Executive Portrait

I was shooting for a long time client the other day, they needed 6 or 7 environmental portraits of management, 8 Directors portraits as well as a group shot of those directors.  I arrived on location at 6:30am and began setting up 3 different locations in there office.  For the managment photos, I used a very long hallway as the background and for the directors I used a pop up background made by Botero.

The lighting for the portrait above, this is the CEO and all the other directors were photographed here.  I shot with a 70-200mm VRII Nikon lens, and the lighting goes as follows; The main is a beauty dish with a single SB-800 in it, and the rim lights on either side are SB-800's with a Rouge grid and a full CTO gel fixed on each.  The gels are what give the warm tone on the rim lights.  Here is a graphic to show you the set up.

SSBR Austrian Tour

This October I'll be traveling to Austria for a few SSBR workshops.  My friend and partner Eric Krugl is handling all the details regarding the workshops.  This year I'll be in Linz, Salsburg, Innsbruck, Dornbirn, Vienna and Graz. For more information and registration contact Eric at office@kruegl.at

New Orleans Speedlight Workshop

Mark your calendar, wait! Register right now and then mark your calendar!   These workshops sell out very fast so don't delay.  I'll be joining my friend and fellow mentor Dave Black on this fun workshop.  For more information visit the Mentor Series website.

Chickens in the Studio

Today I took my chickens into the studio for a few pictures.  I wanted a clean white set up and a nice reflection under them.  I used tile board for the surface the chickens are standing on, the white seamless reflects perfectly on the surface.  Here are a few set up photos to show you how I put this together.  You will notice that I placed some black panels to help minimize the possible flare from lighting a white background.

I used a beauty dish to light the chickens, the dish also had a sock over the face of it to soften the light a bit.

 The chicken show above is only a stand in.  My wife once made diapers for chickens she sold at a county fair, Crazy! The next photos show the lighting of the background, one SB-800 on either side to light it evenly.

AE/AF Lock Button Shortcut to Commander Mode

I recently shot this quick tip on how to program your Nikon D800/D700/D7000 camera to bring up the commander mode with a click of one button.  Instead of digging deep into the menu, I simply reprogrammed my AE/AF lock button on the D800/D700 & the FN button on the D7000 so that the commander modual comes up on my LCD screen.  I hope you find this video useful.  

Cuba in December!

I am very excited to let you know I will have the unique opportunity to lead a group of photographers to Cuba from December 11-18, 2013 with the Santa Fe Photographic Workshops (who have a people-to-people license from U.S. Treasury to take groups legally to Cuba).  This will be a rich cross-cultural experience whose main focus is to discover and engage with the people and culture of Cuba with Cuban photographers as our guides.  This will not be a photo workshop, so there won't be organized classroom sessions or group critiques, but we will spend our time together in Cuba meeting people from all walks of life and photographing them and their surroundings.  I will be available for one-on-one sessions in the evenings to review your images and also will be happy to offer my photographic advice and give lighting demos as we travel around Havana photographing together.

 The base trip cost is $3,995, but expect to pay closer to $5000 when all is said-and-done with the additional costs of airfare to Cuba, airfare and hotel rooms in Miami, and the extra meals and mojitos, etc..

 I am thrilled to be visiting Cuba before it changes forever and I hope you will join me for this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.  Please let me know if you are interested in going to Cuba with me in December and I will forward full details soon.