Take the Bread and Run

Last Spring I went to the Painted Hills, OR with a small group of photographers to shoot some new images for our portfolios. These are a few from my set.  They are  good examples of a current
trend in commercial photography  and short videos: suggesting a mood rather than telling a clear story. The landscape, the colors and the key objects combine with the movement of the subject to originate tension and to create an image able to hold attention long enough to be remembered.  However,  the details of the story are best left to the viewer's imagination.  Why is our hero running through a frame, holding a red bag filled with bread? Why is he carrying a camera? What role is the woman playing? The point I am trying to make with this image is.. he could be holding anything as long it is colorful or shaped in a way to immediately capture the attention of the viewer. The other clues (the camera, the old cowboy boots) just further enrich the image, without being too distracting. This is what a commercial client 'd ask from a set like this.

The lighting is similar in all three images , a softbox to camera side, high and close to the subjects, scene cross lit with the sun. However the images look very different. In the first and second photos the flash overpowers the Sun. Coupled with some post processing that alters the original palette it creates a dreamier,  more staged look. In the third  image the  flash is used only as fill,  to give more of a structure to the floating vest. I noticed that often clients love the first set up and then ask you to 'tone it down' a bit to achieve the second. So it is good to show that one can create a range of images with the same tools.

Lady of the Lake: Using the Parabolic Light Modifier

I shot this image last Summer, the black dress was especially made by fashion designer Isaiah Whitmore (you can see some of his work on Ink Magazine). I wanted to continue with the same
cinematic look that I have been working with for some time, but apply it to a different setting, where the focus is the dress rather then the characters. Oh..some call it fashion..but whatever. This time the nod is to Arthurian legends of old, Vivianne of the lake was strong, beautiful..and a bit dark. So there you go. Tiffany Parente did the styling, MUA and hair..and stepped in to be a wonderful model for the shoot. Danny and Ari were great assistants! Oh the light scheme... just fill from the 7' Alien Bees silver reflector with the diffuser on. The AB1600 was probably firing at full power as it was a bright sunny day. f7.1, 1/125, ISO100.

Space Queens of Skull Mountain

This the first image from the desert shoot. Inspired by B sci-fi movies of the 60ies we laid our scene in a dried lake bed, overshadowed by huge rock formations. Why are the queens battling on a strange planet? Who's winning? The weather set the mood as it was blustery and it drizzled all day. I forgot how much tulle we used but there was a lot. Make up and hair was complex and it took more than an hour. The inside of the truck was covered in mud, the sand (salt? radioactive waste? We did not ask) was covered in bullet cases of different (large) calibers and broken bottles of beer. Ah Eastern Washington. Having said that it was really a lot of fun to shoot "Space" and a great example of team work.

The light set up is a bit different from my usual. The 7' silver softbox (powered by an Einstein unit from Alien Bees) is next to camera, but there are two handheld speedlites behind our hero to the left and to the right, lighting the white cloud and adding some nice highlights. f7.1 1/200sec to darken the cloudy sky. Lens: a Tamron 16-35 f2.8, which turned out to be surprisingly sharp and it is becoming my lens of choice.

Fiona Pepe (of the Castaways and awesome photographer herself) styled the models costumes (some are from the UW theatre archive). Tiffany Parente Connors did hair and MUA and styled the models (C & C and I) on set. Laurie Clark assisted. Danny, sorry I had to erase you, you were awesome.

Done for the day? Not. We jumped on our spaceships and we headed further east....

Splendor in the Grass

What though the radiance which was once so bright
Be now for ever taken from my sight,
Though nothing can bring back the hour
Of splendour in the grass, of glory in the flower;
We will grieve not, rather find
Strength in what remains behind...

(William Wordsworth, "Ode: Intimations of Immortality").


I am obviously on a literary artsy streak. This image was part of a week long editorial that I shot in Port Townsend, WA, loosely based on fairy tales imagery. Not quite shooting " John Huston's African Queen", but the talent and crew had to walk through marshes and tall grass, fight mosquitoes, small snakes and the customers of Fat Smitty's bar. Singer and dancer Kristin "Finn" Von Claret, and Chance Koehnen modeled. I had scouted the location in February, and by this time the old tall grass was being replaced by new green offshoots. The cloudy weather created a nice atmosphere.

