ring flash

i was trying to describe a ring flash to my friend jp, and he just wasn't getting it. so i did a quick setup and shot these demo pictures, so he could see how the camera + ring works. it's pretty simple, really. the camera lens looks through the hole in the center of the flash, that way when the flash goes off, there is a "ring" of shadow around the subject. hence, "ring flash". as you can see, it can be handheld, although it does tend to get a bit heavy after a while.

the back end:

sexy, isn't it?

photoshop kungfu

i've been working on my photoshop kungfu, and this is an old picture i was using as practice.... i kinda like how it came out, so i'm posting it here. yay!

shadow play

so, the idea originally for this one was that i wanted a pose that was casting a big shadow on the wall behind me. big shadow means the light source needs to be low and hard. so i set up the light low and hard. problem with that is low hard light makes people look terrible. you get all these weird face shadows.... it's like holding a flashlight under your chin to tell a scary story. not a good look 90% of the time.

so, the solution is to gobo the light coming up from below, so that there's a shadow area where your face is. and then gridspot a light from above to light up the face area. this way your face looks good, and you get the crazy shadow behind you.

this is my first attempt at this, and it's a quick and dirty proof of concept type thing. it works, it definitely works, but it could be a lot tighter than this. in this shot light from above is spilling past me and hitting the wall, eating away at my shadow a bit. and my gobo below is throwing a whole shadow area around my face, so that it looks as if my shadow has a giant soft-edged head.

with a little tweaking, both problems could be fixed. but this is just to see how easy this type of shot is. turns out, it's pretty easy. i could use this technique for any subject that is supposed to be formidable. be great to use this with short people most of all, have them stand in front of a huge brick wall or something.

setup shot:

hdr

never really dug the hdr thing.... can't really use it for portraits, all that noise looks kinda stupid, blah blah blah. but it does do stuff like this kinda nice. and maybe i can figure out a way to make it do portraits or something.

oh, and that's our street right now. they say we might get 10" of snow. cool. 

new equipment....yeaahhhhh!!!!!

yep, so today i got some new equipment in. i got an alien bee 800, a vanguard battery pack, and an alien bee ringflash (that's the ab800 and ring flash up there in the picture). so yeah, two new flashes, each of which is three times as powerful as any flash i had before. and i'm not going to lie, these lights are pretty sexy.

so i spent most of today getting to know my new lights..... this is the honeymoon period, when we're exploring each other, finding out all those little quirks that are so delightful right now, and will drive you crazy in about a year.

but yeah, the best thing is that now i can throw huge amounts of light around. i still have my small flashes, and i'm still going to use them a lot, but anytime i need more power (for outside, or lighting a large area, or something far away..... whatever) i'm reaching for these.

so, like i said, we're still getting to know each other. but i took this picture, and i quite like it:



it's everything i'm drawn to in a picture. dark, moody, mysterious but lit well. i was using the ring light as a ring light, hence the ring shadow there..... probably will get tired of that look really quick..... but for now, i'm feeling it.

anyways. new lights are always exciting.

a few new shots.....

day 365 - last day

so, here it finally is, the last day of the 365..... it's been a good run. i've learned a lot, made a lot of mistakes, figured a lot of things out. it was a great learning experience, that's for sure. one of my rules for this was that i was going to keep things limited to lighting..... no crazy photoshoppin, no texturing or even dodging and burning of the images..... i wanted to get really great at lighting. and i think i have. i feel like i've really mastered my equipment at this point, i know what's going to happen if i put this umbrella here, and that reflector there. there's a predictability now that i never had before.

so what's next? well, since i've barely touched photoshop in so long, i probably need to re-up my game there. i'd like to start doing more composited type pieces, maybe start to work in some graphic design stuff on top of or behind my photography. and really start thinking in terms of concept more, and execution less. get back to my art school days, to try and make things that are solid conceptually, from beginning to end.

there are so many different types of things you can do in photography, and i want to get into all of them, really.

i'm really looking forward to shooting other people again. that'll be nice. not spending hour after hour staring at myself will be a welcome change.

i'll probably continue to put things here on this blog, but probably not as regularly as i have been. so that's it. see you people around.

setup shot: