Here’s another one that I posted on Facebook a while back, but never blogged… Last Halloween, Jeff, Max, and I were at Melissa’s for a Halloween party. The three of us–at Jeff’s insistence–went around the corner to the abandoned industrial buildings (where I shot the photos of Melissa recently) and did some creepy halloween photos. This was one of my very favorites.
Don’t remember the lighting details, but it was a single LP160 on a stand, bare, I believe.
I don’t remember what sort of mask Jeff is wearing, it’s been a while since we’ve discussed it. If we’re lucky, he might fill us in in the comments hehe.
This is an older one, but from a rather fun night with the crew. On the night that I shot Jen’s boudoir photos, we rolled the use of the rather expensive-yet-worth-it Citizen Hotel room I rented into a hotel party. It was an eventful night, old friends and new, all having fun and basically being crazy.
Michelle here stole Ivan’s hat, and he looks a bit upset about it, it seems. Then again, that’s what he gets for plopping his fat Russian ass onto the laps of three rather small girls. Pretty good times, really, everyone was a blast, and it was a good celebration-type-thing after the boudoir shoot.
My buddy Ryan’s band Escalon was playing their first Boardwalk show since he joined, and he asked me to come out and take some photos. While I was there, I shot the other bands as well, they were all pretty badass. This is Ryan, the man himself.
Oh, interesting thing about these last few photos at the Boardwalk… I was using a rented Canon 24mm f/1.4L, fully open to f/1.4. It is NOT that easy to get anything even REMOTELY NEAR sharp at f/1.4 when you’re shooting a moving target, like a metal guitarist or vocalist. Lesson learned.
My buddy Ryan’s band Escalon was playing their first Boardwalk show since he joined, and he asked me to come out and take some photos. While I was there, I shot the other bands as well, they were all pretty badass. This is Twenty Days With Julian.
Interesting note: This is probably one of the VERY FEW black and white photos I’ve ever published. I love color too much, but this one just… It just felt right.
My buddy Ryan’s band Escalon was playing their first Boardwalk show since he joined, and he asked me to come out and take some photos. While I was there, I shot the other bands as well, they were all pretty badass. This is Royals Die Young.
I haven’t blogged any of these, but a while ago I did some maternity photos for my friend Lisa. I’ve known Lisa since I lived in Redding, and then we stopped talking for a long while. I moved to Sacramento, and about 6 years afterward, she and her husband and kids moved down here too, so now we’ve been hanging out. Lisa is really getting into photographing her kids (as most parents do), and she’s enjoying learning more about photography while she does it (she bought the Canon 50mm f/1.8 after I demo’d it for her for a few minutes/shots–and after I told her the price haha!). She’s making great progress with her knowledge and practice, and I’m glad that I’m able to share knowledge with such an interested individual.
She wanted some photos before she gave birth to her daughter, Harmony, and I was glad to do so for her. Although it became VERY apparent rather quickly that I’m not skilled with maternity photos at all! But it was fun, aside from the major headaches that my rechargeable batteries were giving me (side note: I bought a LaCrosse four-bank battery charger within a week of this. Best. Investment. Ever.)
These were lit in her living room with a base coat of window light, and two LP160s behind shoot-through umbrellas. Hell if I know what the powers were now.
Lisa has of course since had her daughter, and she is adorable! I just recently did some Easter photos of her kids, and I’ll probably post one of those later on, including Harmony. See? You can consider this one a behind-the-scenes shot in preparation for the Easter photos. :D
I rented the Canon 50mm f/1.4 from BorrowLenses, and unlike most of my other rental toys, I’ve been putting this one to great use so far. I own the f/1.8 version, it was the first lens I ever bought–before I even owned a Canon camera, actually! I love it, it’s a workhorse, it looks good, and it’s cheap. The trifecta, if you will. So color me pleasantly surprised at how much of an upgrade the four-times-the-cost f/1.4 is over the Plastic Fantastic. This lens is A-MAZ-ING. It’s my next piece of glass, hands down.
So why do I go on about this piece of kit when there’s a photo of a beautiful girl above this? Easy: I’m WAY glad I had this lens while able to take photos of my good friend, Anna. She has a personality like no other, and is one of the absolute most kindest, sweetest, and amazing people I’ve ever been lucky enough to know. Having a lens to capture that internal and external beauty even better made me pretty happy.
This was shot in open shade, and I positioned her as best as I could to get some sunlight poking through the trees onto her hair to act as a separation light. Definitely works for me.
