Crosslighting on Bull Island

Just a quick post on a recent beach side shoot. My initial planned shoot for the day got a last minute cancellation so I invited Del and Dave to come along with me for some sunny day shoot on Bull Island. Shooting on the beach on a Sunday meant there were people everywhere. However, we manage to find ourselves a quiet spot, drew the occasional looks from passerbys. It was relatively undisturbed except for a bunch of teenage girls in the background who decided they needed to run their own photoshoot nearby the moment they spotted us.

The lighting plan for the afternoon was simple. Meter for sky to get a nice blue sky and then dial in the flash work to cross light

It was a 4pm sun so light isn't as harsh but nonetheless still required some power to overcome. I had to use 2 flash to crosslight with the sun. In some cases, it might just be too much power and the spread of light from 2 flash isn't even. Any overlap will naturally result in some hot spots. Diffuse light in this case would be good but the strong gust of wind makes difficult to set up brollies. Maybe a stofen would be another option but I was more concerned about getting some power to overcome the sun. I am currently seriously considering dusting the AB800 alien bee unit at home and getting a portable power pack for it so I can do more bright daylight shoot.

Here are a few examples of the shoot we did for the day.

2 sb28s to camera right, cross lighting with sun to camera left.

This was the original idea. A little kooky but not many of them shots worked out. Again, crosslighting.

Picture of strobists in the wild. Spot the annoying rival shooters in the background. They were quite persistent.

Just a few tips:

- The locals will know, there's hardly any warm weather in this country. Sometimes we're lucky, but never on the day you want to shoot. Consequently, expect your models to be cold. Always advice them to bring a long coat or something extra to keep them warm in between shoot. I usually shoot for 10 min at a time and then the models warm up for 15 min. Tedious process and cuts your shooting time by half. But them's the brakes if you're working alone. On big production shoots, ya get some assistants and probably bring along a portable heater. I get winded carrying my camera gear just climbing the slopes of Hellfire woods, never mind a portable heater.

- Models tend to frown in cold weather. Well, not at the photographer I hope (while secretly cursing them for dragging them out into the cold), but as a reflex reaction towards the cold. That makes them look quite cross in photos. Keep an eye out for this. Probably have to tell them to go for a neutral expression or figure an acceptable frown and clone it out later in PS.

- Find a natural wind barrier. The shoot got slightly easier later when we shot behind a sand dune. This will probably help if ya need to kill some ambient light ( provided the sun is on the other side of course) and you don't need to expose for the sky.

Okie dokie, that's it for now.

Oh yeah, here's the article on strobist about crosslighting.

http://strobist.blogspot.com/2007/09/lighting-102-31-balance-flashsun.html

Dublin Strobist Meet

Last Sunday Del and I organised the Dublin Strobist monthly meet. This time we decided to use the Fast and Furious movie as the theme for the get together. I had organised 5 cars , 7 models and 3 MUAs for the shoot. I must say I was excited. It turned out, I didn't shoot much for the day at all. Spent most of my time running around seeing how everyone was doing.


The weather, was not perfect. It was however reasonable by Irish standards anyway. At least we got a few hours outdoors. But it threatened to rain all evening and there was certainly plenty of wind. Diffusing light out door was a challenge.


I'm going to post some pre and post processed photos for those of you who might be interested.

Gentlemen, start your engines.

Ghost Riders : The flash info for these are obvious enough

Bare flashes to camera right and left. Post processing in this one, I decided to go for a high contrast gritty look. But that kind of finishing really brought on all the blemishes on the skin. I spent a long time working on the skin and I'm still not 100% satisfied with it.

Another cross lighting. At least somebody helped me hold an umbrella so manage to get some diffuse lighting to camera right. Gone for a softer finish on the post processing here. That light patch on the right eye was a bitch to get rid off.

2 flashes at camera left, front and back of model at 45 degrees, both fired bare.

In some cases I wish I had more time to look out for light spill etc. Awkward nasty ones usually mean hours spent on removing them. Time wasters.

