Holiday Lunch

We always host Christmas Eve dinner at our house followed by Christmas Day Lunch over at my sister's. This year, I managed to set up my lights and camera for a Holiday spread photo shoot 2 hours before our scheduled lunch.

The first thing I had to do when I walked in the dinning room was to take an exposure reading.

The image below shows the room with a sliding door to the backyard and the picture taken was for exposing the room, rendering the backyard overblown.

I then decided to cover the backside of the sliding door with black cloth to get rid of the backyard issue.

The next step was to figure out the camera settings to register the lights from the chandelier and the christmas trees in the background which happended to fall on F8 1/20s ISO 320. Step three would be to set up two flashes on sticks set to 1/16 power on both sides of the room to light up the people sitting on the table. There was enough light to cover the middlle table to the end table but the front was underlit.

To fix this problem, I had to set up a front fill light using another flash head next to camera right pointing back to a white blanket behind me acting as a big bounce light. The image below shows the reflection of the blanket on the french sliding doors.

The final image was taken at F10 1/13s ISO 320 with two flash heads on each side of the room at 1/2 power pointing up the the front corners of the room. The third flash acting as a big bounce was set to 1/8 power. I cleaned up the reflection on the french doors in post production.

As a bonus post, you can check out a video of our Holiday Lunch edited by Miguel Meola.

Indian Motorcycle

Following up on my last product shot, I decided to shoot this miniature scale Indian motorcycle that measured about 10 inches long and 4 inches high and even though it wasn't chromed out, it was still highly reflective as far as light sources were concerned. For the key light, a snooted flash at 3 o'clock camera right was used to rake across the rider to show texture as seen on the rider's ribs and chest as well as the front headlights. As fill, a flash with a Lumiquest softbox was used just at immediate left of the camera. At 10 o'clock camera rear left, a flash with a snoot was used for rim lighting and additional texture as seen on the saddlebags and the rider's leg and right arm. Flash settings were at around 1/16th zoomed at 105mm. Camera settings were at about f6 @ 1/50 sec. I used f6 for a moderate focus but it looks like my 24-70 set at 70mm just won't cut it for this type of shoot. I remember focusing on the Indian logo on the gas tank thinking the focus would carry but the saddle bags, the rider's chest and face are out of focus. I'd have to shoot this again at around f11 to see if focus improves but that seems like a pretty tall order to me. Otherwise, it looks like I might have to save up for a 100mm macro.

See pullout shot for lighting setup below.

Product Shot - Guitar

My daughter Ashley has guitar lessons every Saturday from 12:00 -1:00pm at O.DiBella Music.

Today's class was cancelled so I took this opportunity to try and make a product shot of her electric guitar. The following shots were made with the same lighting set up with a few subtle tweaks to change the highlight and reflections. There is a main light to camera left with a medium sized softbox . Right on top of the main light is a flash on a LumiQuest softbox to highlight the upper neck and headstock. Almost 90 degrees right of the guitar (from camera view) is a strip box to provide a bit of rim/highlight. The other strip box is about 11 o'clock behind the guitar. The last flash is set low on a table about 10 o'clock. Camera settings were at ISO 200 F9 @ 1/200 sec. Camera was hand held since my tripod wasn't cooperating.

Girl with Lantern

A few weeks ago, I was collaborating with Miguel Meola with this concept he had in mind.
He imagined a girl holding a lantern, backpacking in the woods and walking into the unknown.
I thought about the last exercise I did with multi layer lighting and thought that this presented an opportunity to improve on that last attempt. It would be the same multi layer lighting but this time, adding a 47" octobox to light up the forest canopy.

First we had to scout a location and decide on a time to start shooting. After finding this wooded part of Bergenfield New Jersey, we started packing the Jeep at 3pm with all the gear we needed.
It took us a good 3 hours to pack, unload, set up, test and tweak before we started shooting frames. The actual shoot itself took about a half hour and wrapped up at 6:30pm.

The flash lighting the girl was snooted with black foil to limit the light spread.

The second flash lighting the foreground tree was snooted as well so it didn't spill into the girl with the lantern.

We had the subject hold a video light in front of her to provide lighting for the path selling the idea that the lantern was providing the illumination.

