Monthly Archives: May 2011

The First Next Step

Last weekend, I shot my first wedding for some friends. It was pretty interesting and I’m still working through all the photos, getting the good stuff separated and touched up where needed. Aside from a little bit of tweaking, most of the shots turned out just how I liked them and I was graced with some great sunset light since the wedding was outdoors. I’ll put those up sometime eventually.

That’s not what I’m writing about today. Last time I started throwing down with the first step of off-camera lighting, actually taking the damn flash off the camera. Logically, there has to be a next step and a next step after that. As the post’s title would dictate, this is the first next step. I started digging a little deeper into what I could do with what I have. Basically, I have one actual light, a bunch of white foamcore posterboard, a table, a white wall, and a pineapple roughly the size and shape of a human head. What can I do with these? Let’s see!

These images are all straight out of the camera with absolutely zero tweaking. First, I put the client (pineapple) on the edge of the table with the flash standing on the ground between the table and the wall pointing up at the back of the pineapple at an angle of roughly 75 degrees. I put a piece of foamcore behind the flash to keep light from spilling onto the background. What I got was pretty much a rim (separation) light.

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Journey of a Junior Strobist

I’ve made a headfirst plunge into David Hobby’s Strobist philosophy of lighting. I’d been reading the blog for, well, a really long time and made a move to get some gear to facilitate that a few weeks ago. About 5 weeks ago, I went to an all day workshop put on by Hobby and Joe McNally about getting maximum benefit from small photographic flashes used off-camera. Part of the benefit of this style is that it’s very portable equipment. Because of that, it’s possible to take high quality light to locations that might have been next to impossible. This philosophy was born from a photojournalistic perspective, the need to shoot editorial photographs in a variety of locations. Being that I have no real focus on what I do, the versatility interests me.

I’ve seen a lot of really amazing shots from people all over the world that have taken to the idea of applying the ideas of small-strobe photography and I decided I want in.

I’ve got some equipment, some book (or Internets, whatever) learnin’, some live demos from guys that know a hell of a lot more than I ever will…it’s time to shoot!

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I’m baaaaaaaaaaaack!

Not that this thing gets a whole lot of traffic. Just in case anyone’s out there looking, here I go.

The 52-week project had to go on hold, sadly. I still really like the idea but I need to plan things better before taking on something with that kind of scope. Here’s some of what I HAVE been doing.

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