The Dark Session

The use of artificial light is, as the followers of this blog know, very high on my list. I got absolutely hooked by the use of strobes, speed lights and studio light, especially after becoming a follower of the Strobist community myself.

The problem is to find models, I mean, patient people who don’t mind being around with an obsessed guy who take strange pictures of them. Randomly, a member of the family gets involved in the task. Poor soul, he knows when we start but never knows when it all finish. This time it was my nephew’s time. 18 years old, rock music lover and with a light beard showing in his chin, perfectly matched with a dark hooded sweater.

We did the session inside a house in construction. We started close to sunset and finished when it was dark and I had to work my way through things with a portable lamp. Three lights: two Metz and one Nikon SB800. Elinchrom Skyport triggers. Manfrotto Nano Stands, translucent umbrella and a Honlphoto grid. These are my tools, together with the Nikon D90 and the 18-200VR lens.

We worked around different kind of situations, mostly based around the idea of the dark warrior or something alike. One light was taking care of the background, both from a bare Metz 48 or through a translucent umbrella. The kicker light, that for me somehow is the main light, or at least the one that takes care of giving the image “that feeling”, is on camera left coming from a SB800 gelled blue or red with a Honlphoto grid. On camera right we have a Metz 58 through a translucent umbrella.

The result is mixed. There’s so much to learn about lights and their fine tuning that I can’t expect major improvement overnight, yet a couple of these images make me happy and proud. The most disappointing is probably the third one, where the light coming from the umbrella is too strong and kills a bit of the atmosphere.

If you need any info about the setup don’t hesitate to contact me.

Flowers anyone?

A while ago I set up my mini portable studio to do a bit of work on some nice flowers I had bought to my wife. It took me a good deal of the afternoon to find the light I liked the most, and even now I'm not 100% sure that this is THE best light. Thus, maybe there's no BEST light. what could be good for me might not be good for you, and viceversa. Same thing happens with colors and here you have a clear example.

In both images I had one SB600 through translucent umbrella on camera right, an old and uncontrollable Metz to light the background triggered with a slave and a reflector on camera left. It was before my 4 flashes set, and the old Metz spilled a bit too much of light here and there, yet these images are important to me, it was my first experiment with flowers. By the way, I like the blue one better....

How to complicate your life...

I do funny things. Not happy of taking the normal fishing pictures you can get using available daylight or with the help of a small flashgun, I decided to do it the my way, complicated. That is. During my last trip I brought with me 4 flashes. To be exact, 3 x SB600 and one Metz 54 recently bought as a bargain. To fire these lights I had with me 3 Skyport receivers and eventually one slave, that due to the strong light wouldn't work, or better say, would work whenever it wanted.

Now, to put together all these lights and make them work the way I wanted, I had to carry also my Manfrotto 001B light stands. The Manfrotto Justin Clamp. Another smaller clamp. Two small translucent umbrellas. Gaffer tape. You name it... All this stuff found place in my suitcase leaving home many lures I could have used for fishing, but this is what I choose, so much for the lures frenzy.


The idea was to put together two strobes on tne 001B stand, and one on the Justin Clamp as a backlit unit. The latter would not work properly because people holding a fish cannot be also asked to stand still in one very place and anyway, the distance between the rail where I would clamp the flash and the fisherman was always very short so the use of such light was pointless. I ended up lighting the subject from one side, and naturally backlit by the sun itself, using two flashes on the light stand but, at one point, in my mighty effort to overpower the sun I added a third flashgun to the stand ad went for the real thing.

Imagine what kind of chaos I have generated on board. Every time somebody had a decent fish I was removing the stand from the "safe" place, unfolding the plastic bag covering the flashes, turning all the darn receives and the flashes on, positioning the stand and the lights in order to have one pointing at the fisherman and the other at the fish, and start shooting. The light for the fisherman was usually half the power of those used to lit the fish, wouldn't always work flawless but it was pretty much under control. Anyway, big work. Tough, and easy to make mistakes, and mistakes I made, quite few many. Thus, the results in some of the photos were extremely rewarding and unique, hence, for as weird as it seem I will keep using my life-complication-combo trying to figure out how to make things roll easier.

Eventually, Lastolite seem to have heard my screams from the Maldives and put together a great gear : The Triflash. Strobist brought the news last week or so and I figured out is what I really need to buy in the nearest future (read, as soon as it is available). Is a triple flash bracket you can stick into your light stand and use with one, two or three flashes, as you like. As simple as that, great ideas don't need to be complicated anyway. Some more detailed info are available here http://www.lastolite.com/triflash.php

This is how my next boat lighting set up will look like, maybe if is very windy I will skip the umbrella but I'm sure this will make my life easier. Can't wait to try that.....

Minimalist Lighting: Professional Techniques for Location Photography

My 2 humble cents. Check out this book by Kirk Tuck. Is an understandable, useful, simple and yet terrific book about the use of small location lights. He not only explains all the technical requirements, tricks and useful tips to get the best out from even the cheapest goods, but he also gives practical examples with images and drawings that explain how to practically build a successful lighting set up for many different situation

I think this is the right book for those who, like myself, love to use the small portable flash and want to get the best out of its potential

This is Tuck's website if you care to read more about him and his work http://www.kirktuck.com/Blog/Blog.html

There's also a #2 coming dedicated to studio lighting techinque, will be out in April, check this http://www.kirktuck.com/Book_2.html

The studio craze

Thanks to an amazing flue I had last week, I managed to spend some time working on my brand new insanity: strobes!

This time I tried to do something related to my main occupation. Most of the time I shoot my daughter's teddy bear, some flowers, a tomato or an oil jar but this time I wanted to try some kind of product shot.

The result is more or less crappy. I don't know if I have screwed the lights, the background or what but I barely come to appreciate it. Thus, during this long photo session I managed to understand few more things about this though and challenging work. each and very day I pay more respect to the guys who are able to present us things in such great ways in the mags ads, and books.

This image has been shot with a strobe lighting the background (SB600), one main light on camera left around 45/60º through a soft umbrella.

This shot shows how the lack of a reflector darkens some areas in the lower part of the reel

This shot has been done with a reflector (camera right) and many of the shadows have come to live

Whatever the results I enjoy a lot what I do in my improvised studio. Is a great way to spend the cold winter.

Well, it was two toys I got myself today....

The first and most expensive one is the Elinchrom Skyport but I also wanted a portable device to soften the flashes' light and found this cheap and quite small umbrella that might fit the bill. Is the Lumi-pro soft Umbrella, 80cm diameter and easy to carry, also in my luggage with the reels, the lures, the tripod etc. I tried as soon as I got home, put together a small dodgy set on my table and started shooting. I could not believe the difference between the light coming from the direct flash, even with an omni bounce and the light coming from the Soft Umbrella. You can judge it yourself here below

Flash with omni bounce shot directely

Flash through Soft Umbrella

Look at how different the shadows are in the first image from the second, much harder, harsh and sharper. This is just a simple and cheap white umbrella that softens the light shooting through it. Imagine what kind of results you can get with the pro products in the right hands....

The lighting experts will laugh at my observation and they have the right to do so, but for a total novice, like myself, to the whole world of strobes, lights, light direction and alike, is an amazing discovery and such a raw and self explanatory example might even help the other non-expert in this field, or at least I hope so.