So You Think You Can Dance

A family friend teaches ballet at a local community center. After seeing some of my recent work, she asked if I would shoot portraits of her students as part of their spring recital activities. Of course I agreed - especially since it seemed like a perfect excuse and opportunity to acquire some new gear.

I wanted more power, faster recycle times, and a larger light surface than I could get with my little speedlight flashes. So for this event I invested in a Paul C. Buff Alien Bee AB800 flash head, their 47" Octabox, which is an 8-sided octagonal shaped softbox, and a nice, neutral gray tie-dyed backdrop and stand.

The setup used four lights. The big AB800/Octabox combination was 45 degrees to camera left for the key light. Front fill was provided by a Canon 430EX II speedlight fired into a 4x6 foot white styrofoam panel just out of view to camera right. Another Canon flash fired into a silver reflective umbrella from the rear right provided the edge/rim illumination. And finally, a 3rd speedlight with a Honl speed grid lit the backdrop.



I shot the first group of 20 students on one evening, and the second group of 20 a couple nights later. They ranged from age 3 all the way up to the late teens.

The first night was a real lesson in humility and learning to shoot under any circumstances. We were shooting in the community center basketball gym. But I arrived at 2:30 in the afternoon on a very hot day to a facility with no air conditioning. The temperature inside was easily in the mid-90s. By the time I spent an hour getting all set up, I was a soaking, sopping mess. I had sweat running down my head and face in buckets and my clothes looked as if I'd been doused with a fire hose.

It wasn't a very professional image to present to the moms and kids when they came in but we had to press ahead and get the shots. Next time I'll think ahead to such circumstances and be sure to at least have a towel and fresh shirt handy to change into before the client sees me.

Blessedly, the second night's shooting was done in a nice, air conditioned ball room.
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Loving The Light

I had commented earlier on taking advantage of an overcast sky to turn it into a giant softbox. The gist of the post was that I was becoming somewhat consumed with the pursuit of flash lighting equipment and techniques and I needed to refocus on some of the fundamentals of natural light.

I had to have that lesson reinforced again this weekend when I discovered that I had lost my remote flash trigger, a small but absolutely indispensable piece of gear for shooting photos with off-camera flash. It is a small radio transmitter that sits in the camera's hot shoe where a flash would usually be attached and sends a firing signal to a receiver that is attached to a remote flash unit several feet, or even several yards away on a light stand.

Consequently, I was forced to spend the weekend with my grandson looking for natural light shooting opportunities. This one presented itself when we pulled up into the driveway of my son's in-laws with little Hudson in tow. They have a beautiful yard, full of greenery and trees. The sun was about 1 hour from settings and the interplay of light and shade immediately caught my eye as we got out of the vehicle.



After visiting for a few minutes, I sat Hudson in this pretty little shady spot with some sun-lit backdrop and a bit of backlight coming through the overhead trees. My intent was to get some close up head and shoulder shots of him, but their family dog Daisy decided she wanted to be included in the shoot.

And who can resist a cute baby with a dog?
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Silence and Solitude

I've visited the Jessie Rogers Memorial Cemetery on a couple of occasions, exploring the photographic potential. There are actually several possibilities here for some nice location/outdoor portraits. I went back today with my light gear, intending to shoot some self-portraits to test out some of the various shooting angles and lighting possibilities.

But I discovered that shooting self-portraits outdoors on a humid Florida day isn't very much fun. After running back and forth to the camera a few times, I was a sweat-soaked, dripping mess.

Fortunately, this beautiful marble sculpture was nearby and sitting in just the perfect spot for some great interplay of ambient and strobe light.

It was an overcast day and the sky above and behind the statue was fairly wide open, with the cloud-shrouded sun providing a very subtle glow to the top and back. Immediately behind my back at the shooting position was a high brick wall, behind which were some fairly thick woods. So the front of the statue was in shadow with a normally exposed background ambient. Knocking the ambient down another stop or so put the sculpture face in to an even darker shadow.

I then brought the exposure of the sculpture face up by placing a speedlight in a 28" Westcott Apollo softbox and set it directly on the ground about 3 feet from the sculpture to camera left.
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