Thanks to everyone who came to the white seamless session yesterday at Photoshop World. I thought I would give you all a quick link to the tutorial here on the blog so you don’t have to dig through the archives.

>> It starts here. <<

If you have any questions about the technique just drop them in the comments.

Cheers,
Zack

The great thing about shooting more editorial work is getting to shoot more editorial work. The problem with shooting more editorial work is there are times I have to sit on the images for 30, 60, 90, or more days before I can share them.

This is an assignment I shot for The Atlantan. The subjects are Atlanta Hawks center Zaza Pachulia and ATL restaurant veteran A.D. Allushi. They just opened a new restaurant/bar in Atlanta called the Buckhead Bottle Bar. I shot this assignment while construction was still going on inside their new restaurant & bar. I had one little corner to work in that wasn’t covered in dust and was “nearly” completed. The rest of the place was in a state of chaos as they were trying to bring it all together for an opening a week away. There were a few issues on the shoot. There was only one working power outlet we could use and the lights in the onyx table top were not installed yet. Below is a portrait of the two of them and the table I’m talking about.

Here is where being comfortable with your lights comes in very handy. The lighting and design of this place is as much of the story as the menu is. It was important to show this table lit up so Dan and I spent about 20 minutes testing out several options for lighting the table with flashes. We ended up gaff taping three hot shoe flashes underneath the table and put them on a really low power. These were older Nikon SB flashes that have built in optical slaves in them. We set them to slave so they would fire when the main light fired.

I had everyone take a look at the photos to make sure it wasn’t straying too far visually from what the tables would look like once the lights were installed. We made some changes to the direction of the small flashes until it matched what it would look like once the tables were complete. Again, knowing how to use your lights is crucial to being a working photographer. Everyone was worried what these portraits would look like without light coming through the table. When you can solve that kind of problem you are the hero of the day. Especially when you can do it in camera. If you can impress your client like this then they trust you. If they trust you… they call you again. All that’s left is making the deadline.

I’m currently finishing up the OneLight companion book that’s going out to all of this year’s OneLight alum. It’s going to have images like this along with lighting diagrams and the thought process behind the shot. For the sake of this blog post I’m including the lighting diagrams and camera settings for the two shots here. The diptych above is what I call the grid spot with soft chaser sort of look. The two flashes used for this type of light are on the same axis. You put the umbrella or softbox or octa up and then fly a grid spotted flash right in the center of it pointing in the same direction as the soft light source. You’re looking to get the soft light to be 3 or so stops under the gridded light. It’s the same thing I did when shooting the Fences for the creativeLIVE studio class.

Click on the images below to see them larger.

This shoot is a good example of why having some big lights and some small lights are good way to go when you have to walk into unknown situations on a regular basis. A few Alien Bees and a few old hotshoe flashes will take care of just about anything that comes your way.

As for the Bottle Bar? Come this fall when I’m not traveling as much, I’m going to be hanging out there. It’s a very cool place. You need to check it out if you’re in the ATL. The bottles behind the bar are cool. I wish they were done when I was shooting this so I can show you how cool they are.

Cheers,
Zack

Ok. Are you ready to get your nerd on? Calling all pixel peepers! Here are the images for the modifier run down we went through on Day 03 of the creativeLIVE studio lighting class. I’m not sure which took me longer… Shooting all of these images during the class or prepping them for the web.

Before we get started with the images there are some things I want to go ahead and cover with you before you check these out.

This isn’t the most comprehensive light modifier test in the world. It isn’t even half way scientific in approach. There are real issues with comparing modifiers like this. I’m telling you right now that this isn’t the true proper nerded out way of doing this kind of thing. While we strove for consistency and Dan and I spent some time in the morning before the broadcast testing things out, remember there can be variations 1/3 of a stop from pop to pop with those Alien Bees. That’s why they are affordable.  With all that said let me now say… if you run through some modifiers in this way you’ll learn a lot. I do this kind of stuff when I’m checking out a new modifier.

Why do I feel the need to give this big disclaimer? To ward off the measurebators that are about to descend on this post. The guys who look at photos on the photon level and lose all the soul of this craft. I like to nerd out from time to time and discuss CMOS vs. CCD but never at the cost of losing the soul of the craft. So… enjoy this comparison. There are things to learn.

