40/365: Wet Floor.
Vegas is rainy today. I thought this was the desert. Had a nice walkabout through town. Plenty of shots after the jump:
Not typical Vegas shots I guess, but what's typical in Vegas? Neon I suppose.
-llg
39/365: Red Rocks
Well, Vegas is not having a positive effect on my photography. There's too many distractions, mainly alcohol and a vast variety of machines and people that perform wizard magic as they make my money disappear into thin air. It's amazing. I thought the trick that they did when they made my money double was more fun, but they don't do that trick for me much, in fact a whole lot less.
Bonus: There's the Red Rock Canyon, only 15 miles out of town. One more shot after the jump...
Double Bonus: I learned how to play craps. It seemed impossible: a game of trickery and codes that boogle the mind beyond comprehension. And yet, watch it enough, and you figure it out. Not that I won any money off it. RED ROCKS!
38/365: Vegas View
The view from my hotel room. Setup the 5dmk2 to shoot a 7 hour timelapse this afternoon from the window, and this is one of the stills from the batch, heavily edited in photoshop for an old school effect.
Here's a photo from Joe's iPhone of the camera, snapping away.
Will be posting the timelapse soon. But for now, I need sleep. See you tomorrow.
-llg
37/365: Eat at Joe's
Staying at my friend's house, so we can get up early and fly to Vegas. This is his kitchen.
One speedlight camera left bounced into a very large map of North Carolina, triggered by on-camera speedlight. I think tonight will be my last required Strobist shot, not to say that I won't be shooting anymore with flashes, but I think its time for a new theme. For a few days, that theme will be the city of Las Vegas.
-llg
36/365: The Crunkleton
I was planning a secondary, contrasting shot to yesterday's post, but inclement weather and a day of work put an end to that...
Not to worry, out on the town with the best crew of friends ever, I had the wife hold a bare speedlight camera right and triggered it via an on-camera flash in master mode, for this portrait of Joe and Emily at the Crunkleton, Chapel Hill, NC.
I started to play the piano shortly thereafter, trying to fake my way thru "Fur Elise," one of the few actual pieces I remember from piano lessons in the 7th grade. A young lady walked over and asked if she could play too. Our rather large crew wholeheartedly condoned this development. Joe and I rolled with it and began snapping pics, moving the off-camera light as we tried to find a suitable shot. Our new friend, and her friends, all of which took a turn at the keys, were fine with the flashes and pictures, and everyone had a blast. To say it was a sublime moment, both photographically and socially, is not an exaggeration. It's difficult to take pictures of strangers, but booze helps, and music REALLY helps. As I shot, I began to think of a recent blog post I just read by a new social media acquaintance. This fellow's made some great bar shots of total strangers, and has his brain wrapped around the social logistics of it...
Many thanks to new friends and old, for supporting this thing, and supplying the scotch when needed...
-llg
35/365: In Tech We Trust, or "Keep Me Plugged in, Please"
This one comes from a day of interesting discussion and intriguing video on how technology is embedding itself into our daily lives. Hit the jump for more ranting and raving...
Earlier today I posted a question to my Facebook friends and Twitter folks:
"As the speed of tech advancement and information-dispersion increases exponentially, do you find that your learning also increases, or does the brain struggle to keep up?"
I asked this question because it had occurred to me, almost simultaneously, that I was learning more than ever before in my life, and I was more stressed than ever about all that there was to learn. And it's not just that the info is piling up in a cumulative way, but the information is actually changing, in the real sense that something I learned 2 years ago may not only be irrelevant, but totally wrong.
I know that information, like language and even what some call TRUTH is actually a shape-shifting beast, and as we learn more about ourselves and our universe, both grand and miniscule, new knowledge both adds to, and trumps the old. Think of how long we assumed the Earth was the center of the solar system, and how long it may have taken to change that general consensus. Today is no different, but the PACE of the information is much, much faster.
Take cameras. How long could a 1975 photog get by with the top-of-the-line 35mm film SLR, bought in 1975? Well, if he kept it clean and invested in good lenses periodically, he could easily still be using it now, as his ONLY camera, were it not for the revolution in digital cameras. Not to say the film camera was better, it's just that the film itself was the hub of the technological improvements. But nowadays...Well, I've been shooting video and photos professionally for about 10-11 years, and I've upgraded the digital SLR I shoot with 4 times now. And video cameras...well gollygee willikers. Cirque Productions has owned SEVEN separate models of video camera, each an improvement over the previous, and not just in terms of the price bracket, but the technology incorporated. We've gone from shooting tapes for nine years to shooting on cards, and now even my still camera, the one I take THESE photos with, can shoot full HD footage! Computer processors can barely keep up with the size of files...these images you see on this blog are 21 megapixels! Wasn't I just shooting at 8 megapixels? Don't get me on storage either. Suffice it to say, I'm about to add another 4 terabytes to my overall capacity for the second time this year.
