Posts Tagged ‘lighting’

High-Output Beauty Dish

High-Output Beauty Dish

Here are a few MadMen inspired shots of my friend Jim. Though I'd never seen Jim smoke a cigar before, this is how I always picture him in my head - a bit of daring, with a dash of dashing. Jim has a long resume that is full of acronyms like CEO and MBA. I don't know what any of those mean but I do know that Jim is a nice guy and a good friend. Lyn and I set up a little photoshoot last week to test out the newly arrived backdrop (ordered it here: neutral gray), and the new high-output beauty dish. The lighting setup for these shots was pretty simple: beauty dish ...

February 9th, 2010 | 2 Comments | Trackback | Tags: , ,

On-axis Fill

On-axis Fill

Had a little free time last week so I pulled together an impromptu shoot with some friends. This was an experiment to test out some lighting setups with on-axis fill. On-axis light is light that is on the same axis as your camera lens; e.g. your on-camera flash. This kind of light illuminates everything very evenly, creating a flat, and generally unflattering image. It's akin to xeroxing your subject. The idea here is to create shadow and depth with some off-axis lighting and then let the on-axis ring flash (AB800R) act as a fill and lift those shadows out of the dark. Daniel (pictured) mapped out the the setups on his nifty Strobox ...

January 11th, 2010 | 4 Comments | Trackback | Tags: ,

Fashionistas

Fashionistas

My wife is slowly teaching me what it means to be well dressed. Thus far I've learned: shoes and belt color should match, and denim does not go with MORE denim. During this little impromptu photo session with Lyn (wife) and Kallie (friend), I also learned that with you can never have too many layers. This is true in Photoshop, too. I'm all about the layers. I usually make a new layer for every step in the edit. Healing brush, dodge and burn, sharpening, curves - each major step lives on its own layer. And I always keep the original layer in the stack, too. That way I can go back if ...

January 4th, 2010 | 3 Comments | Trackback | Tags: , ,

Twiggy?

Twiggy?

Lyn got her makeup done did by the lovely Michelle. Going for the Twiggy look here. I’d say it’s pretty close. This was shot with a small camera flash modified with a shoot through umbrella. The umbrella is choked up a bit to create a harder light and thus harder shadows. It’s really amazing how versitle one flash can be. ...

March 4th, 2009 | Comment | Trackback | Tags: ,