Shooting at High Noon with the California Sunbounce Sun-Swatter

Photographers usually try not to shoot when the sun is directly overhead, as the shadows can be unflattering to the subject. We usually try for early morning or late afternoon, when the sun is lower in the sky and gives us better light to work with.

That being said, this photo was taken around noon on a Saturday in Lahaina on a relatively cloudless day, with no flash.

Black and Gold Bikini, originally uploaded by Mizomi Photography.

I used a product called a Sun-Swatter, made by California Sunbounce. I actually bought it used from a photographer on Oahu and had my friend air cargo it to me on Maui the day before this shoot.

This is what the Sun-Swatter looks like:



Basically it's a lightweight frame of translucent material that you can fly overhead to diffuse the light on your subject.  Once you have the overhead light under control, you can then modify it with additional reflectors if you wish.

It's the same thing as finding a shaded area (like under a tree or an overhang next to a building) and placing your subject in it.  The main difference of the Sun-Swatter is that instead of moving your subject into the shade, you can bring the shade to your subject, no matter where your subject is.

For the shot with Corinne above, I had my assistant Ronald hold the Sun-Swatter over her, then had another assistant use a Photoflex Zebra Gold 4x6 litepanel to bounce some light into her face.  (I would have used a Sunbounce reflector, but the Photoflex was the only zebra gold colored reflector I had with me at the time.)

To help hide the fact that I used the Sun-Swatter (the version I have is the pro size which is just barely enough to cover one subject), I shot from as low a position as I could, practically burying myself in the sand.



Because it's so light the Sun-Swatter is very transportable, and we were able to move from the pool to the beach and then to the trees to get a lot of different shots done very quickly.

The one drawback to the Sun-Swatter is that you need to have assistants on your shoot.  The more the merrier.  For this shot with Corinne, if we had a third assistant, I would have had them hold up another reflector to throw a hairlight from behind or come to camera right to brighten up the shadow side of Corinne's face just a skosh.

No Rings, No Flowers, Just Love...

I really enjoy photographing weddings like these...

Many times couples get so wrapped up in planning and trying to create the "perfect dream wedding" that they lose sight of what the whole purpose of a wedding is for.  A wedding doesn't have to be about fancy settings, worrying about getting every detail perfect, inviting hundreds of your closest friends, etc.

Stephanie and John had their ceremony at sunset on a beach in Wailea a few weekends ago.  It was a very simple ceremony, no musician, no bouquet, no circle of flowers, not even an exchange of rings.  What made this special was the love between this couple.

When the bride suddenly blurted out "I LIKE SPAGHETTI" (they chose to write their own weddings vows and yes, that WAS part of her vows), I knew this was going to be a fun couple to shoot.

While I circled the ceremony taking photographs, I could see their eyes light up whenever they looked at each other - you could just FEEL the love they shared.  It was one of those kinds of weddings where you get the "chicken skin" feeling.  Those are the best kinds of weddings to photograph, IMHO.

Plus the fact that they were up for getting a little crazy with the wedding photographer helped too. ;-)

We jumped into the water and caught this shot in the surf in between the waves.  Nailed it with the sun perfectly between their lips just before it disappeared behind the clouds.  Lighting was on-camera flash with a Gary Fong cloud Lightsphere aimed directly at the couple.

Canon 1D mkII 24-70mm f2.8L lens, 580EX w/ Gary Fong Cloud Lightsphere iso 200 1/500@ f5.6

Shooting at the 2010 Maui Matsuri

Was asked once again by my friends at JN Productions to photograph Kikaida and friends at the 2010 Maui Matsuri.  I really enjoy doing this every year, as it is a lot of fun to see childhood heroes come to life on the stage.  They had two performances, so I videotaped the first one and photographed the second.

It's interesting to watch the actors plan and rehearse their fight choreography beforehand.  There's a lot of thought that goes into planning, as they try to stay true to each character as far as how certain characters would react in every situation.

Watching the rehearsal also helps to plan and anticipate certain shots.  During the rehearsal,  the actors worked out how the V3 character would be introduced - by doing a flying kick to one of the bad guys.

When it came time during the performance for V3's introduction, I moved up closer to the stage and got down lower,  This helped exaggerate the height of the actor's kick and led to one of our favorite shots of that day. 

 Canon 7D, 24-70 f2.8L lens and 580EX flash.

Don't know if they have posted the images yet, but you can learn more about Kikaida, Kamen Rider V3 and see photographs from past Maui Matsuri events at the Generation Kikaida website.

Pinup shoot with Honey and Kat

A few weeks after the Oahu shoot, I had the chance to work with makeup artist Kahulani once again, this time doing a pinup shoot with one of her friends, Honey.

