365/101 Bring out your dead!

"I knew a man who once said, "death smiles at us all; all a man can do is smile back."

Gladiator

On day 101, I shot for the third time in the new studio. It is becoming familiar again. Slowly, I'm learning how to best use everything that the place has to offer me. Including the automatically locking door. A curious statement if you will. You see, all along I knew it would lock on it's own and, therefore, require that I always carry the key. I was the KeyMaster, the door was the GateKeeper and Zuul ... Zuul was now locked somewhere inside the studio. With my key.

Good way to start a new relationship with a model and makeup artist, eh?

"Uh, yeah. So, nice to meet you. We'll begin shooting in a bit, as soon as one of my studio partners comes and unlocks the door! Ha ha ... so, how about that weather?"

In all seriousness, it wasn't that bad. They were very gracious about it and we only had to stand outside for about 15 minutes. We chatted a bit about the project and some of the other work they were doing. The model is a local burlesque dancer and her friend a costumer and MUA. Seemed like the perfect combination for the evening.

The idea behind the shoot was Día de los Muertos. Day of the dead. I'd been wanting to shoot something like this for awhile and when she brought the idea up, I jumped at the chance. I've always liked the idea of the painted skulls.

I had an idea of how I wanted to light this. The face would be the focal point of most of the photos. I wanted the light to be up high and moderately directional, falling off slightly as it got farther and farther from the makeup. Went with a 22" beauty dish for the main light, boomed up above her head. Had a sock over it, so it acted more like a softbox at that point, but still had that nice beauty dish light quality to it.

A second light was set on the far side of her, opposite the key; it had a gridded stripbox on it, helping to provide a nice bit of separation from the rest of the scene. Carving her out of it, almost. In later photos, we took a third light, gelled with a nice red, and splashed that up against the black muslin background, providing a bit more separation of her hair from the blackness. It was a good choice and helped to create one of the best photos of the entire set (shown below).



I think, if I had to do this one over, the only thing I would change is the use of the black muslin background. I think a charcoal gray or black seamless would have worked much better here; the wrinkles in the muslin are somewhat distracting and divergent. Just a bit too much chaos. But then, I'm probably being picky. Yeah. Probably.

We had a few other ideas we wanted to try out, but didn't have much time to fully develop them because of how late we started. She's very into corsets and had brought one along, but we'd only gotten a dozen photos out of it before we realized what time it was (and it takes a fair amount of time to get a corset on and cinched up properly, let me tell you). We were going to shoot a few pinup-styled poses with a chromed stool. Next time, though. Definitely next time.



The model is Haazard. She's on Model Mayhem. Definitely fun to work with and definitely plan to work with her again. The makeup was courtesy of her friend Morgan.

And finally, I leave you with one last photo from the set.

365/59 Sinister

I've always been a bit fascinated by some of the hand-held speedlight photos I've seen done by Joe McNally. Tonight, I stumbled across another that he did where he was holding two very close to the sides of his head. His photo was done in broad daylight, though. I didn't have any of that, so I ran with it in my own way. I took a series of photos, moving the speedlights farther and farther out, starting at about 4 inches from my head.

I like how it turned out. Very sinister looking. I think, if I had to do it differently, I would reposition the lights by 90 degrees, so the long edge of the flash was going along the edge of my face instead of across the side of my head.

Though, one thing's for sure: next time I do this, I'm going to set the lights up on stands instead of hand-holding. It'd be much easier to manage taking the photos this way. Who knew?

365/31 Body Paint

"Who sees the human face correctly: the photographer, the mirror, or the painter?"

Pablo Picasso

Another day, another interesting and new photo concept for me. Spent the afternoon with the guys from Curvy Canvas to do some promotional photos for their body painting work to seed the upcoming Mardi Gras and Carnival celebrations here in Austin.

We'd been shooting email back and forth every few weeks since last September. "Hey, you know, we should shoot!" "Yeah, that's a great idea!" You know, the basic song and dance trying to get things worked out to where we both had a free afternoon to get it done. Well, that was Sunday.

Now, having said that, I have to mention that we've had another cold snap in Austin. It was in the 30's today so we ended up shooting inside the entire time. I wish it had been a bit warmer. More like the 60's. The house we were shooting at had this wonderful gazebo and hammock out in the back yard that would have worked in a most complimentary way with the first model (above) and the celtic design that was airbrushed onto her.

Sadly, it couldn't work out the way I wanted. Blue, frozen models don't work so well when you're trying to photograph them. Unless, you know, you're going for that morbid corpse look. But I digress.

After finishing up with the two models, we began packing up and someone mentioned doing a quick shot of the first laying out across the bamboo floor. An excellent idea! So, we had her lay out and a quick arrangement of the softbox and her hair and ... voilà! Instant hotness. Pushed the softbox around after a few more clicks until I got the shadow arrangement that I wanted.

