This week I had a very fun evening session assisting Sofie on her salsa-school shoot. Who would have thought I’d ever set foot in a dance school …. Salsa is about rhythm, I knew the shot I wanted to make but I ran into a bit of a wall when I wanted to combine the ingredients Canon, PocketWizard Plus II, 580EXII and 2nd curtain flash. It just wasn’t possible, but the Nikon CLS system saved the day and claimed victory. I’m sure Sofie will be posting the results of that very soon, so do drop in at her blog.
So I happily played my role as assistant, helping out with the light setups and I got to work on my boom-arm skills!
But I wouldn’t be going home happy if I wouldn’t have been able to make a creative portrait of Tom.
Not your classic Rembrandt model
One in black&white but being the colorful person that Tom is I think color suits him best.
Set up
A couple of boring curtains where lit up by a red-gelled-580EX on the background, 1/32th power zoomed at 85mm. Red for salsa passion! I keep finding the amazement on the subjects face very pleasing if they say “wow, where did that red light come from?”. The main light was a vivitar 285HV at 1/16 fired into a silver brolly positioned close to 90° camera left of the subject. Moved in rather close and slightly higher than the subject. Even at 90° the parabolic shape of the umbrella makes the light wrap around the subject and it’s doesn’t look linear. On shot 3 & 4 I payed attention to the fact that a part of the (camera)right eye was visible but that is personal taste.
5D – 50mm – 1.4 – 1/200th – ISO100
Filed under: Equipment, Portraits, Tips & Tricks | Tags: california sunbounce mini, fill, portrait, reflection panel, sunbounce
As one of my new year’s resolutions I want to use more available light in my pictures. Because I live in a country that isn’t always known for it’s best light (understatement) I thought it could use a little help and bought a California Sunbounce Mini. (thank you jobkorting)
These sunbounce systems have been tried, reviewed, marketed and approved by lots of other photographers than me so I’m just going to post one side-by-side picture to show you what this baby can do. This actually was my very first shot with it.
The scenario
1) All white nimbo stratus clouds.
2) Tom² being my guinea pig yet again (I wonder how he keeps it with me) holding the sunbounce at waist level with the ‘invisible’ sun behind him.
3) One picture with and one without the sunbounce, can you spot the difference ?
F4 – 1/125th – ISO200
W00t, 3rd post in a week, that must be some sort of personal record. And I didn’t stop there, on Sunday I’m attending the “capturing romance” workshop and I’ve already scheduled a mysteriously related post for early Sunday morning. And I’ve also prepared something “special” for whoever is attending the workshop. *g*
PS. Any of you that are reading this also attending ? Drop in by the comments and see you on sunday!
*UPDATE 20090309* If the images appear soft, stop hitting your screen. something went wrong during my print export / flickr upload resize to 800px. Will fix this in newer posts.
For the 2nd part we ventured a little further in my “hood”, het nieuwe Justitiepaleis.
Soon to be greeted by security we were allowed to continue to shoot near the building.
Ironically it was there that we also got greeted by a bunch of 6-8-10 year old kids. At first they were interested in what we were doing, soon they were suggesting other kind of poses .. they would prefer to see lingerie, strings and even a little porno… One of them wanted to use my 2nd camera and take some shots himself, he wanted to be a photographer when he grew up, luckily Tom² could talk him out of that. When we walked away they waved us goodbye by throwing a tennis ball sized rock at us. I need to get that insurance policy checked out …
To round things up we headed to an underground parking lot and took some more shots there. (permission to shoot there was asked first, the security guys even turned on extra lights and I’m sure they were following every move when they saw that my “couple” consisted of two girls)
Elly & Vicky, I hope you had a good time and that you like pictures. I know I’ll never forget this “experience”. lol 
Did I mention there was lots of giggling (part deux)
*UPDATE 20090309* If the images appear soft, stop hitting your screen. something went wrong during my print export / flickr upload resize to 800px. Will fix this in newer posts.
Occasionally I get an unusual request, things that aren’t in my normal shooting range (wedding, pregnancy, babies, etc…).
This time Tom³ his girlfriend Elly wanted to surprise her best friend with a photoshoot, she wanted a couple of nice pictures of her & Vicky.
So in a nutshell: 2 girls and I can’t make them kiss, this would be a challenge…
For the first part of the shoot we headed out to a nearby abandoned playground (or whatever it was), I had a little hour left before I’d lose the the light. Looking around I spotted some kind of broken theater stools and found that they would make for some interesting shots. (I’m a sucker for props)
The sun tried to peep through once and a while but that was enough to test my new acquisition, the California Sunbounce Mini. On the close up shots the influence is clearly visible even when it was all cloudy. I’ll add some side-by-side samples on a next post.
Under my uuuuuuuuuuuummmmmmmbrella ella ella ella elly vicky
On these shots I purposely shot against the sun for some rimlight & flare (post processed for a different look)
Walking on a bit and there it was, a filthy dumped couch, climb aboard ladies ! (I told ya I’m a sucker for props)
Oh did I mention there was lots of giggling ?
In “part deux” we ventured further for some underground action and I’ll tell you about the rocks that were thrown at us … but fear not, no women got harmed during the making of these shots
