"Photo Platter"

Nikon CLS and Crossfit Games

2009-05-20T10:15:00.025-06:00

This last weekend I had the rare and wonderful opportunity to step out of the box with my shooting and cover an event that was both exciting to witness and an intense challenge as a shooter. The gym I belong to, Front Range CrossFit, hosted the Rocky Mountain Regional Crossfit Games on May 16th and 17th. Two days of some of the most inspiring human feats of physical ability you could possibly imagine. Men and women pushing themselves to the very limits of what is possible in strength, stamina, endurance, speed, agility, power, and mental and emotional toughness. Words do no justice in describing what it takes to do a Crossfit workout and having been there I only barely begin to understand what it takes to compete in such an event. I will just say that for me it was one of those moments in life when I realize how amazing humanity is, how we continue to find new ways to challenge ourselves physically, we are still moving forward and reaching new heights. And certainly, it was a lesson about how I can push myself farther, personally and professionally.

As a shooter, the weeks leading up to the games had me less than thrilled at the prospect of a point and shoot photography job. Lighting, to me, is what sets the professional photographer apart from the average guy with a camera. Many people have a great eye for composition, lots of photography enthusiasts buy all the latest and greatest of gear. Nowadays, with digital cameras and their super smart metering systems, and no need for film knowledge or even aperture and shutter speed savvy, you can simply shoot something over and over again until you get the shot you want. Pilots who don't really steer the plane? A good friend and fellow photographer likes to say "why become a pilot if you are just going to use auto pilot?", but then again, there are foggy days, and long, straight flight paths, and there is a time and a place for the pro to tap into some of those great little bells a whistles that are put into our cameras and flash units.
In this situation, I was limited in my ability to set up lights and there were some questions about how I should go about covering the event. Fast action in a dark location, with on camera flash, leaves little room for creativity and originality and I am a professional that doesn't much care for the hard line shadows cast on walls and floors using on axis lighting. Many of us who are lighting junkies scoff at the idea of TTL (Through The Lens) settings, and creative snobs have a hard time accepting the fact that sometimes you just have to let the technology do the work. I knew I would be shooting at a 250th of a second because of the need to freeze the action, my max flash sync speed, and I knew I would be shooting with my aperture at wide or close to wide open to get as much of the ambient light recorded as possible. In addition, I felt confident with the D300, bumping the ISO up to 400 to get a bit more bang for the buck out of the flash and the ambient light. So in effect, I knew my exposure was F2.8 to 4.0 at a 250th of a second.

It became apparent to me after a few practice sessions shooting workouts at the gym, that the Nikon CLS (Creative Lighting System) and TTL feature of the flash were the best way to get the job done. CLS would allow me to hold the flash high and to the left, wireless, while my right hand worked the camera. If you are not familiar with CLS, in a nut shell, as I understand it, the camera's on camera flash sends signals and info to the SB flash, telling it what the camera's aperture is and when to fire. The SB reads and meters it's own flash and knows when adequate power is obtained for exposure. This can be done with many flashes at once as long as they are within operating distance of the camera, experience has taught me that the distances vary depending on the situation.

So with my Nikon D300 in one hand and my Nikon SB800 flash in the other, on Saturday morning I took the first of over 1500 photos for the weekend. I never had to think twice about the numbers, I just had to compose, focus and shoot, a welcomed simplicity which allowed me more concentration on trying to stay alive and uninjured, keeping out of the way of the competitors and flying weights. Everything was dictated by the situation, I just had to let the flash do it's thing.

Freezing the action was no problem at a 250th.
Getting the flash off axis just a little bit helps to bring some dimension to the light.

The typical post-Crossfit workout position.... if you do it right.

Eastern State Penitentiary Workshop

2009-03-27T20:56:00.013-06:00

The rusty bars, peeling paint, crumbling walls and rotting relics of Eastern State Penitentiary, are the narrators of the story about the nations first prison. It is a design that inspired the blueprints of well over 200 prisons around the world, a center "hub" with cellblocks extending outward like the spokes of a wheel. It is the place where Al Capone was incarcerated, it is the birthplace of "reform" and it is where the term "penitentiary" (from penance) was first coined. The first stones were laid in 1822 and the last of it's prisoners were transfered in 1971. Some believe it to be haunted and it certainly fits the perception of what many think a ghost's residence should look like, never the new Walmart, ghosts need history to accumulate.... I guess. There was a film crew there in fact, filming a new episode of one of the many popular ghost hunting shows. A few movies have used the location as a backdrop as well. What better place to hold a Small Strobes Big Results Workshop?

The cost per day for the location meant we needed to fill the class beyond our normal 12-15 attendees, no problem, demand was high. Even after adding a second workshop to the schedule we were still regretfully having to tell some photographers that there just wasn't any more room. Perhaps a return trip is in the near future, but first, San Francisco, Orange County, and Denver ( still room for more in those workshops).

We arrived on Wednesday, checked into the hotel and promptly headed out to visit some of the city's famous attractions. First stop was Geno's Steaks for a world famous steak and cheese "wiz wit"..... thats Cheese Wiz with onions. Pretty tasty! We returned the next day to try the sandwich from Pat's, the rivalry between the 2 establishments has quite a history and is apparently debated by the residents with fervor. We wanted to form our own opinions on the matter and 3 out of 3 tasters decided unanimously..... Geno's!

Thursday afternoon we were able to visit the prison and with our own personal guide we toured and scouted the entire place. Thursday night we were scheduled for a lecture/talk/picture showing at the local chapter of the ASMP. The turn-out was remarkable and the night was extremely enjoyable. Thanks to all those involved!

Friday it was time for the show, 4 hours of class time sharing our many grip gear secrets, talking about quality of light, and then it was off to Eastern State for the location portion of the workshop. Seeing the photographers walking around wide eyed, shutters clicking, peeping heads into cells to see what neat pic could be found, was for sure a great payoff after so much planning.

We had already decided on our first location for the day following our scouting the day before and within the first half hour we had a shot in the can. The juxtaposition of a beautifully dressed young lady within the decaying cellblock was a great way to start and it seemed to charge the photographers creative batteries.

We got perhaps a half dozen other shots, moving from one cellblock to another, before our time there had expired and it was off to the pub/restaurant across the street with most of the attendees joining us for dinner and discussion of everyone's favorite subject.

Saturday was more of the same, different models, some new backdrops, and a whole new set of photographers. Dinner was even more popular than the night before with all but maybe 2 attendees joining us for a couple of hours at Jack's Firehouse again.

Sunday found us with most of the day to do as we pleased before a late flight back to Denver. We chose to head Downtown and visit the famous buildings and pathways of our founding fathers. We walked the streets of Philly, enjoyed a great lunch, and it was off to the airport for a long flight home.

Location-Model-Lighting

2009-02-09T05:20:00.010-07:00

We recently had an assignment for a mining company here in Denver and the location of their offices in the Tech Center struck me instantly as an excellent setting for some portfolio portraits. The building's main lobby in particular is quite grand in scale and design, complete with a beautifully tiled floor, huge chandelier, and a colorful archway leading to the elevators. Our assignment that day had nothing to do with shooting people so we didn't get the opportunity to use the lobby in our shots but I promised myself I would return and speak with the powers that be and ask permission to come back and use their lobby. I returned the following day and spoke with the head of security, they gave me the "okay", a somewhat rare answer in a post 9/11 world.

With a solid location, all I needed was a subject, a time, and a lighting plan.

At our most recent Small Strobes Big Results Workshop, I exchanged information with one of our models in the hope that in the near future I could call her for this very reason. She was very receptive, we met and formulated a plan. Appropriate wardrobe and time was decided on, I had a little over a week to wait before she was available, plenty of time to pre-visualize the shot.

I arrived on location around 2pm, expecting the model at 3pm. I used that hour to set up and dial things in. Because I was without an assistant, I asked the security guards there if they would like a nice portrait of themselves to forever remember their job in this wonderful building. They agreed, and one of the test shots was nice enough that I have included here.

The lobby is 2 stories in height and has North facing windows that extend floor to ceiling. I decided to try natural light first, often overlooked by those of us who are lighting junkies. My second lighting plan was to use a large Octabox for a soft main light and let the Ambient do the rest of the work for the background. The natural light idea quickly faded with the sun outside as we didn't really get started until around 4pm. I ended up using the Octabox, close to the subject and forward enough of her to allow for fairly soft non-directional light.

We went through a couple of wardrobe changes and used three different set-ups. I used 2 lenses, my 20-35 2.8 and my 50 1.8. The camera is a Nikon D300 and the strobe is an SB800 attached to the speed ring of the Octabox using a Justin Clamp. We shot for about an hour and a half and I was pleased with the results considering we had no make-up artist or hair stylist, no clothing stylist, and the model is not an experienced pro.

As a photographer, I am always on the lookout for locations like this. I keep a databank in my mind of places I could shoot various subject matter and refer to them when things get slow or I am inspired by a lighting idea. A well planned shot will usually give you a predictable outcome and practicing the craft is a must in this competitive industry.

Light Painting Kidney Beans

2008-12-01T03:10:00.015-07:00

Last month while on assignment in Western Nebraska, we spent some time on a kidney bean farm. I came home with a handful of beans and a photo idea that fermented for a month before I finally put all the elements together and started shooting. A few beans, an old piece of plywood, mini-mag flashlight with map reader, and my nicest shirt.

Here is how I created the shot.