This was one of my favorites from the shoot. And, if you ever need any bodypainting, you should definitely check out the Curvy Canvas folks. Excellent attitudes and artistry.

365/23 Ol' Jack Burton says ...

When some wild-eyed, eight-foot-tall maniac grabs your neck, taps the back of your favorite head up against the barroom wall, and he looks you crooked in the eye and he asks you if ya paid your dues, you just stare that big sucker right back in the eye, and you remember what ol' Jack Burton always says at a time like that: "Have ya paid your dues, Jack?"

"Yessir, the check is in the mail."

Jack Burton Big Trouble in Little China

Ok. Yes, I have a fascination with Jack Burton. Arrogant, cocksure. A damn-the-torpedoes kinda guy. Sometimes you need to be live that in life in order to get through it. Not that I ever do such things in real life. Ahem.

But, it was time for a new mugshot and I wanted something that would give the appearance of self-assurity, the notion that when, as Jack Burton says, you're up against a wall and being stared down at by some 8-foot tall maniac, that you stare right back. Not so much a "no fear" attitude. It's the perception of knowing what you can live through and knowing that even though you're likely going to get hurt, that you're going to take a few people with you.

I knew what I wanted out of this photo. Dark and brooding me. I didn't want that spark of life showing up in my eyes. The light? Highly directional and layered just enough to give some depth in the darkness. Not sure I wanted to fully project Jack Burton here. When you see him, you see brash and vigor, lit up in all it's glory. Flashy and arrogant.

Now, while fun to poke at Jack Burton and my goofy reasoning behind wanting a new mugshot, the "real" reasoning behind it has to do with a podcast I've been listening to lately, History of Photography by Jeff Curto. He's a professor at College of DuPage. One of the things that stayed with me from the first few podcasts was the discussions about portraits when photography first came about.

We've come a long way from that era where a portrait may have taken tens of seconds to expose. More importantly, we've come from an era where photographs were rare; imagine living in a time where you didn't grow up with photography. Imagine not having photos of your family or not knowing what a city on the other side of the world looked like, save for someone's impressionistic painting. Photos captured reality. It was world-changing. You don't think about this today when you're bombarded with imagery from all points and angles.

The discussion just got me thinking about keeping a documented history of myself as I age. And this mugshot was the next in a long line of photos. But, unlike Jack, I'll still be paying my dues for some time to come. The check, still unwritten, will be in the mail. That's a promise.

Some technical details: SB-800 through 15" Lastolite Ezybox aimed straight down and overhead about 1 foot from my head to camera left at 1/32. The bare-bulb adapter was also on the 800 to help soften the light just a bit more. SB-800 to camera right and behind about 6 feet back and above. Snooted with some blackwrap. Triggered via CLS with the timer on the camera.

Favorite Photos of 2009

January

We spent an evening at the ER in January. My daughter had some sort of infection in her cheeks that caused them to balloon. She looked like a chipmunk. She was scared so I pulled out the camera and started taking pictures of her to keep her occupied. It worked. And I got some great photos of her.

February

Stephanie came up to the studio one evening in February. James had wanted to do a white-face shoot with her and invited me a long. I wanted to do something very directional light-wise. This is one of my favorite photos. I have it hanging up in my office at work.

March

The Austin Music Awards. I don't remember the name of the band, but the keyboardist was spiff. The glasses just made the photo. If you look close, you can see the keyboard in the reflection.

April

A short photowalk around the University of Texas. I like fire hydrants for some reason. No idea why. For this, I wanted to throw the sharpest point of focus just before the water plug. This has a nice cinematic feel to it. I was inspired by some photos on flickr from (I think it was) mingthien.

May

I wanted her cocooned. So we wrapped her in plastic and killed all the lights. I loved this old wood floor at the studio. It had a life to it. Red and creased, dirty but swept. She had this lovely tattoo that I couldn't stop staring at, so off the plastic came. Ripped to shreds so it would reveal the painted flesh beneath.

June

Lacey wanted to do something different. So we met at the Cathedral of Junk in South Austin. It was one of the hottest !@#$% days of the year. Or, at least it felt like it. By 11am, I was dripping with sweat and we were done. Magnanimous and beneficent. She had this queenly appeal going on sitting on that throne.

July

The 4th of July. Sitting amongst the tens of thousands of people on Auditorium Shores. The lesson of the day? Pay attention to wear the fireworks pots are set up ... and make sure that a street lamp isn't between you and them. Had to zoom in for anything worthwhile. Next time, though ...

August

Another photowalk. I came across this group of dancers on the South Mall at UT one afternoon. He had just gotten out from under the lion's head. You could see him panting and working to catch his breath.