Honey does the vintage Hollywood look really well.  For this first one all we used was an AB800  with a beauty dish.  The sepia tone and vignette was a preset look in Adobe Lightroom.  Also tried a few in black and white.

I used pretty much the same bedroom set as Uilani's boudoir shoot, minus the tulle hanging from the poles.  We were working without an assistant that day, so I didn't want to risk having the pole falling and whacking someone on the head.  Lighting is 3 AB800s, the main in a 5' Octodome and two behind the folding closet doors in the background.

One of the things I learned on this shoot is that the edge of an air mattress is really hard to hold a pose on.  Will have to think about some way of adding more support underneath the sheets to make it easier next time.

Black Lagoon Anime Concept slideshow video

A big Mahalo to photographer Chase Jarvis who inspired this idea with his Hasselblad Masters FRAMES video.

This is a compilation video of the 300+ images we took on that shoot at the Naval Air Museum, mixed in with some behind the scenes images and finished images.  Everything was assembled in Final Cut Pro.  Music is from the alternative Stacktraxx collection available at DigitalJuice.com.


Black Lagoon Anime Concept Photoshoot from Todd Mizomi on Vimeo.

2nd shoot with wolfpup - "Black Lagoon" anime concept

 I really enjoy working with model wolfpup from MM.  She is one of those models that can work her poses and expressions so well that when she is in front of my lens, I can just go into chimpanzee mode concentrate on the shot and not worry about having to direct her too much.  She just knows how to rock the shot.

This was our second shoot together and this time we were lucky enough to be able to shoot at the Naval Air Museum at Barbers Point on Oahu, thanks to my buddy Chaz at After6Media and his friends there.

This was a great location to shoot at - tanks, APCs, Navy jets, Army helicopters etc.. Chaz said it best - like being a kid in a candy store.

Kecia Littman was our makeup artist on this shoot.  I had previously worked with Kecia a few years ago on a studio shoot on Oahu, and it was great to work with her again.

For this shoot, we went with an anime character theme - Revy from the Japanese anime "Black Lagoon"

This was a concept I've been wanting to do for a long time, but it wasn't until now that everything came together just right.

We started in the afternoon a bit delayed by the heavy traffic on H1, so although there were a ton of different things we could have shot, I chose to limit it to two specific ideas.  I also kept the lighting to just one light - the White Lightning 1600 which was enough to overpower the sun.

First set was with the tank. I setup the WL1600 with a standard 7" reflector about 20ft away from the tank and tested until I was satisfied with the angle and look.  I had wolfpup stand in front of the tank and just let her get into character.

Canon 5D 24-70mm f2.8L iso100 1/160@f16

For props she is holding a Tokyo Marui airsoft G36K rifle.  The shoulder holsters hold two custom KSC airsoft 9mm Beretta 92F pistols "Sword Cutlass Special" from the Black Lagoon anime.

Black tactical gloves, combat boots and the military belt completed the look.  For the outfit, the model just needed to bring the denim shorts and black tank top (actually there was writing on the tank top, so she wore it inside out for the shoot).

By the time we started shooting the sun was now behind the tank and model, and the one WL1600 had to provide lighting for both.

When I took the first shot, the model was exposed correctly, but the tank behind her was a little on the dark side.  Because of the inverse square law, the tank was getting less light than the model.  This was ok for the closeup shot above, but for the wide shot I needed to change it up slightly.

I repositioned the model more to the front edge of the tank and moved the light more to the right so that her shadow would not fall onto the tank.  Since the model and tank were now both about equally distant from the light, the tank looked much better.

Canon 5D 24-70mm f2.8L iso100 1/160@f16

Climbed on top of the tank for some additional shots.  Still using the WL1600 with 7" reflector.
Ordinarily I try not to use such a small light source on a model because of the harsh shadows, but thankfully wolfpup is one of those models that look amazing no matter what kind of light you throw at her.

Canon 5D 70-200mm f2.8L iso100 1/160@f16

To get some motion in her hair for this shot, I had her turn away from the camera, then whip around and bring the gun up to acquire a target.  Shots like these I'll usually crop to 16x9 aspect ratio in Lightroom to give it a cinematic feel.

Canon 1DmkII 70-200mm f2.8L iso100 1/250@f16

Got the idea for this from a Jack Bauer poster for "24".  When the model saw this shot she said it would make a great recruiting poster. ;-)

On some of these shots you might notice the tribal tattoo on the model's shoulder.  We didn't have time for our makeup artist to create the tattoo to match the anime character we were portraying, so I experimented with adding it in post.

We were starting to get into sunset, so we headed over to the helicopter gunship.

We mounted a 5' Octodome on the WL 1600 and used that as our main light.

Wide shot of Chaz shooting with his model Rose using the Octodome.  We took turns shooting with the Octodome and the models manning the gun.