Emerald Pools

2008-11-30T14:00:00.001-07:00

If you spend a few days in Zion National Park, one of your planned destinations should be the Emerald Pools. A short hike along some very nice trail will reward you with a view of the high canyon walls, red like so much of Utah, over a thousand feet straight up. People were camped on the side of the shear wall, too much to climb in a single day their bivouacs were perched dizzyingly high, a web of safety lines attached to their shelf-like protrusion.

At the base of all that vertical stone is the mirro-like Emerald Pool. A quiet little oasis of lush vegetation and crumbling rock. The fractured, fallen pieces of the cliff, huge chunks of stone, sit all around the water. The reflections were irresistible.

Zion Water

2008-11-28T09:00:00.001-07:00

The path continued on through the trees and ferns, the sound of rushing water growing louder with each step. The trail emerged from the woods and lead to a small footbridge that crossed a beautiful creek. Instead of crossing the bridge and continuing along the trail I decided to walk upstream along the bank to find worthy ground for a few tripod holes.

The day was gray and the overcast meant that a long exposure of moving water was possible without having to stack a bunch of neutral density filters over the lens. I found a spot that was relatively clear of the Fall debris cluttering much of the water, set my tripod up and started shooting. After a few shots, adjusting the shutter speed and aperture to achieve the amount of motion I wanted to show in the water, I headed back to the trail and crossed the bridge. Off to the "Emerald Pools", one of Zion's famous beauty spots.

A Leaf

2008-11-23T18:49:00.004-07:00

Walking along a trail in Zion National Park reminded me of the rain forest of the Olympic Peninsula in Washington State. Everything covered in wet. Moss on every surface, fungi sprouting from the rotted, fallen trees. Water rushing nearby but unseen, some creek hiding beyond the thick green foliage. As I tried to make my way to the hidden water, I came across a large moss covered rock with a few brightly colored leaves sitting upon it. The moss was thick, like a cushioned blanket set over the stone. One leaf in particular seemed........ comfortable, as if the fall from it's perch above had somehow left it tired and ready for sleep. I raised my camera "thats' worth a shot". The rest is pixels.

Morris Mini Slave

2008-11-16T06:00:00.016-07:00

Since the first time I saw a Morris Mini in action, I have been intrigued by all the possible solutions they offer and with the trend moving to lighter and more compact gear, the "Morris Mini Slave Wide Plus" is now more than ever one of my favorite tools in the bag of tricks.

This little strobe runs on two AA batteries, charge time between pops is about 4 seconds, and without a modifier during some testing I was getting F5.6@ 4 feet/ISO 200.

Along with a ready light for power indication and a sync port for hard wiring, it has, as the name implies, a built in optical slave that makes the flash fire when it sees the pop from another strobe. Awesome! And they can be put just about anywhere... held in a hand or hidden by a laptop, set on a shelf or hung from a ceiling. There is a quarter-twenty thread on the bottom that makes it easy to put on a stand or a stud for all the rigging possibilities.

Mine of course, have been covered in velcro for my modifiers and using a trick learned from "Mr. Industrial"(David Tejada), or as I call him....... "boss", I have made a bunch of tiny gels that fit over the actual strobe bulb. The clear globe on the front of the Morris unscrews to expose the bulb and allow access for your gel application. Morris makes an accessory kit of color FX snap-on filters but there are only 4 colors and none are for color correction. I suggest using a gel sample pack to make your own so that you have a full selection of creative colors at your disposal.

When it comes to using modifiers, I have troubles with the built in slave seeing the flash and firing, covering the Mini with silk or sticking it into a snoot renders the slave inoperable.

For this problem I use a PN peanut slave. Plugging the sync cord that comes with the Morris into the strobe and then putting a micro optical slave on the other end gives you a way to get out from under your modifier with a slave that can see the other strobe(s). I am sure there is a way to get one of these to fire using a wireless radio remote, some specific cord, but my own research has found no obvious answer. Any comments or suggestions on this topic would be greatly appreciated.

Testing my Morris Mini with DIY snoot and peanut micro slave.

Here they are in action. The blue in the background is a Morris on a backlight stand. It has a foam flag on it to control the spill and the blue gel is cutting the power down about 2 stops.

A 2nd Morris is sitting on a shelf behind me to my left with a full CTO. It is putting a warm kicker on my left cheek and mixing with the blue to make the third color over my right shoulder.

The main light is a Nikon SB28 through a 43 inch umbrella, skirted vertically to keep spill off the background. The SB is triggered with a Pocket Wizard and the two Morris strobes are using their built in optical slaves. There is a fill card on my right to open the shadow side of the face just a touch.

Light Painting at Camp

2008-11-11T15:53:00.003-07:00

Campsite light painting

This is from a campsite at the top of McClure Pass here in Colorado. My friend and I were on a road trip to the southwest corner of the state from Denver, mostly just to take pictures, camping along the way.