September

Ah. The Buenos Aires Cafe in East Austin. I took my wife there one evening in September. Our first night out in awhile. No kids. It was a mini vacation. I had my camera along for the ride. Got some odd, but curious looks from the waitstaff there when I pulled it out every time they brought a new dish to our table. My wife kept laughing at me. No matter. The tart was excellent.

October

On a hike through Bastrop State Park with my boys and a good friend. It had been raining all week leading up to this. The weather had cleared just enough, but the park was still inundated with the remains of the storms.

November

She wanted to be Aeon Flux. We only had a short time to pull this one off. She moved away two weeks later. She had the outfit down. Hair, makeup, guns, pose. We threw our own touch onto the idea and suspended her with rope.

December

And finally, everyone should play with bubbles. You create little translucent worlds that last only moments, each one different, each one a character unto it's own. And then it pops.

I don't know that I'll take anymore photos this year. I still have a full card to go through. But ... there's still a New Year's Eve party ahead of us, so ... who knows. Maybe I'll get one more in before the clock ticks over and resets the new year.

Ready if I want it now, Danger Boy...

It's 1:30am on Thanksgiving Day. I'm wide awake, Johnny Cash is fitfully playing from some show on the Biography HD channel, and there's a frozen turkey sitting in a blue plastic tub in the kitchen. And yet, instead of dozing off or preparing for a wonderment of victuals delicately prepared and teased, I sit here thinking about my lighting style.

I am frustrated by it.

Let's back up a bit. I've been re-reading the Hotshoe Diaries again (and watching some recent McNally videos on the Nikon site) and realizing what difficulty I continue to have with my lighting style. I think I've been so abused of this notion that light must be grand and soft, that I find it a terribly grim notion to try something else.

Lately, I've been limited to using umbrellas. I know, there's nothing quite wrong with them, really. You can shoot through them. You can bounce into them. But controlling that light is a pain. It just goes everywhere. And generally, some of it is reflecting back some place I don't want it to go. I suppose I could get smart and flag out some of the light more, but in the heat of the moment I forget that I can do that. Or that I can collapse the umbrella. Or feather it. Or just take it off.

And herein lies the rub. I get wrapped up in what I'm doing that I can't defiantly remove myself from the scene and observe what's going on within it. Or even know what the scene should really be about. For the longest time, I've taken the mindset of letting things occur and reacting to it. No real foresight or planning occurs. I mean, what right-minded pirate would think of being so rigid as to stick to some photographic code! They're guidelines, people!

But, really, they're not even that. And I'm beginning to observe that not having some sort of reasonably gelled idea, not having some set of guidelines for what I really want out of the photo, not having some set of rules and checks that I want to purposefully constrain myself within is affecting my not very well-formed vision of the shoot from coming to fruition. A plan you must have. You can have a plan and choose not to follow it. You can't choose to not follow a plan that doesn't exist. Just doesn't work very well.

Take this latest shoot, for example. The idea was simple: Aeon Flux. That's it. I would show up with the camera, take a few photos, and be gone. I asked about what they specifically wanted but didn't get very good direction beyond, "We're going to suspend her and try to recreate one or two shots from the original TV show." Ok. Didn't know that until I got there so I had no idea what those shots would have or should have resembled.

I'm fond of the phrase, "a lack of planning on your part does not constitute an emergency on mine." Only, in this case, it was my lack of planning that made it a struggle. We tried a few positions, took some shots. Mostly, it was an evening of aimless fucking about until something kind-of, sort-of began to gel together if you tilted your head to the left, squinted your right eye, and covered your left with the back of an aching, sweaty palm.

And yeah, I was fighting the light the entire time. I wanted something mood-filled. Dark. Reminiscent of what I recalled the cartoon to be. Tried using two lights. One in a large umbrella, one bare to get some separation from the background. In most cases, it just did not work out the way I kept envisioning it. I'm still mulling over why. Could have been the space we were shooting, the lack of a real shooting plan, the phase of the moon. I'm not sure. Frustrating, it was.

So like any good non-plan following jack, I did what I thought best: killed the second light, pulled the first in closer, and dropped to a smaller umbrella. And this helped. I was dealing with too much light. Well, not so much that there was too much light, but that there was too much being illuminated. The walls, the ceiling, the carpet, the midget in the corner. I wanted to layer light in a pleasing manner, but I could not do it. Just wasn't working and I was tired of bashing my head against the wall.

Lately, I've been playing with the idea of using smaller light sources. more controllable, more directional. And the umbrella makes it difficult for me to achieve this (or maybe it's just that I don't know how to do it effectively yet). So, I'm getting a small 15" softbox for my speedlights. I think that'll be a good first step to get what I want. Blast all the light forward, don't have to worry as much about light coming from places I don't want it (like reflecting off the beige wall behind me). And this is what I really needed for this Aeon shoot. More control.

Once I got to a smaller umbrella, things started to work better. I felt less and less like my clutch was slipping and more like I was making positive forward momentum (even if I was squealing tires and redlining the engine). And looking back at what I was doing before, I begin to realize that what Joe McNally is doing is second nature to him. He understands just what light mod needs to be in place to achieve a particular effect (plus a bit of magic and luck) and I'm still figuring that out.

Only, in my case it feels like "shoot, shoot some more, shoot again, and then ask questions." Not a great way to do it.

So, some things I walk away with from this shoot:

• Get a good idea of what the shoot is about. Include a list of photos you want to get.


• Plan your shots, even if it's only a tiny bit of ordering. This will help you know when you've got it ... or when you should just move on.


• Don't forget that you have control of the light. If something is broken, change it. Feather it, flag it, move it, change it, turn it into a duck. Whatever. Just try something different, but make sure it's a positive and directed different.


• Breathe.


• Think about what you're lighting before you get there.


• Think about what you're NOT lighting before you get there.


• Make sure the place you're shooting is appropriate for the subject you're shooting. Had I fully realized what the shoot was intended to be, I would have pulled them to a much better location.


• Someone spinning around in the air really needs a tagline to hold them steady, otherwise you just cuss and frustrate yourself while attempting to get focus lock.


• Spend some time after the shoot to review what you did and what worked (or didn't work). Just writing all this down has helped me figure out a few things to keep in my mental checklist of shooting.

My Aeon is a local friend who's moving out of town. This was a Halloween outfit she created a year or two back and she wanted some good photos of it before she departed. She'll be away for quite awhile and likely will only rarely return for visits. My only regret was never being able to photograph her in her Mystique costume. Damn was that thing sexy.

Boot to the head!

Master: Ed Gooberman, you fail to grasp Tae-Kwon Leep. Approach me so that you may see.

Ed: Alright, finally some action.

Master: Observe closely class. Boot to the Head [boom].

Ed: Ow, you booted me in the head!

Master: You are lucky Ed Gooberman. Few novices experiece so much of Tae-Kwon Leep so soon.

Headshots. No, no, I'm not going to perform the moves of Tae-Kwon-Leep on you. Humorous as it may be, that's not the subject of today's post. Today we're talking about photographic headshots. Or rather, as close to them as I've gotten in the last month. Maybe a bit of background is in order.

I'm a member of a non-profit organization. August was the first month of the new term for the organization's Board of Directors. The organization is relatively new and still getting on it's feet. Slowly, but surely, it's getting there. I happened to be in the area when the meeting was occurring and offered to take photos of both the BOD and the organization's staff. Nothing fancy was needed, just something simple and presentable.

One of the things I've learned from the entire Strobist movement is that simple is good. Remember, "slow is smooth and smooth is fast." I didn't have much time to get the shoot together. All I knew walking into it was that I wanted a two light setup: a key light through a big white umbrella and a background light gelled blue to provide just swash of color. Why blue? Blue is a dominant color in the organization's marketing scheme.

I was hoping to find some textured background to give some interest to the photos, but when I arrived at the meeting place, I discovered it was in a plain-Jane office building. So, no dice. Sad photographer, no biscuit. But, the galaxy had one final hope!

A plant.

I found it tucked away in our meeting room behind a door. It was some sort of leafy bamboo-ish thing. Long thin leaves. Just enough to make a great cookie. Or cookaloris. What's a cookaloris? It's a basic light modifier used to filter light through to create a pattern against your background. I'd never used one before (because it's always an after through when I'm shooting). This time, I jumped at it because I wanted something to make the background not so dull. Aside: I think the affect was great. I want to try doing more of these and make my own cookies with paper and shapes cut out of it. But, moving on.

Using a cookie is simple. Place it between your light and the background. The closer the cookie is to the light, the sharper and more defined the projected shadow is. So, with the plant acting as my cookie, all I had to do to spice up the background was to make sure my blue gel was firmly planted on the flash, zoom it in a bit and pop it for good measure. Mostly, I wanted to see if it was appearing on the blank wall correctly. It did. I was happy.

Next was getting my key light set up. I noticed recently that I tend to shoot A LOT with the key coming from the left. Unfortunately, I seem to be stuck doing this and is counter to my need to try and keep it working from both sides. Plus, there's the whole issue of making sure I'm lighting the correct side of the model's face, but that's a wholly separate issue and post.

So, key to the left and ... needed some fill to the right. I only had one light stand and one umbrella with me and that was already in use for the key, so I couldn't use another flash (a third, which I did happen to have). What else do I spy in the room that I can press gang into use? Why, I have a useful human c-stand and a big, poster-sized white Post-It note. PROFIT! A bit of arrangement and I had my three light sources for the portraits.

And the magic of all of this? Ten minutes of setup to achieve an impromptu portrait studio suitable for photographing nine people in rapid succession.

