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 !

Bethwood Sitting Room

The image above was an exercise on how to balance ambient light with a single on board flash set to manual control. For the record, I prefer shooting off camera flash and normally crosslighting my subject. The situation presented itself in a sitting room about 15ft wide x 9ft high x 12 ft deep. To the left of the couch was a single tungsten lit lamp, too low for handheld exposure. I had an onboard flash which when shot dead on just wasn't doing the atmosphere justice. I tried turning the flash head behind me to bounce of the wall but that gave me a big wash of light with no shadows, just flat. I then turned the flash head to my right where the wall met the ceiling (45 degrees) and that gave me a soft directional light with soft shadows. The next step was to balance the exposure so that the lamp still registered with a glow plus the directional flash coming from 45 degrees up and right. After working on the image in photoshop, there was something that just felt wrong. The motivation from the light wasn't right. I should've bounced the flash 45 degress up and LEFT. This way, the shadows would have been cast on the camera right side of the subject mimicking light cast from the lamp. Posting this image will remind me to constantly think about motivation of the light and not just merely bouncing light. Lessons learned.