Hi Friends, Had the opportunity today to photograph Mr. B. in his home. He wanted a nice large formal portrait for later use, and has a lovely home in the hills of Orange County in which to create the portrait. When shooting location or environmental portraits, I travel with pretty much everything. If ever I Read more about Mr. Albert B. Location Portraits[…]
Hi Friends, For those of you that follow my blog for techie stuff — this one’s for you! A few weeks ago, I crafted a custom bracket for holding 4 Speedlights. Why, you ask? So I can overpower mid-day sun (high speed sync) for dramatic lighting effects. Read all about it here: overpowering-sunlight-the-quad-bracket I’ve had Read more about Gear-heads – Alert! Updates to the Quad Flash Bracket…[…]
In my never-ending search for more power, I came across an idea for a bracket to support 4 (count ’em, 4!) hotshoe flashes at a time! I wish I could take credit for the idea, but I was inspired by this post. I modified the design somewhat to enable easy attachment to my extensible pole or Read more about Overpowering Sunlight – the Quad Bracket[…]
Hi Friends, Had the day off today, and took advantage of it to build something I’d been meaning to do for a long time: a multi-flash lightbar (which I’ve taken to calling my “Stro-Bar”-clever, huh?). The purpose is to be able to mount multiple hotshoe flashes (in my case, Nikon SB-800s) to combine output for situations Read more about Strobe One…Sun Zip! Portraits in full sunlight with the DIY “Stro-Bar”[…]
Hi Friends, As a proof-of-concept for a portrait project I’m noodling, I coerced my mother-in-love, Keiko, to sit for a portrait. It’s very difficult to get her NOT to smile, but I was looking for serious expression here. I’d asked her to pose with a favorite portrait of my father-in-law, Larry, a career US Marine. Read more about One-Light Portrait-Keiko[…]
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nL5mnvye3Ws] Hi Friends, I’m shooting the dress rehearsal for Masquers’ new Christmas production: “I’ll Be Home for Christmas” tonight, but did some new cast portraits on Sunday. Really happy with the way they turned out. See the Animoto video above… The Christmas production runs three nights: December 4-6th (doors open at 7:00 PM). This musical, Read more about Masquer Ministries: New Cast Portraits[…]
Hi Friends, I gave my photography students an assignment last night to come back next week with 3 images taken at the extreme wide angle end of their focal length…whatever type of camera / lens they have. (The class is a mix of P&S and DSLR users). I explained to them that where we often Read more about More Portraits with the Octabox…[…]
After having seen it demo’d with a Nikon SB-800 speedlight at David Tejada’s “Small Strobes Big Results” seminar here in Orange County, I knew this 5-foot “DynaPhos” brand “narrow profile” octagonal softbox was a must have. Though frequently out of stock at Amvona.com, patience paid off and I finally received mine a few weeks ago. Read more about New Lighting Modifier: 5′ Narrow Profile Octabox![…]
Hi Friends,
I was honored when my daughter asked me recently to shoot her senior portraits. She had her “official” yearbook photo done a week or so ago at a local studio as required by her school, but eschewed the full studio package in favor of having her dear old dad do her “real” senior photos.
We’re using a variety of lighting techniques, but so far, all have been done with remote hot shoe flash units (Nikon SB-800 Speedlights).
In this series, we shot in an empty parking garage. I used one SB-800 with a DIY beauty dish modifier as the key light, and a second on the floor behind Cat, shooting through a homemade cookie (black cardstock with a bunch of slits cut in it) to give a little interest to the background.