It was a cold day so spent quite some time removing goosebumps and awkward coloured skin. Cold weather, not good for many things unless a person intends to capture goosebumps at the first place.

Tommys Gucci M3

First of all, big thank you to Kevoto for assisting. Without him, I would have cracked up half way thru this shoot which I found to be rather tough. Big thanks to Climberhunt for sorting out the security people.

This is the first time where I had to shoot the car as the primary subject. When shooting in the dark, you need lots of diffuse light or the lighting won't be great. Bare flash just won't do it, you'll get patchy light.The trick is lots and lots of diffuse light. I find myself frequently underpowered, and that's working with 6 flashes, Shooting various accessories on the car is also a challenge because the shape of the accessories change constantly and the surface varies too. Good challenge. Learnt a tremendous amount in just 3 hours.

Light setup above is one brolly to left, one soft box to right, one flash shooting onto ceiling, one flash to rear of car for separation.

Setup above: One brolly to left, one to right, one to rear for separation, one bare flash just behind wheel.

2 brolly right and left of car, one flash aimed onto ceiling.

It's been nicknamed the Gucci M3 for a good reason.

One brolly to right, one bare flash behind wheel.

The above is one brolly to camera right, one bare flash on ground.

The above is one strip light directly above carbon grill.

Same setup as before except the flash bounced onto the ceiling was gelled CTO.

Kira at Glen Clare

Welcome to my photoblog. This here is my first post.

I just want to say a big thank you to Kira (Raveness) for travelling to Limerick from Cork for this shoot. It's been a pleasure meeting her. Very nice person and a fantastic model to work with. Highly recommended.

http://www.modelmayhem.com/714678

This is one of those shoots that just evolved and evolved by the hour. That's because I had no idea what kind of shoot I wanted to do with Kira until we got to the location. Never worked with her before and no idea what her wardrobe would be like or how she'd look in person. I'm rather sceptical of portfolio pics these days.

This was our first time visiting Glen Clare. As I didn't want to keep Kira waiting, I had to make snap decisions on locations as well as clothes to wear. So whenever ideas pop into the head, we just rolled with it. She's a class model and she made life real easy for me. When I found out she did ballet for a while, I couldn't be more pleased. Hence the ballet type poses in some of the shots.

She had this 'can do' attitude about her too. So when I asked her to cross the river, climb a slippery slope, stay out in the rain for 2 hours, she did it all. What a trooper!

Below are some of the shoots we did.

The ballet session.

There's actually a knack to throwing them fabrics. You need to fold them a certain way so when you throw them in the air, they unravel. The fabric we used was a cheap curtain liner.









Earlier, I had decided to go for some darker themes. I kept thinking witches for this.





After the fabric / ballet shoot, it started to rain. I had two choices. One wrap up and go home or two, bring out the bin liner and start covering all the gear. I went for the later.

The alien looking lighting device below is a nikon sb 28 flash covered by a bin liner with a hole in it. The flash fired thru that hole and the bin liner was velcro'd to the flash. My camera was under another bin liner and the other flash also had the same setup. One thing I've learned is that tripods are better than lightstands when you setup in uneven terrain due to the fact that you can adjust the length of the tripod legs.



I was going for a drenched look so we continue to shoot in the rain.






However, I learnt from this shoot that even with drenched look, there's probably a secret or technique to make them look good even when wet.

1st, you probably need a model with thick head of hair. Failing that, ya just have to 'burn' the hair in post processing.

2nd, drenched hair doesn't equal untidy hair. Ya still have to make it tidy. Should have asked Kira to take her hair brush with her when she crossed the river.

3rd. All manner of debris will stick to your skin when wet. Best to just wipe em off on site and save yourself a lot of touch up time afterwards.

As for make up, you probably still need it but don't ask me what the industry people do because I have no idea. If you have any tips, let me know.

Then I spot the luscious green slope that would make for a great back drop. I suggested to Kira she climbed it and off she went.






And here's Kira totally exhausted from the shoot.


The rest of the set is here:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/krispy_rabbit/sets/72157616689162259/

Thanks for reading.