Lighting with FourSquare

Every year I attend the Southwestern Photojournalism Conference in Ft. Worth, Texas. Every year this conference recharges my batteries and inspires me. This years conference was incredible and will be the subject of a future writing. Today, I want to touch on last years conference when one of my all time favorite photographers spoke, Dave Black. Not only is the man an amazing photographer, he is a wonderful person with some pretty good wisdom. I'm hoping soon to write about Dave in this blog with his permission. Stay tuned for that.

Last year Dave introduced everyone to a cool little item called the Four Square. This little tool is very cool and a must have for those of you who like lighting with hand flashes. I traded my masses of Dynalights and packs in for Nikon Smartflashes a few years ago and never looked back. What FourSquare does is hold four flashes which is great for increasing your lighting output. Which comes in handy when shooting in the bright of the day. here's a link and few more shots using this wonderful tool. Oh yeah, I don't work or represent this company or gain anything for bragging it up. I just love well thought out and useful photographic tools. I rank this one up there with the Bogen's Magic Arm! Here's the link...http://www.lightwaredirect.com/ ...and a few more photos...

 

Just for the record, you can learn how to shoot using these lighting packages in my Masters of Light Workshop and the Art of Telling Stories Workshop at  http://www.texasphotoworkshops.com

FREEDOM FIREWORKS

Since I was in high school I’ve enjoyed shooting fireworks displays/celebrations. Just about every year I try to get out and shoot different fireworks displays. I always like to look for the unique versions. In my opinion, the big brand fireworks shows with big city skylines all look the same. Last year I found this show and shot if from down on the bridge.

This year I chose to climb this hill to gain a perspective that would include the bridge I shot from the year before. Wow, what an angle! You have the time exposed car lights stream through the frame, along with the boats on the water cruising and anchored watching the show. Of course the main thing is the fireworks display going of in the middle of all this. Off in the distance you can see the show for the city of Austin, Texas. This show is on Lake Austin sponsored by Austin Country Club.

Here’s how I shot this scene. It all starts with the angle. When shooting events where you get just once chance to get the shot, I always scout my angles out ahead of time. The day of the shoot, I arrive early to make sure I secure my preferred angle before anyone else does. In this case I was set up ready to shoot three hours before the show. I had my assistant hold the position while I went to this great Mexican food dive to grab some spicy food to go along with the show I was about to shoot. I still shoot with a Nikon D2x for one reason…four kids in college! Attached to my D2x was a Nikon 17-35mm 2.8 zoom. My camera was attached to a Gitzo tripod with the graphite legs and a Gitzo ball head. Using Nikon’s cable release I would shoot my exposures ranging from 30 seconds down to 5 seconds at F-8 up to F-16 always at ISO 100. The actual setting depends on the frequency of the fireworks burst along with the overall scene. One thing you need to watch for is burst frequency. At the start of the show, the bursts start out slow. At times they will increase in frequency of burst and then slow again. Always at the end there is the grand finale which if you’re not careful, you will overexpose your shots.

I like to use the aperture to control the over all scene with and I use the shutter speed to control the look of the fireworks with…shot burst and long trailing burst. My favorite exposure for fireworks is ISO 100, 15 seconds at F8 plus 2/3. Usually the trailing of the fireworks is just the way I like it, The 15 seconds allows for three burst and the illumination of the three burst is just right for just under F11. At least it has worked for this scene for the last two years.

One last thing to note, In Post you can curb the contrast levels by using a little Shadow/Contrast control in Photoshop. It’s also fun to play with the layering capabilities Bibble offers, which I prefer over both Aperture and Lightroom hands down!

I’ll be teaching a fireworks workshop on New Years Eve in Austin, Texas. For more info you can check it out at www.texasphotoworkshops.com.

Don't forget to checkout my workshops at www.texasphotoworkshops.com...Maybe we can use your mom on a workshop shoot.

Two Minute Lighting Workshop #2

In the not to distant past, I taught what is my favorite workshop to teach, "Masters Of Light". I won’t make some cheap pitch here for the workshop, but here is the url to my workshops in case your interested… www.texasphotoworkshops.com. I wanted to teach my students how to think wildly out of the box. My neighbor is Willie Nelson’s Golf Pro and he looks like he could be wild, but in fact he is gentle as they come. Well, unless you really piss him off and from what I’ve seen that is pretty hard to do. Anyway, I recruited Jeff to be our “Bad Ass Harley Model”. However, rather than shoot the typical location static portrait, I wanted my students to learn how to shoot action portraits using remote lighting. First I demonstrated the shoot with my Nikon D2X (yes, I’m a bit behind on updating my equipment. It’s called having too many children in college at the same time:). I also used the Nikon SB800’s. I mounted my camera on the back gate of my SUV using a Bogan majic arm. The Nikon master SB800 was attached to my camera's hot shoe, but the flash itself was in the off mode. I also attached another SB800 to the frame of the Harley using a Bogan Super Clamp. I've also connected the camera to my computer so I could control everything remotely from the front seat. I’ve left the flash in the shot so everyone can see its placement. For publication, I've photoshoped it out. From here, we took off and cruised 6^th street in Austin, Texas. Jeff followed with his cig hanging from his lips. Oh yes, I also dragged the shutter for one second. Dragging means to set the flash to trigger at the end of the shutter setting and in this case it was one second. My aperture was around F 8 and the iso was set at 100. My zoom was set at 24mm. As we cruised, sometimes we would hit small bumps and the camera would bounce a little, adding to the unique wild look of the photo. Now that’s how you shoot a “wow” portrait. Again, this is my favorite class to teach.

WHATS WRONG WITH THIS PICTURE?

When I was growing up, most people kept their opinions to themselves unless asked. It was just polite. Today, people vomit opinions constantly...behind others backs. To their face its always niceties. Before, when you did ask for some ones opinion, you got it...the truth, good or bad. Today, it's all about BFF (for you older folks, thats Best Friends Forever). How can we grow when people only say the bad things behind your back instead of to your face. Personally, I'm looking for true opinions. The more detail, the better. So, I'm asking for your opinion! What's wrong with this picture?