Two Sundays ago, my friend Veronica and I had arranged a “team photoshoot” with a model she found online. We set up a meet, and a theme (sorta), and sadly, there was a communications issue, and the shoot never happened. Oh well, at least we got our Starbucks, right?
After hanging out with V for a while, I went over to my friend Melissa’s house, since we haven’t hung out in a while. After being silly for a while, I suggested that we finally get around to doing a photoshoot, like we’ve been talking about for months. Luckily, she was totally down.
She got dressed (thought fuzzy pajamas might not be all that great, while it would be funny!), got ready, and we rolled on over to some abandoned industrial buildings literally a block or two away from her house. I’ve shot there before, although it was at night for Halloween. I thought it’d be a lot of fun to bring her out there and make some fun photos.
Melissa is an absolute blast to hang out with, and that extends to shooting with her. She’s a tiny little thing at around, I don’t know, 4’7″? Maybe? But she’s explosive, and has more energy and craziness than almost anyone else I know. And she just. Doesn’t. Give. A fuck. So she’ll do pretty much anything, and then some–just ridiculously great! We made some really fun images, and had a great fun time!
Lighting on this is pretty basic. Key light is a 1/4 or 1/2 CTO’d LP160 at about 1/8 or 1/16th power (as you can tell, I’m a stickler for remembering details hehe) through a LumoPro SB-III softbox at camera left. Separation light is opposite the key, a bare LP160 at around 1/4 or 1/8th power, slaved off of the key, which is triggered with a Cactus v5 wireless trigger.
Interesting other bit of lighting geekery, I’ve ordered a GamiLight Square 43 softbox from MPEX. Also threw a third LP160 in the order, since I needed a third light. I’m really looking forward to testing out this softbox, I’ve heard and seen some really cool stuff about it, so I’m stoked. Anyone looking for a shoot so I can test it out? Hit me up!
I ended up finally pulling the trigger on picking up one of Photojojo‘s latest toys, the O-Flash ring flash adapter. When they first announced it a few weeks ago, I was definitely intrigued, however wasn’t sure how quality a $40 ring light adapter would be. After I mulled around on it for a bit, and then went to the San Francisco stop for Joe McNally and David Hobby’s The FlashBus Tour (which was AMAZING, by the way!), I got energized about using some on-axis fill, and a ring flash is an excellent way to do this.
So after puttering around the house, taking photos of my new camera bag, my Rubio’s burrito (oooh… sooo good!), the dinosaur toy that Photojojo includes free in orders (lol), and blinding the cats for a few minutes, I decided I’d try some real-world applications for this baby.
Went into the garage and set up a few lights, threw the camera on the tripod, and hooked up the remote switch (SO much easier to take photos of yourself with this thing). A couple hours of playtime later, and I got a decent group of examples of different lighting scenarios all within the same setup. I primarily wanted to show the difference of a setup with a normal key light/separation light/background light setup, and that same setup with an on-axis fill that a ring light provides. Granted, I could’ve thrown an umbrella right behind the camera, but for one I didn’t have a third stand, and two, that’s not the purpose here.
So as opposed to throwing all of the photos up here, I’ve already uploaded them to my personal Facebook page. Each photo has a description that explains what’s going on with that shot, and there’s also a pullback shot on my phone that will give a somewhat illustrative display of what I had set up.
Last, I do want to say that I’m aware I’ve been rather quiet here. I really want to get back to a regular schedule of posting, but it seems that I just haven’t been shooting enough. I’m trying to rectify that, so hang tight!
My last post on the Pixel Knight TR-332 TTL wireless flash triggers here had no photos of my own, just some vids on flash triggers and how the syncing worked (or didn’t work) on various cameras. This is more of that technobabble. Although unlike my vids, this actually provides some great insights on how this all works. Paul Duncan does an excellent job of visually explaining how SLR shutters (focal plane shutters) sync in relation to small flashes like speedlites/speedlights. It’s nearly 10 minutes, but if you’re interested in the nuts and bolts of how/why flashes work with your DSLR the way they do, this is a must-watch.
[via f-stoppers, via Petapixel]
I'm a photographer, musician, tech geek, and gamer from Sacramento, CA. My interests are in portrait and band photography, and am attempting to focus my work in those areas.
You can find me on Twitter, Facebook, Flickr, Myspace, and ModelMayhem, or email me at lou@digitalnoisephoto.com.