We shot at noon, but I had brought the big guns to overcome sunlight. a Profoto 7B pack, two heads, a sofliter II (as fill) and to camera left the giant umbrella+diffuser from Alien Bees (which worked flawlessly). The sun was to the right. Shot at f14, 1/160th, ISO 100 and using the 16-35mm Canon lens that I really like. Having a decent amount of watts/sec helped.

The post production editing was somewhat laborious to get the grading right. In order: reduce contrast/desaturate/add gradient masks to the sky and grass close to the fill light/minor retouching of the talent/re-adding contrast were needed/curves/adding a blue-yellow palette later and masking it appropriately. Final adjustments in Lightroom.

I will make a large print tomorrow!

On the road again.

Last week I got to shoot the Team Group Health Cycling Team. It's one of the largest "women only" cycling teams in the Pacific North West. They where practicing racing techniques on a closed course. Not for the faint hearted..but it was a fun opportunity to shoot a fast paced
sport event. I went for a "hard lights" look,that is often used on the cover of cycling magazines. I asked my trusted friends David and Judd for help. We took to the road an Elinchrom Ranger pack with a Ranger head and two Alien Bees B800 and set up camp on a straight stretch of warm asphalt.

To overcome the bright sunlight (the metadata says 1120AM) The Ranger is firing at 3/4 power to camera left, one B800 is to camera right (max power!) and another one is right behind camera and about 7 feet high, firing into a Softliter II (again at max power, no diffuser panel). The lights are converging to the spot where the leading cyclist is and the cyclists just a few feet behind are mostly illuminated by ambient light. As the Alien Bees had some trouble keeping up with the ambient light I had to push the shutter speed to ....1/500th of second (ISO 100, f9.0, 24 mm) to darken the sky. Coupled with my trusted Canon 7D the Alien Bees wireless triggers worked great and the loss of flashs light in the lower part of the frame is not visible (in the studio, where the flash 'd be the only light source you can sync up to 1/200th before banding becomes annoying). If I'd do it again I would bring the Alien Bees High Output reflector and get another stop of light from the Bees, but we managed.


In fact, I am quite happy with the final result, it captures the energy of the day! Plus the backstage reminds me..of Doctor Who for some reason...mmm maybe Judd's green sunglasses?

Strobes tests: Alien Bees against Elinchrom. Lumopro against Canon 580x II.

Today I happen to have handy a bunch of different flashes I always wanted to compare. Yes. Which one is more powerful, and by how much? The best way to show this is to use a light meter, put it at ten feet from the flash set at full power and measure what people call the "Guide Number". Basically the required aperture to illuminate a subject as medium gray. This is a useful number for undiffused strobes as for them it turns that:

Guide Number = aperture x distance = constant.

So if we measured f4 at 10 feet, the guide number GN is 40, which means that at 5 feet we will achieve the same exposure at f8 (closer, brighter, and so we can use a narrower aperture).
The higher the GN, the more powerful the flash. This of course at the same ISO.

So here are the numbers, I used ISO100 in all cases. Packs and flashes were all at full power.

Elinchrom Ranger S head with standard reflector + "A" Ranger RX pack. GN 250 $2100
Elinchrom Ranger Ring Flash + "A" Ranger RX GN 220 $1500+$1700
Alien Bees B800 +standard reflector GN 130 $280
Alien Bees B400 + standard reflector GN 90 $225
Canon 580ex II (zoom 80/28mm) GN 130/90 $440
QFlash+standard cone GN 110 $1080
Lumopro GN zoom 85/28mm GN 90/71 $120
Canon 580x II + Coco Ring Flash GN 35 $440+$80

Btw, I have found another test here on Flickr. Results are similar.

So what have I learned?


1) more expensive flashes have more power and the area where they are able to light uniformly is *much* larger (and rounder!) than with the cheaper speedlites (see the image). But greater power comes with a price (and greater responsibilities, but that is another story).
2) The Canon 580x II is good! More powerful than the LumoPro and the QFlash, but *only* if you use the zoom feature. Read the manual..or pay $300 extra bucks compared to the LumoPro, which is a lot easier to use (see and extended review)...mmm.
3) The Canon+ the Coco Ring flash performs well, but the output is not that great, unless you are in studio. The zoom factor makes no difference with the Coco attached.
4) The QFlash is weak sauce for the price $1080 (head+pack)
4) The Speedlites are a tad cooler than the Elinchroms.
5) The Ranger pack has two outputs: A and B. A is 1+2/3 stops brighter.
6) the ABees Long throw reflector increases output by 1 stop! (from the Flickr Strobist group test)