Things to look for ::

• Take a look at how the modifier effects the exposure on the subject and the background.
• Watch the transition from highlight to shadow. How hard is that line?
• Take a look at the catchlights in the eyes.
• How effecient is the modifier in terms of lost light from the standard?
• Look at the difference in the quality of light when some of them are moved closer than the standard shooting point.
• Moving the light closer to the subject changes exposure so I didn’t list the change in aperture for those images since they deviated from standard position.

I’ve highlighted a few areas here to watch in the photos below… Look at this crop between the 7′ and 4′ Octabanks…

\

Notice how the transition from highlight to shadow is much more gradual with the larger 7′ Octa. Notice how the shadows are more open with the 7′ as compared to the 4′. Notice the 4′ Octa has a brighter catchlight. Notice they have about the same effect on the exposure of the background. The background is important to watch with these. There are times I pick a modifier based on how it is going to throw light on or flag light off of the background. Here is the same image without the circles. From modifier to modifier some areas will change dramatically and some will barely be noticeable.

The following image is the “standard” for this test.  It is an Alien Bee with its standard 7″ silver reflector in place. The standard exposure for this at this distance is f13. We then paraded different modifiers off of the same light stand position. At times I moved the stand to demonstrate a distance I would more likely be using that particular modifer.

Here is a crop of the 7′ Octa (our largest modifier) in comparison to the standard 7″ reflector. Notice how light from the Octa wraps all the way around to her ear.

Want to pixel peep? Here you go!

If you look at a few of these and say “I can’t really tell any difference between the $30 modifier and the $800 modifier!” then note the disclaimers above. There are ways of shooting a shoot through umbrella in this kind of situation and make it look a whole lot like the Octabank. Then there are times that one will absolutely run circles around the other and the difference is night and day. To walk through each of these drastic and subtle usage changes would have taken the entire three days of teaching. Your goal is to get to know YOUR modifiers and be educated about the basic differences between different kinds so you can make educated choices the next time you go buy one of these.

As Bill, one of the creativeLIVE crew members, said so well… “There’s no morality in choosing a light modifier.” Let that sink in. Sometimes I pick a modifier based on… “Ummmm. How about…. Uh. This one.” Other times I walk in a room and I know that I want my 28″ Westcott Apollo and there is no other modifier in the world that will do the job. Sometimes I pick a modifier because it is more efficient with light than another that is similar to it in look. Note how the reflective umbrella lost 2 stops of light as opposed to the 4′ Octa. Sometimes that stop is a make or break situation on a job.

At times there’s “just something” about one modifier over another. You can’t quite put your finger on it but you just like “that thing” about that modifier. That’s how I feel about the 22″ beauty dish. I could get a very similar look from the 28″ Apollo or a small silver umbrella but there is just “something” about how the light feathers and falls off with the beauty dish that makes me pull that out over a small softbox. Sometimes I just like the catchlight more.

I like circles.

Sometimes.

Other times I like rectangles.

There’s not a moral issue on the table here.

Another issue with this test is we aren’t shooting full length. You’d see a BIG difference between a 60″ umbrella and a 7′ Octa when shooting full length. I tested that out and went back and forth on it. The reason I decided against it was our awesome subject, Lou, would have been standing in one spot for a long time. That little stool she was on was bad enough. I felt standing for as long as we needed to run through this would have been too much to ask. Remember, we are in the service industry. Serve your clients. Make them as comfortable as possible. I guess I could have had her lean on something. That would have been a light stand or a broom handle. Neither make for the best props.

My last caveat to all of this… Go shoot your own lighting tests! Seriously. You’ll learn so much doing this. Change the distance, the angle, the height, etc. Watch what your modifiers do full length vs. head and shoulders. LEARN YOUR GEAR!!!

All the images and download links after the jump….

Get slightly larger sizes of these in no certain order from my Flickr page.

Download the images from this post so you can sort them in your own viewer and put them side by side as you wish.

Why didn’t I add the Softlighter? Barndoors? Snoots? Brolly Boxes? Halos? Rings? Bed sheets? Well, A) I don’t use all of those. B) I’d still be there testing if I tried every modifier in the world. At the end of the day this is what I want in my bag…

3 60″ Impact convertable umbrellas
1 50″ Westcott Apollo softbox
1 28″ Westcott Apollo softbox
4 Standard grids (40, 30, 20, 10 degrees)

Once the camera is paying bills and leaving some left over at the end of each month I added these…

2 12×50″ Westcott Stripboxes w/ egg crate grids
1 22″ Beauty dish with sock and 30º grid
1 7′  Westcott 7′ Octabank

Find the list of gear (with links) I’m using here.