We also had to drag the shutterspeed to about 1/30th to have the lantern burn in and register.

There was another video light behind and to the right of the foreground tree just to provide a dash of light on the leaves to the right side and a little bit on the ground. This way, the right side of the image wasn't completely black.

The flash lighting the 2nd layer of trees was snooted as well for a little splash of light.

The flash lighting the 3rd layer of trees was bare bulb and at a higher power setting to create a brighter area introducing an area of curiosity.

The 4th layer of trees to the right, was lit by a monoblock with a 47" octobox at a higher ratio to provide lighting for the trees and the forest canopy.

So here we are with an adventurous girl in the woods, holding a lantern lighting the path. A big fallen tree blocking the way, almost telling her not to procede. At the distance, a curious light source appears in two separate areas. What could it be ? It is both bright and cold but beckons curiosity. What would she do ? What would you do ?


Lighting diagram below:

Exercise: Multi Layer Lighting

For the last 3 weeks, I've been contemplating on a setup shot showing a hit man and a body laying in the forest where the job took place. The most difficult challenge I thought of was how to light a forest. This shoot was an exercise on how to light on multiple layers.

I started at around 7:40pm. I scouted out a location, selected my trees, and arranged them in my frame. Setup my flashes to light each of the 4 trees in my frame. I then turned on one flash at a time to see how they were being lit individually. While I was taking shots, a man with a dog stopped to ask me what I was doing and I gladly explained the exercise. I also managed to convince him and his pet to stand in as my subjects just so I can see what it would look like.

Lessons I've learned:

Four flashes wasn't enough. Sure it was enough to light up four trees, but I still needed a separate light for the subject. I would aslo need another light pointing up towards the leaves on top of the trees so it's not completely dark. I also think that I would need a big soft light source to perhaps give a little bit of broad wash to the overall space. I've included a diagram below to show the lighting setup.

Overall I'm pretty happy with my experiment and real excited to start planning the "Hit Man" series.

Pockets of Light

Today's exercise was about pockets of light instead of big washes from softboxes, octobanks and other big light sources. The idea was to use small strobes with snoots to zero in on small areas to be lit. Specifically an overhead flash mounted on a boom arm lighting just a portion of my face and the immediate area where I was standing. The other snooted flash head would be zeroing in on my feet or leg area. Directly behind me is a bare flash acting as rim light and another on my rear right for additional rim lighting. I started setting up today at around 3pm with the following setttings:
f5 , 1/250 sec , ISO 200 , prefocused to a plane where I approximately would be standing and then set to manual focus after that. I also want to mention that due to having carpal tunnel, I was aiming for straight out of the camera shots since I can't do any photoshop editing at the moment.
Over all a satisfying 5 hours and definitely good for the soul.

Harold "Kekoa" Bayang

I had the pleasure of working with Harold "Kekoa" Bayang back in March who was patient enough to put up with my "distressed look" concept. The idea of this shoot was to light mostly the mask of the face and suggest a gritty,dirty, "just got out of a bad situation" look. I was hoping for explosion and fire in the background but hey, this was shot in my basement so I'll take what I can. I had to apply a bit of make-up to give it the black eye, bloody cut on the forehead, sprinkle some water on the face for sweat effect. Next time I have to use corn syrup perhaps for fake blood. Over all, it was a fun and creative experience. Thanks Harold.

Nikon D700 Second Test

Here's another test shot from the D700.

Main light beauty dish 11 o'clock camera left
Hair light SB-80DX 1 o'clock back camera right
Background light SB-80DX low between subject and background
Reflector low on the ground in front of subject
Image captured as JPEG since my old version of Camera Raw does not open up
D700 NEF files. May have to upgrade software and hardware ( oh boy! )

Nikon D700 Test

I just got my D700 last Friday and here is my first test shot with an exercise on short lighting.
f4.5 1/40 ISO 400 50mm available window light only.




Here's a pullback shot to show the distance of the bust from the window.

Morgan 02-06-11

My first shoot for 2011 was of my youngest daughter Morgan Rose, who will be turning four next month. This shoot was one of those GOYA ( Get Off Your Ass ) shoots just to get my creative juices flowing again. The most memorable thing about this shoot was the fact that Morgan insisted on putting on eye make up herself ! Waaay too cute !