Shooting In The Kitchen

I'm fortunate to have a home which allows a clear unobstructed view of 50 feet. I use this open space to shoot portraits for clients that want an office like environment when they have none.  Perhaps they work out of their home or they just don't have type of environment suited to their needs.

Let's take a look at the set up of the lights and the general setting.  

You can see that I used two lights for this set up.  I shot thur the open doorway, you can see the tripod by the piano. This is a classic bounce technique, the main or key light is on a light stand next to the refrigerator. I have a foam flag on the flash which prevents RAW light from striking the subject. When doing a proper bounce technique, the only light reaching your subject should come only from the bounce surface.  Here is what the bounce looks like.

You will also notice the flash ion the left, this is my rim or separation light.  This flash is fitted with a grid to only strike the subjects hair and shoulder. Below is a photo showing the view from my shooting position.

Here is what one of the final images look like.  

SSBR Austrian Tour

If you read German, here it is.  DT

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.