"Bob, can you photoshoot my car?" I say, "Why not!??!!"

Yesterday was yet another monthly meet up with a car club im part of in Fremont's Wingstop restaraunt located in the Pacific Commons. It’s a large flat shopping area that has many major super stores like Wal-Mart, Costco, or Best Buy. This means there is huge parking areas to use as a background! A friend of mine wanted pictures of his car for the longest time but never had the opportunity. I decided to do what I can for him and produce a memorable image that is worth keeping.

The way I had this car set up was having it parked at an angle on the car parking spaces. This gives an odd look to the photograph because I believe that angle catches your eye rather than it be parked normally in parallel to the lines that we are all accustomed to. Around the parking lot are large towering lamp posts with lights that give off a dirty yellow green light, like the color of an onion. I really hated that light, but I like to keep them in there because it gives the viewer an idea of where this car is and a dreamy look to how I photograph them in relation to the car. To deal with it, I am going to be shooting with a high shutter speed to kill that ambient light till it only registers the lamps themselves, thus the car is only going to be lit with the strobes that I had.

For the strobist set up was using 3 flashes. My good trusty Nikon Sb-28's were put on my Nano stands while at the meet I convinced a friend to help me hold my 580exII in certain areas to pull of some shots for fill in key areas. The 580ex by design is a more powerful light and was set at 1/2 power while the Nikons were set at full power. I tried this setting first because it will force me to go to the smallest aperture to properly expose the car witch was around f5.6-8 depending on where the lights were in relation to the car. Remember the closer the light source is to your subject the more concentrated the light is thus you must reduce your aperture if it was instantly farther away. What this gives me is an aperture that can properly focus the car while it kills ambient light because constant lights are not as bright as my instant flash pops from my strobes lighting specifically an area I want.

After all of this was set was just manipulating my light, and finding vantage points that I found were pleasing to photography this car. Check it out!

 

Test: 1/30 f7.1 ISO200

580ex camera left

Sb-28 camera center

Sb-28 camera right

  

 1/250 f6.3 ISO200

580ex camera left

Sb-28 camera center

Sb-28 camera right

 1/250 f6.3 ISO200

580ex camera center behind car

Sb-28 camera left

Sb-28 camera right

1/250 f6.3 ISO200

580ex camera left

Sb-28 camera center

Sb-28 camera right

1/250 f6.3 ISO200 

580ex camera left

Sb-28 camera center

Sb-28 camera right

Test: 1/250 f5 ISO200

Sb-28 camera center with 43" umbrella

Sb-28 camera right

 

Test: 1/250 f6.3 ISO200

Sb-28 camera left with 43" umbrella

Sb-28 camera right with 43" umbrella

Test: 1/250 f5.6 ISO200

Sb-28 camera left with 43" umbrella raised

Sb-28 camera right with 43" umbrella raised

Test: 1/250 f5.6 ISO200

Sb-28 camera left with 43" umbrella

Sb-28 camera right with 43" umbrella

Umbrellas are right next to my arms

Test: 1/250 f5.6 ISO200

Sb-28 camera left with 43" umbrella

Sb-28 camera right with 43" umbrella

Umbrellas are right next to my arms

 Test: 1/250 f5.6 ISO200

I had to get one of the owner and his cool shoes! It was hard to focus with my wide angle lens since its honestly DARK..... but keep trying and I got this one!

Hope you guys like my pics! Stay tuned!

Musician Photo

Quick Musician Photo Shoot!

Well everyone I had a great time at a party held by a friend of mine at his apartment for a poker night. However, that day I could not let the day end without a photo session to be ending the day. After meeting a great guy named Anthony Perez who is a musician who is experimenting with his talents while the festivities were going on,  I just had to ask him if I could take his photograph while he was in his groove.

The location was not the best areas to take a photograph, but its the case of basically every photograph location you could find in public. In a controlled studio, sure we can get exactly the result we want, but out in the field of reality with messy rooms, and cluttered offices, and all sort of other scenarios? Not a chance. In this case it is a kitch-dining room, or a kitchen+dining room area that is found in most apartments. I had some of my trusty custom made clamps, with my umbrella brackets, and Nikon sb-28's, and not to forget some gels for drama!

Again when I set up and take most of my shots, its a quick and dirty affair. It quickly set up and then I am capturing the moments in under 5 minutes. Some say I should take more care in doing these shots, but seriously now this isn't rocket science, more or less its a baking session in creating a new tasty cake. Using my newly made multi purpose "DIY Photographic A-Clamps", i clamped two flashes to a futon, and a counter top. This is not true cross lighting but hey, it did the job. The big deal here is to work around distractions, and that is all the junk that was behind the chair that Anthony was playing on. To work around that and to make him look even more awesome playing his guitar I chose to shoot low. This gives him a "bigger than life" look that is great for people who get photographs of themselves doing things they like because they are big and into their interests; at the same time this does not allow allot of what is on the floor to get into the frame instead you see the ceiling and wall. I let Anthony pick out two gel colors before shooting to use after testing out just raw flash.

 

 

Setting my strobes to a 2:1 lighting ratio left was set at 1/8 while right was set at 1/16. Here was some of the shots!

1/250 f6.3 ISO200 (Shot wide and low)

1/250 f6.3 ISO200 (Shot more towards eye level.)

After doing a few of these shots I really wanted to try the colors Anthony chose, which were light orange and deep blue. I mixed them from left and right to get some neat effects. Check it out! Note that setting were the same, but should of been different for aperture to let more light in because the gel again eats up some light when fired affecting the exposure but in the end I made the call that I thought it was not needed.

1/250 f6.3 ISO200

1/250 f6.3 ISO200 (Switched gels around to light up his face)

Again this is all experimentation. You cant be creative unless you try new things out once in a while! Stay tuned for the next entry!