It was late our first night when we decided to pull out the tripods and cameras for some star shots. Soon, we were trying to use my SB28 to add a pop of light on the trees. It didn't really help the star shot but it got us into a lighting mode. So we started messing around with a big Maglite, painting the trees and ground. The first couple of shots got us really going. Forget about the stars. How about that SB28 in the tent with a Pocket Wizard? Cool!

An hour later we were running around during 30 second exposures, performing a well choreographed series of movements with our flashlights. We must have run through it 50 times, trying to work out the details. Keep the camera from seeing the flashlight, don't stand in front of what you are lighting, watch out for the tree root you keep tripping over. Flashlight off, move quick to the other tree..... flashlight on, 4 seconds of light on that, flashlight off, move to the next tree, flashlight on, 2 seconds on that tree.... and that tree, exposure over. Back to the camera to see what we got.

The photo above is final result with just a little help from Photoshop to remove a branch that was extending into the tent.

During our return trip to Denver, we stopped off at Grand Mesa and camped again for our final night. Our campsite there just wasn't as scenic so we tried to add the human element for interest. We also outlined the tent with a mini-Maglite and again put the SB28 inside.

Looking For Details

2008-11-07T05:36:00.012-07:00

Went shooting with a friend one day way up north of Denver, farmland and dirt road territory. We stopped on a rural road beside this old red storage tank just as the sun was breaking through some afternoon haze. We grabbed our cameras and started hunting for shots.

After about five minutes of exploring the area and making a few pictures, it was back in the car and off to see what the road would show us next. This is one of my shots from that brief stop.

One For Fun

2008-11-06T21:45:00.002-07:00

Cruising around last year in rural Colorado I found this rusty old train car sitting on an old rail line. I walked around it a few times, pondering it's history and looking for photos.

Photoshop Practice

2008-11-05T04:54:00.014-07:00

Practicing the computer side of things is probably as important as practicing the photography part. My proficiency with Photoshop is something that needs improving and I have recently come into the possession of a Scott Kelby book that has me learning some new techniques while reinforcing some old ones. Mostly I am just trying to learn the quick keys and to commit some things to memory so that I don't have to figure it out every time I need it.

This is a shot from a coal mine in Colorado. There is nothing here to give you a sense of scale but this chain is huge... and it really is purple.

I just made a duplicate layer and messed with the hue until everything looked yellow. Then I added a layer mask and used the brush to add and remove desired parts of each layer. Not from the Scott Kelby book exactly but inspired by it certainly.

Last of the Tomatoes

2008-11-04T20:30:00.005-07:00

This was yummy! The last of my tomatoes from this season, picked green and ripened wrapped in newspaper. Early Girl and Yellow Tomatoes with some cucumber, avocado, cheddar cheese, fresh oregano, garlic and pepper.

SB28 strobe bounced into kitchen wall. Nikon D70s/50mm 1.8

Pick & Pic On A Stick

2008-11-02T06:12:00.012-07:00

One of my clients is a maker of custom homes and commercial properties. These are the kind of homes you would see on an episode of MTV's Cribs, with home theaters, outdoor living spaces, mega bathrooms and closets you could park a car in. $2.3 million may not seem like much when compared to the cost of some of those MTV homes, but in the Denver area it goes a long way toward making some of the celebrities look like they are coming up short on square footage.

And the home builder needs images to make a sale.

Not Architectural Digest images, these places are mostly empty when I photograph them and often they are still under construction. Mostly I just move around from room to room with the camera on a tripod. I pick the composition, get a quick grab-shot and look it over to decide what solutions I have for issues.

Color temp is usually my first consideration. Is there a bunch of daylight coming in through big windows? Is the tungsten lighting adequate? Is there some dark corner of the room that needs a pop of light? Around 80% of the time I can just "let it go", leave any minor adjustment for post production and trust in my Whibal to clean up the color.

Truth be told, almost any photograph of an interior space can be improved with a little creative lighting, but this is the trenches, time is short and there are still 8 more rooms to shoot here and 2 other properties on the other side of town. Move out!

Enter the speedlight (its' in the name). For me it is Nikon SB 28s and Pocket Wizards. Setting up 2 of them before I start moving around the house is common practice. I use Justin Clamps or lay the strobe right on the floor or a shelf, I have stands if I need them but they slow things down and are difficult to hide. My camera is on self-timer because of exposures that are usually over 1 second, this leaves me free to hold and point a light during the exposure. I also carry small gels that attach to my strobes with velcro, I can shift the color temperature on the camera and make fast conversions between color balance options.

This week the client sent me back to homes I had photographed during their construction. Now lived in and furnished, it was time for some shots for the clients website.

"Let it go"... no strobes. No window treatment makes for lots of daylight

There is a strobe upper right

Dimmers on lights can be a big help.

A very yellow room

This is all really basic stuff. Given the time and the budget these interiors could look much nicer, but for the client they exceed expectations.