With these tools I’m good. I don’t think there is another modifier out there on the planet I feel that I need right now. Oh, a bit superfluous but sometimes enjoyed… The stupid looking Moon Unit for the Alien Bee ring flash. That thing looks stupid but gives good light.

ETA :: All I did in post on these images was convert them to B&W. I didn’t touch exposure, contrast, etc. I test lighting with B&W images because it helps me better see what the light is doing.

Cheers,
Zack

PS – Coming up soon in relation to this creativeLIVE studio lighting event ::

• A studio tour of my space in Atlanta.
• Color management.
• Grip.
• Last thoughts since the event.

I can’t tell you how overwhelming this past weekend has been for me on all fronts. Hundreds and hundreds of man and woman hours went in to pulling this three day live event off. It was frantic. It was stressful. It was exhausting. It was one of the greatest things I’ve ever been a part of. Thank you one and all. Here are a few selects from the weekend.

More images after the jump…

The shot above and the shot below were using the same background.

There are some other images on this blog post from the weekend.

Want to find out about the class I taught? Check it out here.

Many thanks to ::

Zaac Pick

Head Like A Kite

The Fences

Affix Music (provided the bumper music on Friday and Saturday)

Seattle Models Guild

B&H Photo

Westcott

The MAC Group

Chase Jarvis

And the entire crew who made this thing happen.

And you know what? I would not be able to do this had Marc Climie not put a camera back in my hands 6.5 years ago.

We have more material, videos, and stuff coming to the blog from this event.

Cheers,
Zack

I really did start my studio on the streets. As seen in the photo above.

Update – Thank you one and all for those who worked so hard behind the scenes and those thousands and thousands of you who tuned into the live event! More to come!

As we get closer to this weekend’s creativeLIVE studio class I wanted to go ahead and share the rough time frame and course material for the weekend.

There are a lot of things I want to cover in this class and I know I’m going to run out of time at some point. That’s why we have spread this out over a weekend. As far as subjects we will be photographing go we are going to be working with emerging models, musicians, and regular folks off the street.

Keep a few things in mind… This is live Internet we are dealing with so all sorts of things can go astray but rest assured there is a full pro crew behind the scenes ready for anything the internet can throw at them. The times listed below are approximate aside from start times. Keep an eye on my Twitter account as the weekend goes on. We will be updating events there. IE : “Going to start shooting the band in 30 minutes.” “Almost done with lunch. Going live in 10.” “Talking about grip right now.” You get the idea. I have a basic outline in my head of what I want to do but I’ll be working in a new space and may change things here and there as I go but always teaching why I’m changing things and what’s going through my head as I try something different.

All start times are PDT (or -8 GMT)

Friday June 11th – 1:30pm – 4:30pm’ish / 5:30pm’ish
• My personal philosophy of having a studio space
• Considerations for getting a space of your own or turning a space you have into a studio space.
• The basics of exposure when using flash in studio. We will be using hotshoe flashes and strobes.
• Working with multiple lights and working with different lighting ratios
• Using a light meter and how to figure it out on the fly without a meter
• Overview of the modifiers we will be using over the weekend. Those include…
••• Straight flash
••• Umbrellas
••• Softboxes
••• Octabanks
••• Beauty dish
••• Ring flash
••• Grids
••• Flags/Silks/Reflectors
••• DIY modifiers
• Q&A

Saturday June 12th :: 10am – 1pm’ish
• The many uses of white seamless. I’ll be walking you through the entire process of shooting on a white seamless and getting the most out of one simple background
• Post production on the white seamless
• Q&A
• (lunch break somewhere between 1pm and 2pm.)
• Building a set. It will already be in place. I’ll just talk about the basic modular set pieces that went into making it.
• Grip equipment. How to put stuff together and do stuff with that stuff.
• Slowly moving away from the seamless and onto other background choices. IE: Fabric/Walls/Sets
• Working with subjects. Interaction and Posing. (I’ve had a lot of questions about this so I’m spending a lot of time on it.)
• Musicians. Duo and Trio. Group shots plus individuals. White seamless and other backgrounds + a simple set.
• Q&A
• In order to conclude in time to rebroadcast over night we can only teach for 10 hours a day. So the latest this day will run is 8pm. Don’t know if it will go that long or not.