Sorry, no setup shots for this. I'm sure you can figure it out from the lighting in the photos. If not, let me know and I can draw a picture that'll help diagram it out.

You can see the rest of the board and staff photos on my flickr stream.

The folks above are Lois, Jesse, Dan, and David. Good folks. I think Lois' portrait is my favorite from this entire setup.

Holy Exploding Thermostats, Batman!

Yes, if Robin was my assistant on Saturday that's the phrase that would have ripped from his mouth. By 10:30am, it was 85 degrees and I was dripping wet. I'd been talking to this new model for a few weeks hammering out what exactly we were going to do. The place was the Cathedral of Junk. The color was pink. Funny. I had that Aerosmith song playing on the stereo the night before and thought nothing of it.

We arrived at the Cathedral a few moments apart. There was a crew pulling up in a yellow box truck, delivering stage parts for a show from the look of it. I hadn't thought much about it until after she stepped out of her car and they all just stopped and stared. She was decked out in a black and pink corset, pink fishnet gloves and, and black fishnet stockings with matching pink stripes. It all went together pretty well. But yeah, these guys stood there for a moment taking her in.

I walked over and introduced myself and we went into the backyard after I'd pulled my gear out of the car. She'd never been there before so we did a brief walk through so she could get a feel for the place.

Now, if you've never been to the Cathedral of Junk, let me describe it to you. First the Cathedral lives in a quiet south Austin neighborhood just off of South Congress. You pull up to the residence and ... well, you don't see it. It's a nice little neighborhood. You have houses and flowers, trees and dogs, and the occasional white picket fence. But as you approach the gate, you catch your first glimpse of the Cathedral. The structure is ever growing. It lives and breathes as it's owner, Vince, finds new ways to build upon it. There are bottle sculptures, junk walls, the inner throne, buttresses, stairways to heaven, and even a crows nest of sorts.

One of the photos I'd wanted to get was of her sitting on the throne in a distinctly magnanimous and noble way. The Cathedral is a fantasy and she just fit into it like a pink and gothic fairy. Unlike the cake, this is not a lie. We chatted a bit while I set up one light. With space tight within the inner workings of the Cathedral, I opted to ditch the umbrella and go with a hard light. It was sunny inside, so I just needed to offset the blast of light and try to overpower it a bit. One thing I realized is that I miss using my D40 for times like this. Extreme ambient control and still usable with the SB's and the Pocket Wizards. 1/1600th of a second was sorely missed that day. But I made due with the D300 and some stopping down.

One thing new that I decided to try was CLS in TTL mode and just using the flash compensation settings. I'm mixed over this. Because there was such a large amount of ambient coming from the sun, I had problems with it picking the wrong exposure value to set on the flash. If I had to do it again I'd use it in manual and just dial everything in. But, it was hot, getting hotter and I wanted to move fast before I passed out from heat exhaustion. Glad I picked up a few bottles of water for us to partake in during the scene resets.

We ended up shooting in four areas: the throne, the bench, the alcove, and the archway. The throne was my favorite. I just love the way she looks there. The archway followed. I wanted some fill coming in from the sun bouncing off the ground and light coming in from the clear, blue sky. I really like the look of that northern light. It is delicate and different from flash. The slightly blue tinge to it just does it for me (and I really want to play more with it; just need to find a good place with a bunch of quality northern light coming into a large window).

By 11:15, I was packing up and calling it done. It was just too hot to be comfortable. I knew I'd gotten at least one good shot. We chatted for a few minutes and then parted ways. The Cathedral was definitely a worthy place to shoot. Even if the heat DID almost kill me. ;-)


The lovely lady in the photos above is Lacey Starr. I met her through Model Mayhem. She was definitely fun and easy to work with. I had her laughing shortly into the shoot. Once that happened, I knew I'd be shooting with her again. And as for the pink? Yeah, I can see how Aerosmith finds it an obsession.

Things that make you go HmmMMmmMMmm.

Hello. My name is Travis and I'm a Firefox Tab-a-holic. I first realized I had a problem a few months after my first hit of Firefox. I was young. I thought I was invincible. I could quite anytime because I was only using it to relax. First it was just one or two tabs a day. And I began seeing how much better I thought my life was if I just had a constant stream of two or three. Sometimes it was a crazy day and I ended it with seven or eight open. But each tab was so very important as it contained useful information to me.

Always useful.

But soon, I discovered that I couldn't get enough of them. I was popping them like a mescaline-crazed nerdy Hunter S. Thompson on a crack binge with a typewriter and a bottle of whiskey. I was opening five and six tabs an hour, leaving them open for days and weeks, always going back to reference each page. Bookmarks? Bookmarks are for pussies. You don't ever go back to a page once you've bookmarked it. But an open tab is a constant thorn in your side. A reminder of something you must act upon.

