Deer Skull

A little experimentation with lights, light modifiers and gels.

I got this skull from brother Bill.  He has a garage full!  Today it resides on our shed door in the backyard.  You may remember it being featured in an earlier post about morning light. (see here) You may also remember our last Xmas card?

It wasn't in my possession for long before I knew I'd try to find some weird and interesting way to shoot it.  I was doing a lot of experimenting at the time with off camera lighting thanks to David Hobby at Strobist.  I had also recently acquired a second SB800 flash unit and really couldn't wait to get at it.  There are many versions of this photo that didn't quite work.  But much "chimping" and adjusting and readjusting eventually got me to this.

 

There are just two flashes:  One to camera right, up high, snooted to limit spillover and CTO gelled.  The other light was camera left with a CTB gel and I believe was also snooted (hard to remember now, but it does look like it!)

I think this makes about three posts regarding deer and not one has been of a healthy live creature.  I intend to change this trend soon!

Promise.

Jeremy Wade Shockley

This is Jeremy. I met him a couple years ago at a workshop in Jackson, Wyoming. His photo-essay of the Meade Ranch was well received by all. And I'm talking people like David Alan Harvey, Jodi Cobb, William Albert Allard, and James Hill. His work is sensitive, thoughtful and moving. Everyone out there quickly learned he was a great talent.

He visited the east coast recently and we had a chance to hang out and shoot. It was great to hear his thoughts about photographing people. I learned a lot. You can check out some of his work... right here.

As a thank you for sharing some of his insights, I took him out to the Falls--in a driving rain storm with crashing thunder and cloud-to-ground lightning no less! But hey, that's just the kind of guy I am! Luckily, it blew through fairly quickly and we were able to get out to the overlook for some shots.

I chose to focus mainly on the man. (We don't often get to show up in front of the camera) In the first image I just threw a little fill light on him, 1/2 CTO gel and a slightly underexposed background. In photo #2, I lifted the camera above my head and tripped off three or four shots, hoping for the best. I like how his hat stands out against the whitewater below. Last shot was at the house. Simple window light... nothing better than that.

Anyway, it was a great visit. Thanks Jeremy. Catch you next time in Durango!

Scene Changer.

Let's have another go at trying to spice up a somewhat dull scene. To keep it simple we'll use similar colored gels as before. Also we're not posing anybody. Have to work with what's happening naturally. OK, to start with we have Rachel up in the garret preparing to do taxes. (Fun!) Anyway, this is pretty much a straight forward shot. This is how the space normally looks. Ugly, incandescent, overhead lights.

So, two things, no wait... three things right off the bat. 1) Underexpose the scene by about a stop. 2) Add a flash at about model's eye level, off to one side. 3) Get down low to eliminate distracting background clutter.

OK, this is pretty interesting. Looks like maybe the sun is coming in from a side window (it's not!).

Next, let's add another flash. Splash it against the back wall with a purple/bluish gel to give it maybe a little flair. Same general perspective, throw in a vertical shot, maybe a foreground element or two and well not such a boring setting after all!

Opportunities

This weekend I was presented with a great opportunity and a great challenge. I was lucky enough to be one of about 15 or so photographers to have free reign throughout the Air and Space Museum Udvar-Hazy Center out at Dulles International. (Thanks Rob!) The place is massive. And it has everything! From the Enola Gay to the Enterprise Space Shuttle...and more! As I said, quite the opportunity!

The great challenge? Making interesting photos. Like most museums Udvar-Hazy is well lit...not nicely lit, but well lit. The photo above of the Flying Tiger gives you a good idea about how it looks throughout all the hangars. Not very compelling, really. And, frankly, it's not supposed to be. It's a museum. It is supposed to display things for people to see. It's not supposed to look really cool for us photographers. That's our job. Make it look cool.

Well, I had no idea what I was going to do. I had brought a minimal amount of equipment, taking a less is more approach. I had never been there, knew nothing of the size of the space or the lighting or the things I'd see. Totally blind. So, after we were given a brief orientation we were set free. I walked around just taking a few snapshots here and there, getting acquainted...trying different compositions. But I bored quickly of that. I soon realized it was the dull lighting that was boring me. I had to create better light.

I pulled out of my pack two speedlights and a couple gels. One blueish-purple, the other amber. I underexposed the ambient light by about two stops--maybe just one and a half, not too sure. But this significantly brought down the plain white light of the museum making for pretty dark photos. I then simply needed to add my own light, using the colored gels to get a little drama out of them. I am fairly happy with the results, but I'd love to get back there someday with the knowledge of the place I now have...I'd bring a couple more speedlights, try a few more tricks.

Until then, here are a few of the shots from that morning. Hope you like.

So how did we light that portrait of Rachel?

As you saw in the "studio" shot, we were dealing with a pretty dull looking white wall and seriously ugly light. Weak incandescent bulbs in two places in the ceiling and a big window letting in far too much daylight. So first thing is we close the window shades and turn off the lights. Well, that is, after we completed our set up! Which consisted of just two flashes, a snoot, a reflector, a couple gels, and a house plant. (You get it now, don't you Rob?) Here's the first or main flash. Notice the amber gel on it. Now here it is again with the home made snoot in place. A snoot is simply a way to focus the light beam from wide to narrow. That way we can pick and choose what is lit... in this case Rachel's lovely visage. Here's our second or background flash. Notice the blue gel attached. Remember the blue background?

Remember also the dark patterns in the blue background? Well that's where the house plant comes in. You shoot the flash through the plants leaves, et voila! Cool, weird patterns on wall. And that's pretty much it! Except I sort of lied about only two flashes in use. There was actually a third. Here it is. The flash atop the camera put off just enough light to trigger the two other flashes, but not enough to add any light on our model. And here's the shot one more time: