Band photoshoot

So last week I did a shoot with a local band In Cynthia's Diary. Overall the shoot went rather smooth and quick. Got the shots we needed and got out of there. I try not to shoot hundreds of images like a lot of people do. I like to get what I want within 3-4 frames and move on to the next thing. This saves both me and the client time and saves me less pictures to go through(obviously if they don't look good I will correct them on location).

I was excited to use my new vagabond II and my new 56" moon unit on my abr800 so I definitely had those stocked in the bag of goodies to bring. I also brought along 3 sb800's just in case there were shadows needed to be filled, or rim light that would be necessary to separate them from the black background(sky). Me and my girlfriend are still having difficulties actually attaching the moon unit to the abr800 but it is definitely coming along now!

Anyways heres one of the setup shots I used for the street shot(which is my personal fav) This is my typical set up and I'll add or remove a light if necessary. This setup involves 1 abr800 as my main light probably around 1/2 power(i think) and 2 sb800's around 1/8 -3/4ev I believe. I used my gf as a light stand because I am retarded and left my last stand and bracket at my last shoot



I like to try new post processing things with every shoot I do depending on the surroundings and the whole look of the shot. I did a lot of dodging and burning techniques as well as converting my raw files quite a bit in lightroom. worked out pretty well I think, but I am still working on perfecting this technique to get it perfect. Here are some shots that I liked from the shoot.


this is the street one I posted the set up for



PS: I apologize for the small pictures but AGAIN i will remind you they would just be cropped. you can view them on my flickr/website/jpg site by clicking the links to the right!

challenging

I wanted to make a cinematic type shot or old school movie poster shot, this is what I came up with.


model: my girlfriend candace
animal: my cat liger

Lighting was way more difficult than I anticipated. I had a whole lighting diagram thought up and it pretty much failed. Not to mention wind blew over my softbox and broke it :( Anyways I ended up snooting 1 sb800 on my cat. That was the hard part. I had to lure the sucker into place with cat food which took about 1 hour, such a pain. Then I had to illuminate the metal tower to make it "pop" I did that using 2 sb800's. 1 snooted on Candace, and the other zoomed at 24mm to spread the light better and get an even gradient. I PP'd everything in lightroom and CS3.

enjoy!

Still Pink

Another band photoshoot for you! A local band and good friends of mine Still Pink finally got those promos done. These were mostly done with 3 sb800 speedlites. 2 of them were shooting through 43" westscott umbrellas and 1 was bare with my girlfriend being my human lightstand. The shoot went pretty smooth, I really wanted a lot of fun in these pictures rather than the typical serious look, it's not really Still Pink to me. The pictures weren't too flattering at first and I was kind of disappointed but every came together. Popped those bad boys into Lightroom and CS3 and went to town.

Enjoy :)
PS: photos are cropped off on the right. visit my flickr, website, jpg page to see full version

about time..

So my photography club had a workshop with Splash Modeling Agency about 2 weekends ago, and I am NOW posting this. Anyways, this was a learning experience for me. First of all, the day actually started out pretty horrible. I just received my vagabond II battery pack which I was more excited to use, and I also had my 56" Moon Unit ready to use for my key/main light. BAD thing was, I BROUGHT A BAD POWER CHORD. Man, what a disappointment. The setup I ended up going with was 2 sb800's, either one bare, both with 43" shoot thru umbrellas, or a 1 light setup with an umbrella which performed better than I could ask for in harsh sunny conditions. I did do some shots without flash and used available light which was a bit challenging. First, I don't have a light meter to meter the ambient light, second it WAY sunny outside so I can't really read the lcd but I did use the histogram which did help me out a little with the help of shooting in RAW.

One thing I did not like about the whole event was that things were getting repetitive(as far as backgrounds go) but I made the best of it and I think I got a couple solid shots for my port. Thanks to VBPC for making this happen!

I'm currently at work, so I am cutting this short..
PS: thank you blogspot for always cropping off the rightside of my photos =/