Sunday June 13th :: 10am
• Quick recap of previous day and previous information about exposure. Not going to spend a lot of time on this but just a quick recap for those just joining.
• If I don’t cover the grip equipment on Saturday I’ll most likely do that Sunday morning.
• Art Direction! I will be pulling people from the live audience and giving them assignments to see what problems they run into and guide them through the process.
• More shooting. Different modifiers. Improv.
• Q&A
• (lunch break somewhere between 1pm and 2pm.)
• Working with a four piece band.  Individuals and group shot.
• More shooting. Whatever we decide to do making sure I’ve used all the modifiers from the list above.
• Q&A

————————

I will be online live with Chase Jarvis tomorrow, June 9th, from 1:30pm till 3pm for a live Q&A leading up to the weekend. If I haven’t covered something in the notes above then hit me here in the comment section or tune in here tomorrow and ask while we are online.

You can sign up for the class here and see all the swag we have to give away during the weekend! We have stuff from B&H, x•rite, Pocket Wizard, Westcott, and Sekonic in addition to several copies of the OneLight DVD. Big thanks to B&H, The MAC Group, and Westcott for really bringing the goods. No t-shirts or ball caps in this prize closet. Also a big thank you goes to Affix Music for providing us with some licensed and cleared tunes to listen to while we work this weekend.

Questions about the class or something you might want to see covered? Drop them in the comments.

Cheers,
Zack

(for a higher quality version of this screencast view the source file here.)

I. Love. Photo Mechanic. End of story. This one program has saved hours and hours of my post production time in the last six months that I’ve been using it. How do I use it? Well, as I state in the screencast above, I only scratch the surface of what it can do but just watch how fast this program is. I can not say enough great things about it. It is available for Mac and PC.

Read below for a $10 discount code on Photo Mechanic!

In this screencast I walk you through my process from start to finish. I have recorded, encoded, uploaded, and ditched this project three times this weekend with the third attempt being my final. Workflow and post production is far from being the funnest and coolest part of our jobs. There is only so much you can say or do to make it the least bit interesting yet it is crucial to our day to day jobs. The more efficient we can be in post production the more time is added to our lives.

Please note that I am not the end all be all workflow guru. Far from it. I do what I do and it works for me. I’m sure many of you are going to leave some comments here teaching me a thing or three about workflow and how I might skim a few more minutes here or there off of my time working with my images. I welcome that. Let this be a conversation about workflow instead of a teaching lesson coming from me.

I want to mention that the Lexar UDMA FW800 card reader I refer to in the video is currently on sale at B&H for $53.99.  That sale ends March 6th. That is more than $20 off the retail price! Do yourself a favor and pick up a few of these. You can daisy chain up to four of them per firewire port. I avoided these for a long time due to the price point but now that I’m using them I don’t know how I lived without them. I wish I would have bought them a long, long, time ago.

I also mention my tutorial on shooting on white seamless on this blog post. You can find the begining of that tutorial here if you have not already seen that.

Many of you asked on Twitter about my thoughts on LR 3, Aperture, and archiving. I can answer that quickly here. I have not really looked at LR 3 yet. I’ve read Kelby’s ongoing posts about new features and I’m excited to see it once it goes public … and … a few months after that since there are always bugs to figure out once a large update is released. I’m too busy to test new software, deal with glitches, and throw up my hands to only go back to what I know and wait for the glitches to disappear. I am interested in the new Aperture 3.0 since it can sync libraries between multiple computers. Aperture has always been a resource hog though. Not that LR is anything but 100% efficient but I only have one editing machine I feel could make the most of Aperture and I’m not convinced that I need to convert from LR to Aperture just yet. I know plenty of you use it and love it with a capital LOVE. I get that. Their brushes look far more intuitive than LR’s brushes. I typically can not afford to jump from application to application when I’m not convinced it is what I need. I was happy in bridge until I sat in a two hour workshop covering LR. Once I saw what it was capable of I switched from Bridge to LR. Maybe the same would happen if I attended an Aperture workshop.

As for archiving, I have decided that should be a post of its own.

For more information about the deeper features of Photo Mechanic, check out the great tutorials on PhotoMetaData.org.

I hope you enjoy this screencast more than I did making it. Actually, it was a fun process until I watched the final, uploaded, ready to go versions before this and decided they were far, far, far too boring. I decided it needed 100% more hip hop and down tempo.  Side note – I’m now using Affix Music for my soundtrack needs. They are a new music licensing company who specialize in urban and electronic music. Their catalouge is growing and growing. Check them out. Would you all be interested in a discount code with them? Let me know and I’ll see if I can swing one. They are an amazing service!

BTW – Caleb sat next to me on this one and he wants you to tell me in the comment section if it was boring or not.

Photo Mechanic Discount Code ::

All you have to do is ask…. I called the good folks at Camera Bits, makers of Photo Mechanic, and told them I was doing a screencast based on PM and asked if there was some sort of discount they could offer all of you. They were more than willing to give me a code that is good for $10 off the price. You get to pay less than I did! In the name of full disclosure… I’m not getting anything from Camera Bits. This is not an advertisement. I pay for my software.

Call 1 503 547 2800 or email (sales @ camerabits [dot] com) to order and use the code PMzarias. This code is only good for emailed and phoned in orders. They currently do not have a promo code box when simply ordering online. This code is good until March 15th, 2010.

Cheers,
Zack

PS – I know curves are a great way of dealing with exposure issues but at times, brightness and fill does the job for me. As with all things post production, there are 10 different ways to do the same thing.

I’ve been talking with some folks and the topic of street portraits came up. Some are scared to death to approach strangers on the street. I understand the feeling completely but there are times you have to get over your anxiety about talking to strangers and pursue what it is you want to do. While I was in NYC a few weeks ago I decided to practice what I preach. I gave myself the assignment of shooting 10 portraits of 10 strangers in 10 hours. I had to sandwich these in between other shoots I had on the books while I was there. I approached 15 people and 9 accepted my request.

For those of you who have expressed your concerns about approaching strangers lemme give you some advice.

1) Read David duChemin’s book Within The Frame. David talks in depth about pursuing and expressing your vision where people, places, and culture are concerned. It’s a fantastic book with lots of technical and philosophical meat to dig your teeth into.

2) Get over talking to strangers. I know your mom told you not to but seriously, it’s ok. You will be amazed at how many people open themselves up to you. It’s a great experience for them and for you.

3) Don’t try to approach people who are on their way somewhere. Find someone just hanging out. You won’t be interrupting their schedule.

4) Guys, know your limit with approaching females. Some of you are suave and can do it with style. Dorks like me look like we are just trying a bad pick-up line. Know your limit. Ladies, well, y’all have it easy. Talk to anyone you want.

4) As David writes in his book, be kind, smile, and extend warmth and friendship to the folks you meet.

5) Many will tell you “no”. Many will say yes. Listen to what Janet said in the video above. She had not had a portrait made of her in 35 years! She wouldn’t have one getting shipped to her if someone had not simply asked to take a portrait of her.Anyway, here are my portraits. They aren’t the most amazing portraits I’ve ever shot but I’m glad I put myself out there. I met some great people I would have otherwise never talked to.

Cheers,
Zack

Just finished my presentation for the PDN virtual trade show. That was the fastest I’ve ever had to talk! Thanks to PDN and B&H for making it happen!

This post is to answer questions that we didn’t have time to cover during the presentation. Go ahead and post questions here in the comment section. I’ll be working through your questions here on the blog through the weekend.

From what I’m being told… starting today all of the virtual PDN presentations from yesterday will be archived here. You have to register (it’s free!) and Mac users you need to use the latest version of Firefox. If you would like a copy of the PDF I used for my presentation, you can download it here. The PDF link is a link to the actual file. You PC users probably need to right click on that link and “save target as”. If that doesn’t work just his cntrl+alt+del and that should take care of it. ;p

Thank you all for being a part of this! I’m sure I wont be able to get to every single question but I already know that these questions will bring on other blog posts.

Let’s get started on some questions. Check back as I’ll be adding more to this post. I’m adding new replies to the top of the post so you don’t have to keep scrolling down and down and down.

Q :: I wanted to know, how do you deal with over-powering a sun on a clear sky day. If all you’ve brought is a strobe and your 50” Softbox, what would you do?

A :: A small hotshoe flash and the 50″ softbox isn’t going to overpower the sun on a clear day unless the face of the softbox is about three inches from your subject or you are shooting with a D70 or similar camera that has a faster sync speed than 250th of a second. Even then faster sync speeds might not cut it since the softbox sucks so much light to start with. If I am heading out into mid afternoon sun AND I want to overpower a very bright ambient light source like a bright sky then I’m going out with my Alien Bee 1600 and the Vagabond battery pack.

Now then, I’ve been shooting full time for 5 and a half years and I’ve only had the AB 1600 and Vagabond for about the last year. So what did I do?

• I didn’t book shoots that would have me out in the sun at a time that I couldn’t control it.

• If I just had to had to had to shoot in bright sun light then I used straight flash, backed up, and made the shot more environmental in nature since straight flash isn’t the most flattering quality of light most of the time. See the last image of my presentation to see what I’m talking about.

• If shooting straight flash doesn’t cut it, then I shoot available light. Typically backlighting my subject with the sun.

Hotshoe flashes are awesome. They can do SO much but they can’t do everything. You will quickly find their limitations when shooting in bright ambient environments. When I spend money on lighting it isn’t for features, it’s for POWER! Don’t give me TTL and digital this and that. Give me raw stinking horsepower. I buy lights to get the most light per dollar instead of “cool” features.

Also remember that YOU are the pro. You are in charge of making the decisions that will yield the best results for your clients. They are paying you to know what you are doing. If they want portraits on the beach and want to book the job at noon but you know the better images are going to be at 6pm then it is up to you to educate your clients and book that job at 6pm instead of noon. Clients want great images but they also want connivence. If you know the limits of your gear and the images you are wanting to create just can’t be created at noon then it is up to you to drive that boat and get that noon shoot booked at 6pm instead.

Q :: Did you say to DO talk to the model about things like a TV show etc. or just talk to her in the sense of what you’re doing and how many more shots are left and how well she’s doing.

A :: I talk to my subjects about anything and everything! If I’m doing a corporate shoot then I make sure to glance at the business and sports sections of my local paper before the shoot. I’m not a sports fan of any kind but I find talking sports in the corporate arena will keep a subject’s attention off the camera and lights for a little while. I’ll talk about my kids, my dog, a new album I am listening to, etc. I ask a lot of questions as I’m starting a shoot as well. “Married? Kids? Pets? What kind of music do you like? Did you see that movie 7 Pounds? Wasn’t it dark yet beautiful? I’m going to adjust this light. Just sit tight for a second. Are you keeping up with Idol this season?”

I will talk through my thought process as well during the shoot. Things like “I’m going to change this angle, I need you to rotate just a bit this way so I can keep that light pole from growing out of your head.”

The key to all of this is to make sure I’m not worried about the technical aspect of what I’m doing. If I start tweaking out in my head about my gear or about camera settings then I can’t stay focused on keeping a conversation going with my client. I get quiet. I start sweating. I get all up in my head about some technical thing and the flow of the client to subject relationship stops. I avoid that at all costs.

Q :: what would be the essential lighting that you would bring to a wedding? Assuming you are doing both indoor and outdoor photos.

A :: I take 3 Nikon speedlites . 2 SB-25′s and 1 SB-800. I only own the SB-800 because I HAD to have a flash for a job the day after my SB-80dx fried. I had to suck it up and pay $320 for a flash that I don’t use half the features of. I’ve shot entire weddings from formals to receptions with just a handful of these small flashes. I now take an Alien Bee 1600 and a Vagabond just in case I need more power. I rarely do though and it sits unused much of the time but I have it just in case. I have a blog post about what’s in my bag. Just add another bag with the AB head and battery, 3 stands, a 60″ umbrella, a 28″ Westcott softbox, and that is my wedding gear.

Q :: How do you come up with the effect you hope to achieve? Is it all trial and error or do you have an idea when you come into the shoot?

Answer after the jump! ——>

A :: Let me explain some of my gear and then I can answer your question. I have four basic light tools in my bag at any shoot. A 60″ convertible umbrella, a small softbox, a large softbox, and a few grid spots..

Now then, each of these tools has a specific purpose. I’ll try to simplify them.

1. 60″ Umbrella – This is my most versatile light modifier. An umbrella is used to light one person or a group of people. It provides soft light and I can cover a tightly posed group of 20 or more people with one 60″ umbrella or I can shoot one person. An umbrella is also good for lighting the subject and the environment they are in. If shooting indoors your umbrella is going to send light all over the place. Sometimes this is a good thing. Sometimes you want to control the light falling on the subject and keep light off of the environment they are in. That is where a softbox comes in.

2. I use the 28″ Westcott softbox when shooting one to two people only. It is not good for shooting any more than two people. I’ve tried. I know! The softbox is a great tool for keeping a nice soft light source directed to your subject while keeping that light from spilling on to elements of the environment you are shooting in. Now, if you are out in the middle of a field it doesn’t really matter since you are going to light an entire field with any of these environments. I pull out the 50″ Westcott for shooting one to 4 people. The larger your light source, the softer the light. I LOVE the 50″ Westcott. It’s a big beautiful light source but I can still manage to control spill with it more than an umbrella.

