that ridiculous smile

my new diffusion screen

a couple of months ago i ordered a bunch of ripstop nylon online.  i found a seamstress here in eugene that knew what she was doing, and i had her stitch it up into a 7' by 5' panel, with pvc pipes as a frame. now i basically have a super large panel i can put between a light source and my subject, and bounce super soft light at them.

the best thing about this setup, in my opinion, is that if youre bouncing light through the panel, there's still a lot of hard light going past the edge of the panel. so you have this raw undiluted light that you can use to light a background, or bounce back with a mirror or reflector or just let wash around the room and provide a bit of ambiance.

i'm not doing any of those things here. in this picture i'm using my diffusion panel as a super large uplight fill. i've got two sb-28s pounding light up from beneath it, almost enough to compete with my ab-800 powering down from above with a hard-ish beauty dish.

so yeah, loving the diffusion panel. so many uses. it's like the world's largest softbox, without the sides. you can't go wrong with it.

faces of eugene - 002

faces of eugene - 001

i've started a personal project -- a series of "dignified portraits" where i'm approaching people i don't know and asking to make their portrait. so many people don't have access to getting a professional portrait made, i wanted to give people that might not be able to have a portrait made a chance to get a professional portrait. this is the first picture of the series.... taken at river road and the beltline.

down-town

i went downtown today to scout out some photo locations. ran into a friend of mine, who quickly became my test subject. didn't bring a flash with me, just my camera and the unusually-bright-for-eugene sunlight. i found a few good places to shoot in the future.... it was good to get a bit outside of my comfort zone, shoot without a flash and a studio. makes things feel new. makes things feel fresh. 

first from new studio

it's been a while.

since my last post, we've moved across country, and now we live back in eugene, oregon again. it's good to be back. we've moved into a place with a big garage, which i've promptly taken over and turned into something of a studio. gone are the days of low ceilings and rearranging furniture. now i can shoot wider, and put lights higher than ever before. these are exciting days to be alive.

anyways. for this shot, i wanted to get some strong color gels on things, and pop out the subject with a gridded white flash. it's all hard light, which made for some interesting shadows on the background. it was a good experiment. something to try next time i'm in front of an interesting or crazy looking wall.

it's good to be back.

setup shot:

no text. just picture.