Wednesday, December 3, 2008
More shots from Dominika's shoot
Some more images from my shot with Dominika on Sunday. Ding Kings is such a cool place for a photo shoot!
Monday, December 1, 2008
Images from Sunday photoshoot
Yesterday's photoshoot was with Dominika, an actress/writer from L.A. who has been in many TV shows and films, including the forthcoming "The Vanquisher".
We first started out on a beach in Paia, where I got to experiment with my RadioPoppers for the first time since I received them. In the past I had been having hit or miss problems with Canon's infrared wireless flash system especially in outdoor settings. With the Radio Poppers installed on my ST-E2 transmitter and 580ex flash, I could just concentrate on photographing Dominika.
We next went to Ding Kings - one of the most amazing locations I have seen on Maui. It is a surfboard repair shop housed in an old warehouse in Kahului. Check out this blog for a tour of the place.
They were gracious enough to allow us to shoot at this location and we were able to get some really great shots. It was such an interesting place to shoot. Everytime we turned around, we found another cool thing to shoot.
This was one of the most interesting things to shoot there. The people at Ding Kings built this set of chairs and table that is HUGE. Really neat stuff to shoot!
At this location I chose to use 2 lights. The main was an Alien Bees AB800 with a beauty dish triggered with a Pocket Wizard. To give Dominika some light to pop her out of the background, I used a Nikon SB26 on a lightstand behind her. I also occasionally used a silver Lastolite Trigrip reflector to add a touch of fill.
Thank you Dominika for being such a great subject to photograph, and special thanks to Ding Kings for allowing us to shoot on their property today.
We first started out on a beach in Paia, where I got to experiment with my RadioPoppers for the first time since I received them. In the past I had been having hit or miss problems with Canon's infrared wireless flash system especially in outdoor settings. With the Radio Poppers installed on my ST-E2 transmitter and 580ex flash, I could just concentrate on photographing Dominika.
We next went to Ding Kings - one of the most amazing locations I have seen on Maui. It is a surfboard repair shop housed in an old warehouse in Kahului. Check out this blog for a tour of the place.
They were gracious enough to allow us to shoot at this location and we were able to get some really great shots. It was such an interesting place to shoot. Everytime we turned around, we found another cool thing to shoot.
This was one of the most interesting things to shoot there. The people at Ding Kings built this set of chairs and table that is HUGE. Really neat stuff to shoot!
At this location I chose to use 2 lights. The main was an Alien Bees AB800 with a beauty dish triggered with a Pocket Wizard. To give Dominika some light to pop her out of the background, I used a Nikon SB26 on a lightstand behind her. I also occasionally used a silver Lastolite Trigrip reflector to add a touch of fill.
Thank you Dominika for being such a great subject to photograph, and special thanks to Ding Kings for allowing us to shoot on their property today.
Sunday, October 5, 2008
The second time around
Last year I had the chance to work with Natalie, a model/actress I met through Model Mayhem.
Today I had the chance to work with her again, which was a lot of fun. Natalie is such a great model to work with - very easygoing, great attitude, and very patient with me (which is a big help since I'm still experimenting with lighting techniques.).
She has a new hairstyle, which is much shorter than it was when we first shot together. I thought it looked pretty cool and it added some nice variety to my portfolio. This was one of our favorites from today's shoot.
For this session, we shot in the atrium of the building where I work at. It has these giant steel columns as part of the architecture which I thought would be cool to try with her red dress.
This was done with two SB-28 strobes: the main strobe (1/2 power) was gelled with a CTO + 1/8CTO gel, while the rear (1/4 power ) had a 3/4 CTO. Both shooting thru white umbrellas to make a larger lightsource. I had originally planned to try to make it look like a night shoot by setting the white balance to tungsten and let the daylight filtering through the glass wall turn everything else blue. The problem with using umbrellas as a light modifier is that they throw light all over the place. I was getting some CTO colored light on the back wall, so I couldn't get it to go blue enough for what I had in mind. It was also late afternoon, so a lot of the daylight was fading away.
I think the next time I try something like this, I'll switch to softboxes instead of the umbrellas and remember to bring a couple of gobos to keep the unwanted light off the background.
Friday, October 3, 2008
In Plain English
Stumbled across this site that produces short videos to explain complex topics. For someone like myself who struggles to keep up with rapidly changing technology, this is a godsend.
They have videos that cover a wide range of topics - from online photo sharing to explaining how we elect a president. Check out The Common Craft Show.
They have videos that cover a wide range of topics - from online photo sharing to explaining how we elect a president. Check out The Common Craft Show.
Tuesday, September 30, 2008
New photography website under construction
I have a web designer working on a new Flash version of my photography portfolio website. She's a model/photographer/web designer I met through Model Mayhem.
The cool thing is, we've never met face to face. She's located in Lima, Peru.
What even cooler is, she's only 17.
I've already had the chance to see the preliminary work she's done for my site and it's way beyond anything I'd be able to create on my own.
Check out her work at www.design.valeriafigallo.net.
The cool thing is, we've never met face to face. She's located in Lima, Peru.
What even cooler is, she's only 17.
I've already had the chance to see the preliminary work she's done for my site and it's way beyond anything I'd be able to create on my own.
Check out her work at www.design.valeriafigallo.net.
Friday, September 5, 2008
Images from last month's shoot on Oahu
Had the chance to work with two models on Oahu last month - Alia and Kristen. I met both of them through their portfolios on ModelMayhem.com. I also got to work with two excellent makeup artists - Toni and Kecia. They were all excellent to work with and very patient with me as I am still getting used to working in a studio.
For these two shoots, I was able to rent some studio time at Ohana West Studio in Honolulu.
Very convenient location - right across the street from Honolulu Community College.
These two images are of Alia. We wanted to add some color to her portfolio, so we used a kimono-style silk robe and a red samurai sword (found both of these in Akihabara). We had a WL 1600 in a medium softbox as her main light, and an AB800 in a strip box behind her to separate her from the background.
We used a fan to add movement to some of the shots. Ohana West Studios has this big industrial fan that only has 2 speeds - hurricane mode and holycrapthisisfast. The fan was so strong it kept moving the softbox. But it made for some great shots.
This is Kristen. She wanted to try out a cupcake theme, and this was one of my favorite images of the day.
Even though she did not have as much experience as some other models I've worked with in the past, she was amazing to work with. This was one of the last images of the day that we shot, and she really made it work.
For this image, We used pretty much the same lighting as Alia's kimono shoot with only two changes. First we changed the background to a white seamless. We then put a grid on the medium softbox to keep most of the main light from spilling onto the white seamless paper, and cause the main light on her to gradually falloff. This let us change the background color to medium gray, and also draw more attention to the model's face.
Thanks to two wonderful (and patient) models, and two excellent makeup artists, I gained some more experience with working in a studio environment and was able to add some variety to my portfolio.
For these two shoots, I was able to rent some studio time at Ohana West Studio in Honolulu.
Very convenient location - right across the street from Honolulu Community College.
These two images are of Alia. We wanted to add some color to her portfolio, so we used a kimono-style silk robe and a red samurai sword (found both of these in Akihabara). We had a WL 1600 in a medium softbox as her main light, and an AB800 in a strip box behind her to separate her from the background.
We used a fan to add movement to some of the shots. Ohana West Studios has this big industrial fan that only has 2 speeds - hurricane mode and holycrapthisisfast. The fan was so strong it kept moving the softbox. But it made for some great shots.
This is Kristen. She wanted to try out a cupcake theme, and this was one of my favorite images of the day.
Even though she did not have as much experience as some other models I've worked with in the past, she was amazing to work with. This was one of the last images of the day that we shot, and she really made it work.
For this image, We used pretty much the same lighting as Alia's kimono shoot with only two changes. First we changed the background to a white seamless. We then put a grid on the medium softbox to keep most of the main light from spilling onto the white seamless paper, and cause the main light on her to gradually falloff. This let us change the background color to medium gray, and also draw more attention to the model's face.
Thanks to two wonderful (and patient) models, and two excellent makeup artists, I gained some more experience with working in a studio environment and was able to add some variety to my portfolio.
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