Grids for Small Strobes

2008-10-28T11:04:00.020-06:00

With a new set of Pocket Wizards in my toolbox and a good start on a small strobe collection of Nikon SB28s' , I decided to scavenge for materials and make myself some homemade modifiers. Aside from the obvious money savings that comes from making your own gadgets, my favorite advantage is that of being able to create something that is lightweight, compact, and durable. The resulting grids were born from a fairly sloppy process of cardboard cutting and hot-gluing but I am very happy with the final product.

The cylinders are cardboard as is the corrugation.

As long as you have velcro on your flash, all of your

modifiers can be made to fit right on it.

I put velcro on my gels too for a quick conversion of

color temp, neutral density or diffusion.

This was my first design and it was made using pieces of black tubing. It is heavier than I would like, too much rubber and gaffers tape, but the light quality seems very nice.

My nephew stood in for me

while I tried a few test shots.

Here are results from some testing with the 2 grids pictured at the top. On one of them, I made the corrugation 1.5 inches deep, and the other 3/4 inches deep.

This test shot is from the 3/4 inch grid

...and the 1.5 inch with the flash

in the same spot.

I am working on some snoots now, stay tuned for results.

Firehouse Portrait

2008-09-28T18:59:00.004-06:00

So my long time friend has been a Firefighter with Denver for several years and I have been asking him to let me come to the firehouse and do some portraits of the guys for quite some time. He finally agreed and I was surprised that most of them were resistant to the idea of having a nice portrait of themselves. I only had a limited time with him as their day was busy with calls but I think this shot came out fairly nice. I prefer the version without the background light as the incidence off the stainless steel is just too bright. Two SB800s was all I used, both fired with Pocket Wizards. The main light was bounced into a large wall for a nice big soft source. The 2nd strobe was pointed directly at the equipment in the background with a full CTO and a small foam flag to keep it from contaminating the rest of the shot. All I brought was 3 SBs, 2 stands, a Flexfill, and a Justin Clamp.... a small case of equipment to keep the creativity the main focus.

Great Workshop

2008-08-24T08:06:00.016-06:00

We just had another very fun day with the "Small Strobes, Big Results " workshop here in Denver. If you are a professional photographer or an amateur looking to lighten your load and improve your photos using small strobes, this workshop is perfect for you. We did multiple set-ups with two different subjects and got some great results using nothing more than small Nikon strobes, a few pocket wizards, and a Q-Flash.

Colin Cheadle- Actor

What's Hot

2008-08-19T15:53:00.007-06:00

Sometimes a simple object can inspire a shot. As photographers many of us have an object that we have been eyeing, we pass it everyday or we see it sitting on our basement shelf, waiting for the moment when inspiration hits and the idea becomes solid. For me that object at one time was this big piece of coal.

While on assignment at a large coal mine in Wyoming with David Tejada, we spirited away this big chunk of coal with the idea of doing a still shot for the client. The client ended up with a collection of beautiful photos from our visit to the mine and a still shot of the coal never came to fruition.

So the coal sat on a shelf in the studio, big as a football, and it sat. For nearly 2 years I would see it as we loaded gear for location or while shooting product stills for clients. Ideas would briefly bounce around in my head about how to shoot it, and the more we encountered it in uncontrollable situations, the more I wanted to shoot it in the studio as a "stand alone object", just a piece of coal as a canvas for light.

The growing controversy over this resource makes it a great subject for a marketable power shot... no pun intended, and with it's obvious two sided nature it made sense to show a dark side and a light side.

The inspiration was made final when I got the idea to shoot it on my old stand-by sheet of brushed steel, using incident light to surround the coal with a glow.

Before I even set the coal on the steel, I set-up my incident light, a medium soft-box with a bunch of CTOs and some Golden Amber gels at the back of the set. Once I had total coverage on the surface from the reflection of the soft-box, I set the coal in and hit it with a single gridded light. My Nikon D70s with my 35-70/2.8 @ F22 finished the job. The rest is pixels.

Shoot Yourself

2008-08-12T07:41:00.002-06:00

Hand-held D70s with 16mm/2.8.

Self-portraits are a great way to "feel the light".

Today's Pic

2008-08-06T22:44:00.002-06:00

D70s- 300mm/2.8 with doubler.

Point and Shoot Backpacking

2008-08-03T11:36:00.022-06:00

Just returned home from a backpacking trip in the beautiful Rocky Mountains of Colorado. The hike in was only 3.7 miles thanks to a ride from a park ranger we befriended last year, but the elevation gain was nearly 2,300ft. in that short distance. I wanted to pack light so the pro camera gear just wasn't practical, and as I found out, not necessary for nice pics.
At one point I had planned on bringing a monopod with a ball head quarter 20 but in my quest for a lighter pack, decided against it. In the end, I brought a small point and shoot Cannon with 2 spare batteries and a handful of SD cards...... thats it! Lightweight and easy to operate, cheap compared to my pro gear, super reliable and the added bonus of being able to shoot some video.

