big ring flash

i have a sort of a love/hate relationship with ring flashes. i really like the glow-type feel they give to foreground subjects. but at the same time, i don't like how everything in the picture has the same diffused tone to it..... there's less contrast, since everything the camera can see is getting light from the ring flash.

so there's this kind of push-pull in me when it comes to using a ring flash.

one technique i've been using is to set up a gridded beauty dish high above the subject, and feather the light falling from above so that you get a bit of directional light to compliment the all-over ring glow. i've been getting some good results with that.

the picture above is me trying out my new "big ring" diffusion panel for my moon unit ring flash modifier. the moon unit is a modifier that sits around the ring flash, and reflects a lot of light forward. the big ring diffusion panel is a giant white ring with blacked out panels preventing any other light from coming through. it looks like this:



so the giant ring is the only light source in the picture of alisia up there at the top. since the ring is so large, it's not producing that tell-tale "dark halo" around her, but it's still giving her skin that glow, and creating those crazy reflections in her sunglasses. i really like it, it's doing everything i like in a ring flash, and not much of the stuff i don't like.

and as an added bonus, it creates crazy catchlights in people's eyes:

crazy smile

i've been forcing myself to work only in black and white a lot here lately, following advice from David duChemin, and it's forced me to really focus on tones and contrast, instead of only paying attention to pretty colors like i usually do. i decided i needed a new facebook picture, so that was the goal here. i almost never smile in pictures, so i figured i'd give it a shot. i think it came out well.

setup shot:

spring trash the dress event

this is a picture that was taken at last sunday's spring trash the dress event, coordinated by melissa diep. i wasn't really happy with the original shot, i like to have an idea of what the picture is going to look like in my head, and then try and move lights and adjust things until i've created the picture in the camera. with this setup though, i never really had a chance. it was a clear sunny day, mid-afternoon, nothing to provide shade, hard bright sunlight...... everything i avoid when choosing a setting or location.

so i didn't like my shot straight out of camera. after taking a hard look at it, i decided i would do a joyce tennison type treatment, cut the subject out of the background and treat each one separately, and maybe do some extensive toning and darkening of the background.

i'd never tried anything like that before, and it was a bit tricky, but ultimately easier than i had expected it to be. just one mask to separate, and then a lot of tweaks to make it look the way i wanted it to. it was a more design-like process than anything else.... you add an element, see if it adds or detracts from the overall image, and then try another, ad nauseum.

so yeah, not my usual style, but that's part of the charm. i might start trying this approach on pictures that i have more initial control over, instead of letting this be a "save the picture" approach.

meetup

these are a few shots from a meetup i attended a while back. they came out really well. i applied a joel grimes-ish "wet look" to the picture up there in photoshop, and i think that was really successful. it just added a slight bit of slickness to the skin highlights that reads really well. i love it when i learn a new technique.

the new lens flare

set this one up with my ring flash just outside of the frame, throwing a lot of light into the lens, crushing the black tones in the image and giving it a sort of action-y feel. i really nailed the focus on this one, for which i'm pretty happy.

setup shot:

red label

i've wanted to try some product-style shots of a bottle or a glass of liquid for a while, i had heard of a technique involving cutting a hole in a board and then lighting the bottom of the bottle through the hole so that it has a sort of a glow to it. melissa diep set up a contest to take a picture of something red, so i grabbed this bottle of scotch and gave it a shot. i think it came out well.

setup shot:

a few new shots.....