I have an old post on the blog about umbrellas and softboxes. You can read it here.

3. Grid spots! Man I love grids. Grids give this great little spot of light with a nice feathered edge unlike a snoot. Snoots have a very hard edge from highlight to shadow. I prefer the softer edge a grid gives. I have a blog post about attaching grids to hotshoe flashes here. I also have a set of Honl grids. The Honl grids are pretty nice and easy to slap on any old hotshoe flash. I used them today for a shoot for Relevant magazine in fact. I still prefer the traditional 7″ grids because they give a cleaner circle of light and Honl does not yet make a grid around the 10º mark. I use the 10º grid a lot. A. LOT.

So… All that said. What was your question? Oh yes… “How do you come up with the effect you hope to achieve? Is it all trial and error or do you have an idea when you come into the shoot?”

Being I know my modifiers inside and out then I know what they are going to look like in just about any situation. I’ve never had a grid look like light from a softbox. I’ve never had a 28″ softbox look like a 60″ shoot through. It comes from experience of shooting and shooting and shooting and shooting some more. Also note that I didn’t start off with all of these. I used a 60″ umbrella for over a year before I got the small Westcott softbox. I then used those two for another year before I got the big mamma 50″ softbox. Somewhere in there I added a few old used grids into the mix. I didn’t buy a new modifier until I had shot so much with the ones I had that I knew them and what they looked like.

When I walk into a situation I can ask myself some questions. “Do I need to light the subject AND the room they are standing in?” If so, I grab the umbrella. “Do I need to keep the light on this one person and keep the light off the background?” If so, I grab the small softbox. “Does this environment blow chunks and I don’t want to see any of it ever?” Grid spot!

Is there a lot of trial and error? Of course. I’ll think that I want to light the subject and the background but then see that it sucks and I have to do something else. Maybe a shadow gets in the way or maybe the paint on the wall is glossy and I can’t control the glare so I have to come up with something different. Nine times out of ten though I can walk into a situation and get an idea for a shot and know how I’m going to light it before the subject shows up because I know how my light is going to act. How do I know? Well, I just made an archive on a terabyte hard drive. I was trying to fit five years of shooting on to the drive and I couldn’t do it. I did manage to fir over 180,000 photos on that drive. It averaged out to something like 74 pictures a day. That’s a healthy amount of shooting. Like I said in the presentation… Go take pictures of your vacuum cleaner if you need to so you can learn what your light is doing.

Q :: If you could use either an Elinchrom setup or a Canon flash setup for location work, which would you rather use?

A :: I was hoping to get to this question during the presentation but we ran out of time. That’s one of those questions that is like, “Would you rather have a truck or a hatchback.”

I currently have Nikon flashes and some Alien Bees. I REALLY want to graduate to Elinchrom in the next few years. Anyway, I use both systems in studio and on location. The majority of my work could be shot with hotshoe flashes but there are many times I simply need more light. I need more power. That is where the AB lights come in. BUT, sometimes the AB lights have too much power. There are times I want to shoot a portrait at f2 or f2.8 but I can’t dial the power down enough on the AB’s so I have to use a hotshoe flash for those shots. So I can’t really say which one I would rather have. I guess I would love to have 4 Elinchrom Ranger kits and I would just have to “make due” with those. I could always stack ND filters on the Elinchrom lights to bring the exposure down!

Q :: I have hated my SB 800 and rarely use it. I do like using my alien bees lights, though. These same principles will apply to all types of flash units… the reason to use a speedlight over studio lights would just be the ease of use when shooting on location, no?

A :: Light is light. Period. If I put that SB-800 in a softbox and shoot a portrait then change it out with an Alien Bee and use the same exact softbox you will not know which flash powered which shot. But as I said in the last answer, the difference lies mostly in the amount of power you are getting from each one. The 800 will allow you to dial the power WAY down and shoot at wide open fast apertures that you can’t shoot with an Alien Bee because you can’t dial the power down that much. The Alien Bee also gives you a modeling light which is nice so you get an idea of what your light is looking like as you position it. And you can plug the AB into a wall and have faster recycle times. That’s nice. At the end of the day though, it’s just light. One just has more of it than the other.