We set camp at around 10,500 feet next to a lake that will remain unnamed. We spent 3 days catching some of the largest native Greenback Cutthroat trout in Colorado. Our largest fish was 22+ inches, the average was around 18 inches or so. After three full days of fishing, the three of us landed around 50 trout total, all on dry flies and nymphs. Our philosophy here is "catch and release" despite a 2 fish keeper limit. We bring the fish in, admire it's beauty, take a quick picture and then its' back in the water... "catchya next year"!

Having such a small and simple camera was very liberating, I enjoyed walking around taking pictures and shooting video almost as much as the fishing. My "wish I could" moment came at night when the tents were lit up from within and the stars were shining and reflecting in the glass-like lake. I had no tripod and the camera didn't have enough manual controls to make long exposures for light-painting. The disappointment at my lack of capable equipment was such that I will be bringing the extra weight next time. Our spot on the lake is amazing at night and on our next trip I am going to get a killer night-shot. Maybe I will leave the tent and food at home, sleep in a cave and eat trout sushi... no, I need the tent for the shot,........ darn.

This is a photo I did last year at my campsite on McLure Pass. I used a tripod, 30 second exposure on my D70s, a strobe in the tent, pocket wizards, and a big Maglite to light-paint the trees.

Its' Wabbit Season!

2008-06-08T18:51:00.014-06:00

The critters are coming out of their hiding places and I have taken some recent opportunities to shoot some wildlife in the not so wild. This bunny lives just outside my front door and was the subject of a recent practice session with my 300mm 2.8 manual lens. It is an old beautiful piece of glass, fast and sharp with fantastic bokeh. I bought it used from a professional for $275.00. David Tejada has been using his for most of his career and I have long loved many shots captured with it, so when the deal came up I jumped on it.

Last week while house sitting I was able to sneak up on one of the very skidish frogs that live in David's pond. I caught this guy with the 80-400mm on my D70s....... he eats birds!

While in Wyoming this week working on an oil pipeline project, David and I came across this nice little wetlands on the bank of the North Platte River. These guys were flying all over in the cattails and once again I was doing it old school style with the 300/ 2.8 and a doubler, making the effective focal length somewhere around 900mm.

Headlamps and Maps

2008-06-08T17:18:00.007-06:00

I met with the client over lunch a few weeks ago. He brought with him the items for the shoot, a custom painted hardhat, a standard headlamp with battery, a headlamp and battery with their state of the art tagging system, and a couple of maps to use as backgrounds. The tagging system is a small device that is is integrated onto the battery pack, it is like a sophisticated avalanche beacon that tracks underground miners and relays their whereabouts to a central system. In the wake of some recent mining disasters this technology has made a push and Koehler appears to be leading the way with this new system.
I spent a full day in the studio jammin' tunes and creating a few shots that I could email my contact for feedback.
We discussed a few minor changes, the name on the helmet was set back too far to be readable with the helmet set at it's most aesthetic angle. To see the headlamp meant you couldn't read the full name but neither of us thought it was a big deal. He loved the test shots so the next day I finished up with the finals.

Gifts From Underground

2008-05-05T14:29:00.005-06:00

We recently traveled to St. Louis and from there over into Illinois where we shot a really cool job in a coal mine. We have been in several coal mines before but this time we had an opportunity to concentrate on a new subject matter...... headlamps, gloves, and hand-held lighting devices made specifically for mining and other heavy industries. The images will be used for large display booths at trade shows so it was important, as always, to get strong photos that really showed the product in action. Among many challenges on this shoot besides a dark dirty environment, was the "limited time" factor that as professionals we encounter with nearly every job. There were also no power outlets and therefore we were using only battery operated strobes. David had some clear ideas of how he wanted to approach a couple of the shots long before we left Denver and with good planning things went smooth and the client was happy. David has posted a video of our underground adventure as well as some of the resulting photos.
The client brought a number of great examples of their products and at the end of the day offered us each a super sweet shock resistant water-submersible hand held superlight to call our own. Upon receiving this gracious gift I decided at once to do a cool studio shot of the lights for my portfolio. I was fairly happy with the results although I found it difficult to show the brightness of the light or shape of the beam due to flare. I emailed an example to David to show him how I spent my time in his studio while I house-sat for him and his family during their cruise in March. David, in his endless generousness, forwarded the image to the client and bestower of the lights, who in turn has decided that he would like me to do some studio work for them. Thanks David!

Around The Room/Over The Rig

2008-03-04T18:00:00.007-07:00

We have recently returned from Utah, where, with great fortune we found a break in poor weather to complete our assignment, arial shots of 2 oil rigs in the Vernal area. We had 1 day to scout and mark the GPS location of the rigs, and the following morning to get the shots from helicopter. It was a bit of a nail biter on the timing of the weather but in the end it worked out great and we really got some beautiful photos.