Shit. Is. Ridiculous.
But that's just part of the question. As our discussion progressed on FB, we focused on the near-fusion of our lives with digital technology, and how fast THAT shift has occurred. Our ability (real or falsely perceived) to multi-task, to learn from multiple sources at once, the sheer volume of information to digest, and our constant need to be plugged in to the source...well, I'm projecting I guess. Not everyone is as hooked to their computer as I am, and I'm not as hooked as some. But I notice, more and more of my day, and days, are spent in front of my computers. My work demands it. This blog adds to it. Social media is FUN. I'm proud that we don't own a TV...but I have Hulu, and Netflix, and a honkin' big HD monitor...But I grow tired. Though I'm hooked to all this, I feel a tug for another way, and its right out my window as I sit here. I think tomorrow's pic will be inspired by that side of life...
Did you come here for a rant and rave, or a flippin' picture? If any of this is intriguing to you, I'd take some time and watch this video. Very interesting stuff.
Back to the photo.
Wanted to go for believable light with this one, so I aped the iPod light with a tight gridded speedlight camera right, and another gridded speedlight behind my head and in the room corner, aimed at my wife, to mimic the computer screen light. Bounced another light into the ceiling to up the ambient light. The final was a gridded rim light, the only one that doesn't have a practical source to mimic. I ended up dragging the shutter to get some of the room lights and the screens to brighten, and moving my hand made the sweet streak totally by accident. Everything was gelled, but I dropped the saturation in PS and played with some dodging and burning to get a more surreal effect, to suit the subject matter.
The setup shot was a little hard to see the details in, so I've outlined them for you.
Thanks for stopping by, feel free to make me feel better by commenting or hitting me up on the social links at the foot of the page. I'm gonna be hooked in for a while yet...
-LLG
34/365: March of the Caterpillars
I must revert to another archive shot tonight, as its 11pm and I still have some work to do. PRIORITIES! This one is cool though.
This was taken nigh on two years ago, when I got my first true macro lens. Of course I was eager to shoot some bugs, but bugs are hard to get shots of! They have to be really interested in whatever they are doing...and not want to leave, even with you gigantic ass getting ever closer, and whispering, "Yes, yes, that's it baby, yeah! You're a tiger!" Had to find something that bugs like...
What's that you ask? Oh, just a fly. Oh, what's it ON? Oh, nothing, just you know, some stuff in the yard. You know, that flys are attracted to. What? It was all dried up! No, I don't know why the fly was attracted to it if it was all dried up! I took a shower after! I'm a slave to my art!
Back to the caterpillars. I was roaming the garden, it was springtime, and these caterpillars were way in season. They come out in April and are everywhere. I walked past our rain barrel, and saw a mess of them crawling in a ring around the barrel. I watched them and walked around the barrel, and to the best of my judgement, it appeared that they were simply following each other in a never-ending loop. They just kept going around the same ring. I set up my tripod and a single bare speedlight on a stand, to the right of the barrel. The crisp light made the little guys really stand out against the black plastic. Sorry, no setup shot today, just archival shots.
Shot with the Canon 60mm ES-F Macro, the posted picture is actually three separate shots merged in photoshop to make a panoramic composition. Here's a detail.
Strobist info: Took this one in later afternoon, there was still a lot of ambient light, but the rain barrel that these caterpillars are crawling on was behind my shed, so I was able to knock down most of the ambient with a fast shutter. Triggered a single bare speedlight on a stand to the right of the barrel, pointed down at the ring of bugs.
- LLG
33/365: Smokeskull
Made this little skull years ago in ceramics class out of some leftover porcelain from wheel throwing. I hollowed out his noggin and made the top of the skull removable. He makes a great incense burner, as I found out today. The oft-requested setup shot is included with today's entry...
Wasn't going to get into the dorky description of this one, was just going to let the setup shot do the talking, but it may help to explain what a 'Grid' or 'Gridspot' is. Also called a honeycomb grid, and that may be the best image to conjure in your head: a thick honeycomb patterned device that goes on the front of a light, and restricts the spread of the beam. Or how about this: imagine a box of straws. Take the top of the box off, and the bottom, and hold the box up, looking directly into the end of the mass of hundreds of straws. You can see through them, down all their individual shafts, to the other side. But if you even slightly rotate the ends of the box to either side, you can't see down through them anymore; there's only the sweet spot right in front of them that you can see all the way through. A grid is just that: it restricts the light into a tighter beam, which can only be seen from acute angles. They come in various degrees of tightness, 1/8" uses smaller holes, and is therefore tighter than 1/4". I made a DIY version out of a sweet heist of black straws from Panera Bread, wrapped in a cardboard frame that is folded to fit right over my flashes, and it has a super tight focus, tighter than my new manufactured Honl speed grids even. In this shot, I used the DIY grid to really restrict the beam of the light hitting the skull from hitting much of anything else...like the background board, which would have drowned out the red light I had there. I also used a Honl grid on the smoke light, which keeps it tight on the smoke area, off the plexiglass base. When shooting light back towards your lens you can often get a lot of flare, and the grid helps keep that from happening as well.