Once it's open, do you keep it? Do you read it it? Do you leave it there until you have more time to come back to it? Maybe you just let it sit there and stew like a half-written poem bubbling and boiling until it erupts with the furor of a mad poo-flinging monkey. It's a hard call when it comes to having to close a tab. They're all like my children now. Could you cut off one of your children? I thought not.


Anyway, tonight I had an epiphany. I have a problem. I just can't let go of my tabs. I had 48 open going back months. Things I popped open intending to "read later". I have a tab open from Sept 2008. Why do I know that? Because it was a blog posting from some random blogger I follow, dated from September.

As I looked through each of these tabs this evening, I remembered why I kept them open. There were bits of paragraphs, little thoughts, and random sentences that leapt out at me for one reason or another. And I've come to the conclusion that if I don't write something about them, they're going to haunt my tabs till kingdom come.

So ...

Over on Positive Space Blog, Dave drops this quote:

Just as important as being able to stand up for your choices when you’re right is an ability to admit when you’re wrong. Maturing as a designer means learning how to tell the difference.

Dave Shea Creative Advent 2008

... and it gets me thinking. I'm pretty stubborn about my opinion and it is pretty difficult for me to take a step back and listen to opposing ideas, but once I realize I can do it, it is refreshing to hear what other people have to say about a design or idea. It sort of goes back to what I was talking about in Thievery gets you everywhere, only a slightly different facet of it. If you're not paying attention to the ideas of others you're going to grow stagnant with your own opinions and thoughts.

Over on Seth's blog,

The old adage is that for someone with a hammer, everything looks like a nail. [...] But what if you've decided that in fact, a hammer is exactly the tool that will solve your problem? My advice: hire a guy who only uses a hammer. Odds are, he's pretty good at it.

Seth Godin Look for the guy with a hammer

Yeah, the right tool for the right job. Don't second guess yourself about it.

I don't remember where I saw this quote by Diane Arbus, but I liked it nonetheless.

I never have taken a picture I've intended. They're always better or worse.

Diane Arbus

It's a struggle to come up with an interesting photographic idea. What I've found with following through is that sometimes they work, most often they don't. Some of my favorite photos have come from happy accidents and others are born of an idea that turned out so much better than I could imagine.

Finally, sometimes you just need to try a different path. I'd been in a slight rut lately with my photography. James, a photog buddy of mine, invited me out to the studio Monday night to shoot with Stephanie. He'd wanted to do some white-faced photos of her with makeup on. It was a good evening. We ended up playing with the idea of the makeup, mostly. She was quite animated at times and kept opening her eyes really wide (which would freak James out ... and she'd do it again and again creating a vicious circle). It was fun. Different, but fun.

WOOT!

Well, I went and did it. I did my first for-pay shoot last Saturday. My friends Todd and Elizabeth (whom you've seen before on here; I shot their wedding) decided they liked my photography so much that they asked me to do some family photos for them. I had slotted two hours in the studio for them because we weren't sure just what they wanted. I can say that was WAY overkill. They showed up, had the kids all ready, and 25 minutes later I was done. I did three groups (two of the kids, one of the whole family) and then did portraits of everyone.

In all, I think I did a pretty good job. I can see where I need to improve a bit, but that's fine. I can certainly do quick shoots like this. The money is good and the time even better.

One thing I've noticed is that I want to play with more lights when doing portraits like these. There's a particular style of lighting (I don't know the name) that I want to try where there's a nice soft light coming from the front and above with two side lights rimming the head/body. I'm not yet sure how well it will work for me, but everything I've seen it on, I've liked.

Oh, and sorry, no photos from this one. I've only just sent T & E the photos and I haven't heard back from them on posting a few.

Sunday Rembrandt and the Strobist

Man, what a blistering day in Austin! The day was absolutely gorgeous despite it being so hot. Like most other Sundays, I met up with some of the folks from Strobist: Austin at Opal Divine's on South Congress. Because it was Memorial Day weekend, the meet up was fairly low key: only 8 of us I believe. We BS'd for awhile, ate, and came up with a few ideas for the group going forward.

One of the things that came up was discussion about lighting in cinematography and how film makers use light to carve out depth and intensity to a scene. Christopher and I agreed that picking a few movies and watching them as a group might lead to an interesting discussion on how we can use similar lighting techniques in our photography. Near the end of the meetup, Ron piped up and asked if we wanted to shoot his daughter Megan. Being the eager Strobists that we are, we all hesitated about half a microsecond before saying yes!

After lunch, most of us ended up up at UT to do a bit of shooting. The campus was virtually empty. Hot, but empty. We scouted around some of the buildings around Littlefield fountain, looking for some interesting textures to shoot against with Megan. The sun and heat conspired against us, driving us inside to the comfort of sweet, sweet air conditioning in the McCombs School of Business.