 When it came time for wolfpup and I to shoot, I instructed her to really exaggerate her actions, as we were emulating an anime character.  This led to one of my favorite shots from this session.

When I worked on this shot in post, I noticed that there was no pilot in the shot.  Don't really notice it in the shot below because of the 16x9 crop, but in the uncropped original the entire cockpit was in view and it was clear there was no pilot.  To fix that (and do a slight director's cameo), I had my brother use his iPhone 3Gs camera to take a picture of the back of my head.  I comped that into the shot where the pilot would be.  You can barely see it here, but it's little touches like that that help to sell the shot.

Canon 5D 24-70mm f2.8L iso100 1/160@f8

We were wrapping up after the sun went below the horizon, but we were getting such great colors in the sky that I wanted to get in a few last shots.  While wolfpup got ready, we raised the Octodome up and tilted it down about 45 degrees.  Chaz then got below the light and held up a silver California Sunbounce mini reflector.  We brought wolfpup in as close as possible to this beauty lighting setup and got some great glamour shots to end the day.  An added plus was that the makeup colors Kecia used on wolfpup's eyes was a good match for the colors of the sunset.

Canon 1DmkII 70-200mm f2.8L iso100 1/250@f8

There were so many other things we could have shot at this location, but there just wasn't enough time.  Hopefully we'll have the chance to shoot there again in the near future.

Boudoir Photoshoot with Kat and Uilani

A week after the shoot with Lia, Heidi and Uilani, Kat contacted me to set up a second shoot with Uilani.  We shot three different looks - two boudoir style and a fashion look.

For the boudoir look, I wanted to try something different with the set this time.  We setup an inflatable bed with a comforter cover and cream colored satin sheets.  For the background we hung white tulle from a pole supported by 2 C-stands, and four wooden folding closet door panels.

Behind the panels we setup two B800s with Rosco 305 gels and aimed them through the slats of the doors to emulate sunlight streaming in from the outside.

To help make it look more like a bedroom, we put a nightstand with a lamp next to the bed.  To get light from the lamp to match the flash units we were using, we replaced the light bulb in the lamp with an SB26  fitted with a Stofen omnibounce. Because the SB26 has a built in optical slave, it fired reliably whenever the main light fired.

Ran out of closet door panels for the background, so we used one of the white V-flats to stand in for a wall.

For the main light, we used an AB800 with a 5ft Octodome boomed above the front of the bed with a C-stand.  The power level was controlled via a wired Alien Bees LG4X controller.

For fill, we added a 4x8 silver litepanel just below the front of the bed. Below is what we ended up with:

When we started shooting, we noticed that on some poses because of the overhead position of the Octodome, we were getting a shadow on Uilani's chest.  To help raise the shadow area, we had Quddus hold another SB 26 aimed Uilani's face and neck.  As she changed poses, Quddus would also move and readjust to keep the light aimed correctly. 

Canon 5d iso100 70-200mm f2.8L 1/125 @ f8

Canon 5d iso100 70-200mm f2.8L 1/125 @ f8

Canon 5d iso100 70-200mm f2.8L 1/125 @ f8

Uilani changed outfits and after Kat changed the makeup look, we shot another set, this time shooting with the intention of converting to black & white / sepia:
 

 Canon 5d iso100 70-200mm f2.8L 1/125 @ f8

 Canon 5d iso100 70-200mm f2.8L 1/125 @ f8

Canon 5d iso100 70-200mm f2.8L 1/125 @ f8

For our final setup we headed out into the hallway upstairs.  Near the upstairs landing, one of the walls had a section of glass brick, with sunlight coming in from outside.

 To make this a deep blue color, we setup an AB800 with a beauty dish and 2 CTO gels (full and 1/2 cut).  Tried setting the camera to tungsten white balance , which would change the outdoor light to blue, but wasn't getting the right color tone I wanted.  Then I tried dialing it in manually with  the Kelvin setting on the camera, but it only let me dial it down to about 2700K. Iwanted it to go a tad more but because this was really pushing the camera color to its limits, my 5D basically said to me "hey, cut that out" and I had to make do with that. Because we were shooting in RAW, we could later go into Lightroom and bring down the white balance even further than what the camera would allow.

For fill, we used a silver photoflex litepanel.  As you can see from the picture, the section of glass brick is only 9 bricks wide, so there wasn't much room to play with. Uilani had a very limited area in which she could pose for this set.

Canon 5d iso100 70-200mm f2.8L 1/160 @ f7.1

Using the 70-200L helped compress the space and hide the edges of the glass brick wall.  Also shooting at 1/160th allowed me to drop the light level of the outside light coming in, which resulted in a darker blue background.

Canon 5d iso100 70-200mm f2.8L 1/160 @ f7.1