and into the common space of the building that the studio occupies. We once again photographed Enki in her nursing outfit that she wares at work.

We lit Enki 3 different ways in order to compare the effects of each lighting set up.  This happens to be my favorite lighting for this particular shot.

This particular shot was lit by bouncing a SB-800 off the wall on camera right for a key light and the use of one additional SB-800 hand held from behind Enki camera right for the hair light.

Participants of the workshop wanted to see how to simulate sunlight coming through a window to light a scene. We used our model Oscar and my assistant Eric seated on a sofa looking over a set of blue prints for this photo.  We placed a single SB-800 strobe outside with a full CTO filter on it and fired it using a PocketWizard. The following photos uses the same lighting just shot with a longer lens, an 85 mm f1/4 lens.


We also did a bit more edgy image of Oscar.  We placed him near a yellow wall and lit him with 4 SB-800 strobes.  The key light was an SB-800 place in my DIY Beauty Dish, one strobe for the background snooted to contain the light and two as kickers on either side and from the rear of Oscar.

We also shot my intern Ian in the two shots shown below.  The first here was lit using the beauty dish on a boom over Ian and two SB-800 on the floor pointed at the brick wall.  The white balance was set to tungsten and the dish overhead was gelled with a full CTO filter and the two strobes on the ground had no gels on them which allowed them to shift their color cooler.
 
The last one photo of Ian was lit using an SB-800 with a grid on it.  The shutter was dragged to capture the ambient light in the room.
 
I had a wonderful time at the workshop and I'm looking forward to the next Small Strobes, Big Results workshop on August 23.  I have 2 more spaces available for this workshop, if your interested in attending please get a hold of me soon.  DT



Image of the Day

I'm on assignment today shooting on the western slope of Colorado.  I wanted to post an image from this past weekends Small Strobes, Big Results workshop in Denver.  I'll do a more in depth posting when I get back from this assignment.


This photo of our model Oscar was lit using 4 SB-800 strobes, one of which was a beauty dish fitted to an SB-800.  More to come.

Monday, August 04, 2008

Back From The Arctic


I'm back from the Arctic! I returned home on Thursday of last week and went straight to the doctors office. Got me some pills to help put this nagging cold to bed. 

This past weekend was the first Small Strobes, Big Results lighting workshop in Denver.
I had a wonderful time and the next post I will provide images and details regarding the workshop. DT