Off-Camera Lighting

Ever since I started visiting Strobist to learn more about lighting, I've been trying to make it a habit of experimenting with what I've learned every chance I get.  This past Friday I had the chance to do a shot I've always wanted to try - backlighting the couple at the altar.

Usually with Canon strobes, you need to have line of sight to your slave flash in order for it to fire.  In the past I had used the ST-E2 transmitter on top of the camera to trigger the slave flash.  This was pretty much hit or miss whenever the slave flash was behind something - a door, a model, Darth Vader, etc.  

Someone suggested I use 2 strobes - a slave off camera, and one on the camera as a master trigger.  The flash on-camera can be set to just triggering the slave, but not firing itself.  Apparently this allows for better range/reliability than just using the ST-E2 transmitter.

For this shot I had my assistant put the flash on the altar positioning it so that the head of the flash came right between the couple's faces.  I then fired off several shots until we got this one.  One of the things to watch out for is to make sure you don't see the flash head in the viewfinder when you take  the shot.  Since the flash is firing back toward you, if your camera sensor sees the direct flash, it will seriously underexpose the shot and you won't get the cool backlighting effect.

More from 1st Japan shoot

Whew! It took over a month, but I was finally able to go through the images we took in Japan this past December and do the post production work on them. I really need to streamline my RAW workflow in Adobe Lightroom so that I can get these done faster next time.


This was the studio that we rented in Japan. A bit small, but very close to the train station so it was pretty easy to find.


Since this was my first time to this studio, I was not sure what to expect as far as lighting equipment that was available. Due to luggage weight restrictions on the airlines, I was not able to bring along my studio lighting equipment from Hawaii. When I looked at the studio's website, I saw these two softbox lights which I assumed were strobes. I figured I could get by with two strobes in softboxes.

When I arrived at the studio I found out that these were "hot lights" - continuous light sources, not strobes as I had initially thought (I REALLY need to learn to read more kanji). This was a bit of a challenge for me, as I was used to using "hot lights" for video work, not photography.

Luckily I had brought along my Strobist kit - 2 small lightstands, 2 umbrellas and a pair of Nikon SB24 flashes. I ended up using the hot lights to light the model and matched it with the SB24s with umbrellas to light and hide the wrinkles in the white backdrop.


While the makeup artist and hair stylist were working on Stephanie's second look for the shoot, I tried to think of something I could do with just my Strobist kit. I knew that I wanted to color the background to help the model's outfit stand out more. I put an SB-24 with an umbrella on a stand to my right to illuminate the model. I then stuck a Gary Fong Whaletail with a blue gel onto my other SB-24 and stuck it behind the cushions in the corner behind the model to get this:



Overall, it was a great learning experience, and we got some really cool images out of this shoot. To see more images from this shoot, visit www.mizomi.com

Macworld 2008 Keynote in 60 seconds

Thanks to Mahalo Daily with Veronica Belmont, today's Macworld 2008 keynote speech by Steve Jobs has been condensed from 90 minutes down to 60 seconds. They should do this every year! ;-)

First International Photo Shoot

Today I did my first ever international photo shoot in Tokyo, Japan. Up until now, I have had very little experience with both fashion photography and working in a studio setting. Thanks to Stephanie (our model) and Mai (our makeup artist), I was able to practice both today.

Through Mai's help, we found a small studio in Tokyo - White Studio. This was very easy to get to - I only had to take 1 train with no transfers to get to the studio. Mai was very helpful - she even met me at the train station to make sure I didn't get lost. I am so glad I was able to find such a great makeup artist to work with in Japan.

I met Stephanie through Model Mayhem. She is a great model to work with. Great smile, very easy to work with, professional, and really tall!

As an added bonus, we were also able to have a hair stylist (Miho) come in to do Stepanie's hair so we could do 2 very different looks .

Our shoot took about 6 hours to do 2 different looks and overall, the results came out much better than I'd hoped. I consider myself very lucky to have found such talented people to work with in Japan, and I hope I will have the chance to work with them again in the future.

Grow Cube

Came across this Flash-based game tonight and before I knew it, I had lost several hours in it. Is it a game? A puzzle? Life simulation? Frighteningly addictive? You bet.

Apparently it's the latest in a series of games from this creator. Have to keep an eye on this one.

Cece and Clint's Wedding Video Online

About a year ago I purchased a Sony HDR-HC1 to use as a travel camcorder and also as a backup video camera whenever I shoot a wedding. I've never really put it through its paces until last weekend when I went to my cousin Cece's wedding last weekend. I wanted see how it would hold up shooting a wedding reception and a reception. I also wanted to experiment with compressing video for the web. You can see the results here or by clicking on the photo above:

Cece and Clint Wedding Highlights

Please note that this is heavily compressed for the web and the final widescreen DVD version will be much clearer.

I've also added a second page with some photos from the event. Please contact me if you would like full-size copies of these for printing.

Photoshop Retouching Video

Found a really good video tutorial on Photoshop portrait retouching on YouTube:



I'm always on the lookout for video tutorials on photography, lighting, & Photoshop, so if anyone has any favorites that they've come across, let me know!