I've always enjoyed a good cigar. You know, I was never able to get this one lit. You see, I was using a small strobe hidden in my hand to simulate the lighting of this cigar.
I bought a small strobe from a garage sale about 15 years ago for about 5 bucks and hacked it. I removed the small flash tube from the casing of the strobe and extended it with about 20 inches of wire, sort of a strobe on a rope.
By placing this small flash tube in my hand and hiding the wire, I am able to produce images like the one here.
This really is a cheap strobe, ever heard of a focal M200? You see these types of strobes at garage sales and second hand stores everywhere. For a few buck, it's worth hacking your own and exploring way of using it. Lighting a cigar seemed a logical use, I'm sure you can find others as well.
Attached to the bottom of the flash is a photo slave I had laying around the studio. We used another strobe in the room to fire this one.
You can see here how small the flash tube is, I still needed to knock back the out put using tissue paper over the flash tube.
I have some very exciting news to share with the readers of my blog. I have been asked by Reid Callanan, Director of the Santa Fe Photographic Workshops to teach a location lighting class this coming winter.
I'm really excited to have this opportunity to share my 25 years of location light experience with the students who sign up for my class. My workshop is titled Small Strobes, Big Results and is scheduled for March 29th - April 4, 2009.
The workshop will be an intense week of hands on shooting, lectures and demonstrations by yours truly! There are wonderful locations to shoot in and around Santa Fe, we'll be going on location to practice our lighting skills.
If you haven't been to a Santa Fe Workshop before, it will be one of the most memorable experiences ever. I attended my first workshop at Santa Fe back in 1993 and most recently this past winter. I'm still talking about that first workshop experience today. Honestly, you spend a week doing what you love and you do so with others that enjoy the same. I have met some very wonderful friends at the workshops and I know you will to.
If you are a fan of Strobist, I know you'll have a wonderful time in my workshop. We'll be discussing lighting of all aspects, using our speedlights and other battery strobes. If you feel comfortable using your camera and less so your flash, and would like to master portable lights, this workshop is for you.
Participants of this workshop will learn to how to effectively control the light quality, direction, and shape from their small strobes. You’ll learn how to use soft boxes, grids, snoots, reflectors, colored gels and bounce techniques. You’ll learn how to select which techniques are best suited to a particular subject and scene. I'll also be discussing grip equipment for proper rigging, packing and preparing for location assignments.
Our mornings will be devoted to lectures, demonstrations and critiques; the remainder of the day will be spent practicing lighting techniques on campus and on location in and around Santa Fe. By weeks end, participants will have gain confidence in their lighting skills and a strong foundation for developing their own lighting techniques and style.
I hope your interested in coming to my workshop and I look forward to meeting all those who attend. Am not certain when registration begins for this workshop, you might want to contact The Santa Fe Photographic Workshops for more information about that.
My wife Debbie, is a graphic designer and web site developer. She has just recently finished a web site for The Edwards Foundation For Rescued Animals located in Colorado. The foundation is run by a retired couple who takes in animals like horses, goats, llamas and even Zebus!
There animals come from various sources: families that can't keep their pets, the forestry service, and the Denver Zoo. These folks finance the care for all these animals out of their own pockets and rely on donations to help keep the animals happy and healthy. All donated money goes strictly to the care and feeding of the animals.
I've personally been out to Linda & Johns spread, they are doing a wonderful job caring for these animals. You can read all about The Edwards Foundation For Rescued Animals by following the link provided. As I mentioned above, Linda & John are retired and are absorbing the cost to care for these animals themselves. Take a look at what it cost on a monthly bases to care for these wonderful animals. There is a safe Paypal button to donate, if you can spare a few bucks that would be wonderful.
I've never used this blog to solicit funds before, I admire the devotion and hard work that Linda & John are doing and I know that they could use a little help. Thanks. DT
Last month I was on assignment for an energy client of mine, I was sent to Utah to shoot some helicopter aerials of 2 drilling rigs. These rigs where drilling in the Greater Natural Buttes near Vernal, UT. drilling almost side by side.
My client thought that the close proximity of the two rigs as well as the natural beauty of the setting, would allow for some beauty images. It's unusual to see two larger rigs drilling so close to one another, I had never seen two rig of their size so close together before.
Erik and I drove out to Vernal from Denver, as a flight to Salt Lake and than driving 2 1/2 hours to Vernal would be about the same amount of time either way. Besides, I enjoy driving and the opportunity to shoot along the way is always inviting.
We spent the night in Vernal, awoke the next morning to meet up with our escort to drive out to the rigs. We went out to the rigs to get some ground shots as well as getting a fix location on my Tom Tom navigation devise for the helicopter pilot for the next days aerials. There are lots of rigs drilling in the Natural Buttes area and locating our rigs from the air would have proven difficult without the proper longitude & latitude coordinates.
Prior to arriving in Vernal for this assignment, I made arrangements with a helicopter service out of Park City, UT for our aerial photos. I make it a company policy that helicopter charges are bill directly to the client, these are expense I do not want to carry for my clients. The hourly rate on this helicopter runs about $900.00, not the type of expense I want to carry for 30 days.
On the day of the aerials, I received a phone call from the pilot in Park City, UT stating that he was fogged in and that he would be around 30 minutes late. The weather in Vernal was clear and cool, not a cloud in sight. Erik and I left the hotel, grabbed a couple of large coffees and headed to the FBO at the Vernal airport to wait for the helicopter.
The helicopter arrived about 40 minutes late, we loaded quickly and headed out to the rigs. I provide the pilot with the coordinates obtained the previous day at the rigs and he plugged them into his NAV system. We had about a 20 minute flight to the rigs, driving time the previous day took 2 1/2 hours due to the muddy & winding dirt roads.
As we left the ground and started heading south of Vernal it was clear and beautiful. As we gained altitude we could see low clouds (fog) hugging the ground further south of our location. As we continued flying, I was growing more concerned about the weather ahead. The pilot continually called out the distance to the rig and I keep trying to guesstimate if we where going to fly out of the foggy area below us. The fog was patchy and it was my hope that we would find our rigs in the clear. The photo at the top of the page indicates that we did.
My client also had a processing plant they hoped to get aerials of while out shooting the rigs. This photo will give you a good idea of the type of fog issues we where dealing with while flying out to the rigs.
Here is a short video from our shoot in Vernal. I hope you enjoy it. DT
This really is a cheap strobe, ever heard of a focal M200? You see these types of strobes at garage sales and second hand stores everywhere. For a few buck, it's worth hacking your own and exploring way of using it. Lighting a cigar seemed a logical use, I'm sure you can find others as well.
Attached to the bottom of the flash is a photo slave I had laying around the studio. We used another strobe in the room to fire this one.
You can see here how small the flash tube is, I still needed to knock back the out put using tissue paper over the flash tube.