During one of the long evenings between dinner and sleep, I decided to mess around with seeing what kind of shots I could come up with using the lights of my hotel room. The lamp beside the bed had a rather large shade and a tungsten balanced CF bulb (the corkscrew kind ), and the windows were covered with some nice plantation shutters.

Setting the camera to tungsten white balance makes the outside light go icy blue while mostly neutralizing the warmth of the incandescent bulb. If you are shooting with strobe and you want the same effect, put a full CTO on the light and set the camera to incandescent. Another trick is to go warmer with the main light, then in post-production, as you cool the whole scene to neutralize the warmth, the window light gets even bluer.

This was shot with my Nikon D70s and a 16mm 2.8 fisheye, hand held at around 1/15 or 1/8 wide open at ISO 200.

The other light I decided to mess with was the whole reason I started this in the first place. My bathroom had one of those funky red heat lamps in the ceiling and a huge frosted glass window, another mixed light situation. With the camera still set on tungsten this was the result. The shadows are super blue and the red heat lamp mostly looks pink or lavender....... not very pretty.

So with the snow falling outside and the prospect of a wasted trip due to weather, my nervous energy produced one blurry portrait and an ugly toilet shot...... (I can hear you laughing about which is which).

The snow stopped sometime that night but our pilot was delayed in Park City due to fog, he said he just needed a brief hole in the sky to get above the stuff. At 07:15 we got a text from him saying he was airborne and on his way, a text while flying a helicopter, I love it.

Shortly after 8am we were flying and on our way to the rig coordinates, again nervous because of clinging fog that threatened to hide our rigs and hinder our ability to get the shot. We were flying high in the sunshine but below were patches of thick white fog. When our rigs came into view they were in sunlight, and a fresh blanket of snow covered the ground as far as we could see. Heater on, windows open, camera out, click, click, click. What a beautiful morning! Here is the video.

Thick fog below

Clear at the rig site

Voice Activated Light Stand

2008-02-06T15:55:00.000-07:00

EJL2008 V.A.L.S.

Home from San Jose, that means we are finished with the construction shots of highways and byways.

This last part of the job was a project at the San Jose airport. We spent most of our time there watching the "pile driver" pound concrete supports 50 feet into the ground... man it is super loud. The sun was hiding behind overcast so we used flash (Nikon SB800's) and high-speed sync to get some different looking pictures of the guys working the driver and the pylons.

When we are in an environment like this our philosophy is "lightweight and mobile". On this project we opted for one of the oldest tools in the bag-o-tricks, the voice activated light stand or V.A.L.S. . That means me with a flash in hand, moving with the workers as David shoots away. The flash in this case was fired using the Nikon command unit that is perched in the hot shoe of the D300. This was our best option for such a loud environment as it gave David the ability to control flash settings without having to call out to me, it also means he can use the camera's TTL function. The down side is that I have to be sure the infra red eye is facing the camera and not being blocked by my hand or a finger, and the effective working range is only about 60 feet.

The EJL2008 light stand at work

Nice light on a gray day

These concrete supports are pounded into the ground without a pilot hole, just like hitting a nail with a hammer. It is awesomely loud and it shakes the ground with every hit. Because we are wearing earplugs, the voice activation function of the EJL2008 was temporarily disabled. Luckily it is equipped with, among many fine features, a hand gesture back-up communication system that has come in handy many a time.

David signaled that he wanted the light lower.

The rusult

Thats me on the right side of the frame....

....and here it is.

Any photographer with self-respect should carry a multi-function V.A.L.S. wherever possible. Beside being a great place to clamp a light it will also watch your back and carry your bags.

We have some underground coal mine work in Illinois coming up in March, a setting we have worked in before several times and one that is perhaps the most challenging in heavy industry shooting. We have been talking about how we are going to approach shooting several ad-type shots featuring helmet mounted headlamps and we are going to have just a couple of hours underground to pull it off. It should be fun.

Crazy Busy

2008-02-02T08:22:00.001-07:00

Sometime back in early November David and I started this whirlwind tour of the country for a construction company's annual report and except for a brief breather around the holidays we have been on the move almost every week.

November 4th, we started with a flight to Portland followed by an awesome drive along the Columbia River, through the Columbia Gorge, and North to Yakima where we photographed an asphalt plant. Video

From there it was off to Salt Lake City for some nice shots of the I-15 highway construction project.

Home... Denver.

Then I think it went Salinas, Gonzales, Carmel, Monterey, San Francisco....California, all super beautiful places. Video

Home for the Holidays. Happy New Year everyone!!! I am here to say I must be going.

Back to Cali.. San Bernardo via San Diego to shoot the destruction of last year's fires. We had a full-day of noodlin' around San Diego just for kicks.

Back in Denver and shooting on a Saturday, fashion stuff, studio glamour, Brazil-et ribbon bracelets from Brazil. Video

Tuesday, January 22, it was back on the move to Key Largo, Florida. This turned out to be a travel day planned by some evil force determined to suck every ounce of our energy by days end.