Cheers,
Zack

On the next to the last day of Gulf Photo Plus I was informed by GPP organizer, Mohamed Somji, that I had the “privilege” of shooting the group shot of all the GPP staff and photographers. I would be given 15 minutes to set up and execute the shot with 25 to 40 people.I have done countless group shots in my young career but never one that had folks like Joe McNally, Drew Gardner, David Hobby, Chase Jarvis, David Nightingale, and on and on and on. No pressure.

Last year David Hobby shot the group photo. He did it available light and had the photo posted on the web in 30 minutes. He was smart. David kept it simple. I however had could not leave “well enough” alone. I wanted to make a picture that was a tribute to some of the photographers in the photo and I wanted to keep with the OneLight theme so I decided I would get everyone in the auditorium and light them individually with one light and then comp them together in post. I have “painted with strobes” a few times in my life but never on this scale. It isn’t the most technically brilliant photograph I’ve ever made in my life but I had fun doing it. Everyone in the room had fun bustin’ my chops for taking this on. Hobby had a GRAND time playing with his wizard in his pocket while I was setting this up too.

How I did it = Pretty simple

• I set my camera up on a tripod so that each shot would align in the final image to be created.

• I had my studio manager, Erik, walk around the room with a Nikon SB-25 mounted on a tripod. On the SB I placed a Lightsphere that I have painted black. I call it my Darksphere. I then bunjee’d a 20º grid on the front of that. I like to have my grids placed off of the flash tube to get a cleaner circle of light.

• I exposed somewhere around 5.6 at 250th of a second to kill the ambient light in the room. I just needed the light on each person. There are 29 people in the final shot and I used 28 frames to capture them all. Chase and his wife, Kate, were lit together for one shot.

• I tried a quick multiple exposure shot on the back of the D3 to see if my idea was going to work. In this you can see Erik holding the light on the stick.

This is what each individual shot looked like…

This is what the group shot looks like without the auditorium showing through…

Here is the auditorium. I would use this image to mask parts of the ambient back into the group shot.

Once the people were together I could then bring in the image above and again, using layer masking, I painted in just enough of the ambient light to mix in with the lit shots. The final shot was 34 layers tall. 28 layers of people and 6 layers of ambient light and details like the the strobe painting on the back wall panels. Here it is again…

So…To Joe McNally – I know you eat 30 Speedlights for breakfast every morning so excuse me while I meagerly try to pull it off with one.

To David Hobby – My light rig for this shot not only has a bunjee cord on it, but it has a LightSphere that I spray painted black to keep with the DIY / Modify philosophy you preach so well.

To David Nightingale – 30+ exposures to make one final image! How do you do it so well? You can see how much of a hack I am.

To Drew Gardner – If only I had a water buffalo and 300 gallons of strawberry jam then you too would have a tribute here. Maybe next year I’ll shoot it on a Phase One. Oh wait! I don’t have to shoot it next year! Some other light monkey will have to do it!

To Chase Jarvis – You talk about pushing yourself. Well… I pushed myself on this one!

I could have done this or that or the other to make this shot better but I had no time to really think it through. It was a good exercise for me though. I’m glad I did it this way.

I have one more Dubai post to make this week and then we are back to regularly scheduled blogramming.

Cheers,
Zack

My good friends at Elekta called me this week to come in and shoot some images for a new service campaign they are working on. They wanted images shot on white seamless. Having been to their office a number of times I knew that there was no need to take a roll of white seamless with me and set it up. I just needed a white wall of which, they had many to choose from.

Assignment :: B&W portraits on a pure white background. Tight crops, low angles, normal angles, plenty of negative space for text and graphics.
Gear Used :: Three Nikon SB-25 flashes (paid $89 for each one!), Nikon D3, Nikon 35mm f2, Pocket Wizards.
Modifiers Used :: 10º grid spot for first image (cover shot) attached to flash via a bungee cord and a LightSphere that was painted black (DarkSphere), Westcott 60″ reflective umbrella for portraits.

Here is the set up for the cover shot…

For the following portraits I took the DarkSphere and grid off of the flash and put the 60″ umbrella on. Is it the most ground breaking photography you have ever seen? Of course not. As I say in the OneLight workshop though, this is the type of work I do to pay the bills. Simply understanding how to use off camera light can increase the jobs you are able to take on.

Here are some of the portraits…

Don’t forget to add to your fine art portfolio while you are out shooting.

Cheers,
Zack