Tangent: One thing about UT that I really like is the sheer number of interesting textures and alcoves to shoot within. We found a bit of trellis work that would have been great to shoot under had the sun been lower in the sky. It was just too harsh and hot to work with. Definitely something to keep in mind for when it's darker and cooler, much like some of the other areas we found and passed by.

So, back to the climate-controlled haven. We all stashed our stuff while waiting for Megan to arrive. Peter and I walked around the 2nd and 3rd floors looking for backgrounds worth shooting against. In the depths of the building is an atrium that houses a small cafeteria. Surrounded by brick at every level, it is topped off by a large set of frosted skylights. It was just enough to let in some of the sun and provide a nice tweak to the ambient. The second spot we found that had lots of potential was a big open entry-way on the east side of the building. There were large concrete columns and some great ambient flooding in from the wall of windows leading to Speedway.

Peter and I wandered back and found Megan with the rest of the folks from the meetup (Bob, Ron, Christopher, and Mike). Picking up our things, we led them back and quickly set up. During this first set of photos, Peter kept talking about Rembrandt lighting. I'd heard the phrase before but wasn't sure what it was. Christopher took a moment to explain it to me. In Rembrandt lighting, you arrange the light across the face of your model such that a small diamond or triangle appears under the eye farthest away from the light. You start out by setting up your main light so it's 30 degrees off of center from the nose and then 30 degrees above. Learn something new everyday! This style of lighting is based on the lighting found in Rembrandt's paintings.

I didn't take many photos in this first area at the atrium. I'm finding that I'm still having problems visualizing just what I want in my photos, so I'm going to have to make it a point to review my lighting folder for ideas before I go off and shoot something. Plus, I'm realizing that I really want to get some better (and faster!) glass. Christopher let me use his 90mm Tamron. I got frustrated because, like most lenses, it's manual-only on my d40. It's a nice lens, don't get me wrong. Just hard to deal with when you're trying to get something tack sharp on a camera that has no way of controlling that itself.

After everyone had shot some, we meandered down to the floor below to the other big atrium-like area. Christopher found a chair, Megan changed into a black, strapless dress, and we parked near the windows for the rest of the afternoon. By this point, I had started to relax and get into a better mindset about photographing her. It's strange, the first half-hour to an hour, I tend to psych myself out. I'm realizing that I've done this every time I shot with a group of people. Just something to work on I guess. Once I got into the right headspace, I was finding it much easier to work with Megan. Directing her certainly became less of forefront task and more of a thing that I just did while framing my photographs.

One thing I'm figuring out is that I like dark, moody photographs. I keep wanting to kill out most, if not all, the ambient in a photo. The d40 makes it "easy" because of the electronic shutter. I still need to pay attention to the exposure histograms; just because it looks good on the little LCD doesn't mean it's going to look good when I get it back on the Mac and in Lightroom. More practice with being consistent in my lighting will help with this, but that means I need to work more one-on-one with models. This would be easier with fewer people around. Or, I just need to learn to jump in and take some time with the model instead of being "nice" and letting others take as much time as they want.

Around 4:45, one of UT's fine police officers walked up on us. I suspect someone reported us being in the building. He asked what our project was and who we were. I explained to him about Strobist and what our group was about. He seemed satisfied and left us to our own devices after a few minutes. Nice guy. Hopefully all my future encounters with police and security will go that way (ha! doubtful!).

I wrapped up around 5:30 or so. Home again, home again.

The model above is Megan, Ron's daughter. She's graduating and going off to college soon. She's also an artist and a photographer. Right now, she focuses on macro photography and doing selective colorizing in Photoshop. She was definitely great to work with. The first photo is one of my attempts at Rembrandt lighting. You can see the small triangle of light piercing the shadow under her right eye.

If you'd like to view more of this shoot, check out my Megan at McCombs set on Flickr.

One in Three

Last Sunday, May 11th, was our big Dunvegan Keep Strobist meetup. It was the makeup day for being rained out on April 27th. Hindsight being 20/20, we probably shouldn't have held it on Mother's Day. The day just felt weird for me. Half of our team was unable to make it for one reason or another (really, it was Mother's Day ... that's what I attribute it to).

Overall, the mood of the day was okay. The weather was outstanding, sunny and comfortable for most of the day. A little overcast would have helped. My team didn't really shot much until around 2pm when our model showed up (I'm still processing pictures of Melissa, our scheduled model; more in a later post). But before that, we tried to set up a few shots and shoot a few of ourselves. I found that moderately frustrating. Not because we were shooting ourselves but because there were just so few of us in our group. We had a plan for about 7 people working together and providing certain equipment, but when push came to shove, we were down to mostly my gear. And really, with such a beautiful day, we didn't really need to be shooting Strobist-style.

When 2pm came around, Melissa showed up and we were able to spend about 90 minutes with her before she had to leave. We got four different setups done. I can't say I was really happy with all of them. Looking back, I think the shots we did outside were being hampered by the blazing sun. Shooting at 2pm just makes it difficult to try and come up with something decent. The ambient light is all flat and shadows are harsh so you have to try and find some way to block out the sun. Or you have to find some way to overpower it.

What I figured out though, is that even though you have strobes, you don't necessarily need to use them to come away with a great photo. During the last half hour of the day, some of the other models were asked to jump into the pool at the Keep. Water shots are fun. There's so much you can do with them. There's the action shot of jumping in. There's the slow and sensual shot you can get of the model slipping out of the pool, hair all slicked back and wet. There's the calm intensity you can find when the model is just wicking away the water from her face as she's surfaced. Honestly, just lots of ideas floating around there.

By around 3:30, the light was getting to a point where you could position yourself and get a decent, but hard, shadow out of it. Something that worked well in this case. Looking at the dozen or so photos around the pool, I wanted to treat them in different ways, come up with a different look and feel for each one. These three were my favorite. A mix of dark and unsaturated, super-saturated, and blown out. Three looks for the same person. I think they all worked well.

Three of the things I walked away with this day was that it really is difficult to work with the sun during the harshest points in the day. I just couldn't find a way to make my shots with Melissa work "well" when having to deal with the sun. I need to practice with that. Second, no matter how much equipment you have or how hard you try to incorporate it, it's ok to put it away and just find a shaded corner (or even an unshaded pool) and have fun with the photos. Remember, it's a learning experience, it doesn't have to always be a fruitful one for your portfolio. Third, I really need to get some reflectors. I found those to be some of the most useful things to have this day, mostly because of how much light from the sun there was. The strobes just couldn't easily overpower it. Ok, make this four things. A big white sheet makes a great portable cloud. I'm glad I picked one up for this, it came in handle not only for me but for a few other groups who were trying to deal with some harsh mottled sun and shade.

The model pictured within this post is Stephanie. She lives here in the Central Texas area and has worked with us before. She's fun to work with, has a great attitude, and seems to be willing to do anything reasonable if you ask.

If you ever get a chance to check out Dunvegan Keep, do go. It's an interesting place and there's certainly quite a few areas, aside from the pool, that would be great to photograph people in. I'm just said I couldn't figure out a way to make the half-finished turret work in a photo. Next time, though, maybe next time.

The end and beginning of an era.

Friday was the last day of work for my friend Shiree. We've known each other for about ten years. In fact, she was the person who helped get me into the position that started me out at my current employer. I'll definitely miss her quirky and eclectic shenanigans at the office.

When I found out that she was retiring, I immediately went over and congratulated her. This was one of the best things to happen to her. She'll now have the free time to explore her art and metal craft (she welds!), as well as give her the freedome to find new and explosive things to do with fire, methanol, and tankards of propane. Hey, I did say she was eclectic!

Over the last year or so, I've shared my photography with Shiree whenever I could. Being an artist, she really appreciated the different things I came up with. She's an inspiration, honestly. She has a unique way of viewing the world, finding new and original ways to piece together everyday objects.

When she asked me to photograph her going away party, I jumped at it. I have lots of fun doing this stuff, especially when I know it's for someone who will cherish the photographs. I wanted a few portraits of her before she left so we could slap 8x10's up all over the building. A bit of a Shiree memorial, if you will. She was happy to oblige me and take a few minutes out of her party so I could set up the brollies around her. I took half a dozen photos and each one turned out really good. A year ago, I wouldn't have been so confident about dragging my stands, flashes, brollies, and camera into a crowd of people who've never seen me work. Today was different, though. I didn't care. I got a few odd looks, but I just smiled and waved.

Working with the Strobist ideas over the last year have made me realize just how much I enjoy photography. Working with people and learning how to photograph them has always been a challenge for me, but I can see where it's definitely becoming easier and easier each time I set up the gear. Shiree's encouragement helps me realize that I should continue working on it to get better and better, because someday, I will be able to retire from my regular career and move into something I find extremely enjoyable.

Tomorrow the Austin Strobist group is meeting up at Dunvegan Keep for our monthly meetup. I'm really looking forward to it. If it wasn't for the group of people in this group, I don't think I'd be able to create photos like these. Certainly not after a year. The amount of unhindered learning and willingness to teach (for the sheer sake of teaching!) is simply astounding.

The first two photos are of Shiree. The second is of Shiree and Greg. This was a simple light setup. One 32" white shoot through umbrella up high at camera left, SB-800 at 1/64 for the first two photos, 1/32 for the third. One 24" white shoot through umbrella low at camera right, SB-800 at 1/128 for the first two photos, 1/64 for the third.