We hadn't even left the gate when the pilot started with the bad news.

Pilot: " Good morning folks, on our final check we found something we want the mechanics to take a look at. We will let you know what is happening here shortly"

We were already 10 minutes past scheduled departure.

30 minutes pass before another update, "...we are trying to make repairs". 45 minutes later and we get the news we knew was coming.

Pilot: " Ladies and gentlemen from the flight deck this is your captain speaking. Unfortunately blah blah blah. Please get off the plane and go to baggage claim for your bags, return to a ticket agent and book a new flight to Miami. Blah blah blah...thanks again... blah blah A... Airlines".

Yeah, thanks for letting us sit your airline!

I go for the bags and David heads for a sure-to-be-long ticket agent line. We stay in touch with cell phones. I meet him with the bags and we have tickets in hand. If we want to get there tonight we have taken the only option.

2 Hours Later we are sitting first-class on a flight to Chicago.

We never intended to see Chicago that day.

We have a 6:30pm Chicago to Miami flight that departs an hour late.

Midnight we are in our rental car taking directions from Tom Tom and ordering Taco Bell at a drive-thru south of Miami.

2:30am and I am walking into my hotel room in Key Largo. 3am, I don't even care that there is a spring from the bed jabbing me in the back... lights out.

What time is sunrise?????

The 23rd-We've lost valuable time, we have to make up for a half-day of shooting and a missed sunset. We shoot all day Wednesday and well into the night. Real footwork, we move up and down the project shooting any interesting activity we can find. This location in the Keys is a great setting and David is shooting some cool stuff. There is an Egret perched on a crane barge and a pool of light has found some workers high on a bridge support....click, click, and the draw bridge is rising...click, click...awesome! During a brief pounding rain we take semi-shelter under a bridge and continue to shoot a guy in a dive suit, half submerged and using a cutting torch on a pylon casing.... the water is on fire. I love this stuff!

Later that night it was hot and humid even at 11pm, the camera was sweating, the lenses were fogging, we were shooting night construction, using Nikon SB800(s) and Pocket Wizards to light an 80 ft. I-beam as it is hoisted in place by 2 huge cranes. The work lights were killing our shots with brutal flare and the one lane of traffic that construction was allowing through was whizzing by just inches away. There is only one road from Miami to Key West and this is it, the famous Overseas Highway. We found a quick solution for the flare by placing me in the shot posed as a worker speaking into a walkie talkie. We are exhausted but wide-eyed and charged by the challenge, we are getting some of our best shots. Another 18+ hour day done and we got some killer pics out of a tough situation.

Sunrise was shrouded in complete fog. Off to Key West for some fun. Spent the mostly foggy day walking Duval Street and Key West side streets,cameras slung and clicking away, me with the D2X and David with his newly converted D70 shooting infrared....super sweet! After an awesome Cuban sandwich we hopped in the rental and drove the Keys, rockin' the tunes and making pics. The sun eventually burned a hole through the overcast and we saw some nice light at sunset.

On Friday we drove back to Miami and spent the day shooting around South Beach. We had lunch at Johnny Rockets at 8th and Ocean where we sat and watched the models walk in and out of the famous Irene Marie Model Agency. Drove around Star Island (a rare treat) where Shaq and Gloria Estefan and about 10 others live or have lived. Miami Airport was no fun, 3rd worldly, but our late evening flight home Friday the 25th was on time and uneventful.

Home sweet home..

Tuesday the 29th it was off to St. Louis for another highway construction project.

The short flight was defined by the worst turbulence I have ever experienced. Even David was impressed with the pitch and roll, the sudden bounce, drop, fall, climb. Fun enough I guess when you consider some guys fly planes through hurricanes. When we left DIA it was 71 degrees in St. Louis, when we landed it was 50 something. By the end of the day the region had a more than 70 degree temperature change.

At 06:15am Wednesday and before sunrise we found ourselves at Dennys. Our server explained to us that Dennys is not somewhere you go, it is a place you end up. The cold of morning was wicked and we were prepared with gloves, knit caps, balaclavas, thermals and heavy coats, all the usual safety gear and bellies full of warm coffee. We met our contact and got the tour of the project (I-64), grabbing a few shots along our first pass while the light was still low and warm.

The bitter cold (wind chill below zero) caused a malfunction with David's newest camera, his D300. What up with that??? The D2x worked just fine. The D300 still didn't work right after things warmed up and I am thinking back to the sweaty camera in Key Largo. Well we managed to overcome the cold and the equipment failures to create some more great pics for the client. We shot until sunset and then headed out for a much deserved riblet platter. We met outside our rooms at 4am so we could return our rental car and check in at the airport for our 6am flight. I was home and in bed by 10:30am Thursday morning.... can I get a sleep #32 please?

Next stop San Jose.