Friday, February 15, 2008

Ringflash and Hoodies


Yesterday morning David Lee, which is the owner of the studio I work for, shot Terrace in her Blues for some traditional military shots. Afterwards we spent much time playing with lighting and props; something that doesn't happen enough when the studio is rolling at full speed! The lovely Terrace was our model of the day.

We spent a lot of time paying attention to how light works with a new home made ring light that was recently purchased. We tried everything we could think of. Close up, far away, to the side, in the background, behind the camera, shooting through it, shooting only with the ring, adding up to 3 other lights in various setups and probably many other things that might be too silly to mention.

Like most of the shots I have done of Terrace, the above image was her idea. But, since someone needed to be there to push the shutter release and I happen to be standing there with a camera, it just worked out. It seemed rather simple to cover one eye and not the other with a hood, but for some reason we were having trouble. She was having trouble getting the hood straight while I was having trouble communicating just how far to move the hood. I think it took 5 to 8 shots to get this one right!

Other than the ring light there was one extra light that was on the background. Terrace was 6 feet from the background. This was shot f/4 at 160th - ISO400 - 140mm - all hot lights.

Saturday, February 9, 2008

The iPod Generation


I had a family shoot last weekend which is the first shoot of the year for me. It isn't everyday, er, month that I have a kid to shoot. At a wedding there is usually more than one kid, in fact there are anywhere from 2-10! In those cases it's rather simple to get the kids to interact and play with each other since that is what they like doing anyway. It pays off with some adorable shots!

With this shoot Hunter (the child) was the only kid there. He was content half of the time, but overall 'good' I would say. The other half he wanted to listen to his iPod or play/tear magazines up. I made the best use of the situation and used Hunter's so called 'toys' as props.

I titled this post "The iPod Generation" for obvious reasons of Hunter being connected with his music. If the iPod was set down, he was unhappy. If it was handed to him, he would [happily] chew on it. Perfect! Since Hunter was already on daddy's shoulders all I had to do now was somehow interact the third subject. Easy, have her put the earphone into Hunters ear! *snap!*

I used a 3x4 softbox to the subjects right and a umbrella fill behind me and camera left. The room was about a 12x12 living room. Shot with a 10D at f/9.5 @ 180 ISO400. Why f/9.5? Well, I was moving lights often and simply changing my aperture as I went. Since my lens only opens up to 5.6 everything in the background would be in focus anyhow, so who cares if it went to f/9.5?