Last thing, some people have wondered about how to comment on the blog posts that are too short to have a 'Click to Read More' jump...not sure why it works that way, but you can get around it by going to one of the older posts in the numbered navigation section at the bottom, and then navigate to the picture you are looking to comment on. I'll see what I can do to fix that in the future, or just make sure I add a second shot to every post. Shit, its becoming a 730 picture blog...
-llg
32/365: Last Light of Mood
Wrangled the wife out for a quick shoot before going grocery shopping this evening. We stood on the railroad tracks in downtown Mebane for most of the shots as per the idea in my head, but of course this shot is the unplanned one that I liked the best. One more after the jump:
This is the idea I went out there with, and its still kinda cool, and the subject is obviously amazing, but the concept is definitely overdone. Like photos of bands in front of brick walls.
Strobist info:
580EX2 in shoot thru umbrella to left and slightly behind subject, triggered by on-camera 580EXII.
-llg
31/365: Ouch.
I hurt my back in a workout today. This is where I want to be right now, but I'm posting the daily photo instead.
Strobist info: 580 ExII justin-clamped to ceiling fan, aimed at feet with full cut CTO and grid spot. 580 Ex on stand behind camera, aimed at ceiling and gelled with 1/2 CTO, boosting overall exposure. Fired via on-camera 580 Ex in Master mode, no fire.
That makes one month of Daily photo bloggin'. THANKS to all of you that come and check it out, leave comments, and give me verbal support. It's been a blast so far, and I'm learning a lot. I love it when a plan comes together.
30/365: I'll Let You Guys Handle This
Been mulling this idea around for a week or so. I kept putting it off because I knew it would take awhile to get right. Finally, a Saturday evening I wasn't working! Hit the jump for the lighting specs, and a chompier shot...
Yes, I love toys. Always have. These days, most of my toys are made by Canon and are sold at B and H, but I still have a few that were made by Mattel and sold at Toys 'R Us. The unfortunate army men here were a recent purchase from Cracker Barrel (as were half the Xmas gifts we gave this year). Saw them and knew there would have to be a shot done with them in time. Our antagonist is probably a familiar character to some of you. When I was six I wanted a He-Man figure something fierce. The ACTION figure, not his physical figure, although I do have a similar physique now that I'm 30 ;) Anyway, Mom tried to get him for my sixth birthday, but by the Power of Grayskull, He-Man was He-Soldout. Some may recall the evil twin He-Man character? I forget his name, but he was exactly the same toy...except he was blue, with blood-red hair. And one helluva scowl. Despite the obvious nature of the imposter, Mom tried to pass him off as He-Man Himself, to me, on my birthday. Uh, he's blue!? I didn't fall for it anymore than Man-At-Arms would have. However, I did get a He-Man Big Wheel as well that year, which made up for the Buff Blueman in a bigtime, bigwheel way. And then just last year, Mom scores another obscure victory on eBay, a thing she is getting quite good at, and for Christmas, I get the He-Real-Deal, atop Battlecat no less. Thanks Mom. I can never fully repay your momminess, even if I get you that Jaguar someday. I won't even get into the Rub-a-Dub Doggy story.
Back to the photo. Had to create an atmosphere for this one, so I quickly sketched a fantasy desert-like landscape with some pastels. I knew it would be thrown out of focus, so I didn't worry about the fact that any drawing skills I may have once had have completely atrophied. Hung that from a c-stand. Fired One speedlight with a tight grid aimed at the sunset area. This makes the background seem to glow with its own light. Tried to mimic the effect of the sunset light on the beast and the fucked army men with a speedlight in another grid, full CTO, behind and overhead. Not quite the right angle, for the sunset light, but close enough for me. To bring up the general ambient light, I shot another speedlight into a shoot-thru umbrella, a little behind and to the left. This light has a little direction to it, but all it really does is bring up the details in the shadows and beef up the overall exposure. The last speedlight has nothing but direction to it, it was gelled blue and fixed with a tight snoot, camera left and aimed to the side of the scene. My countertop was visible at the bottom, and I was going to let that slide, but my wife had a stroke of genius and we taped a piece of wood on it to complete the scene. If all that makes NO SENSE, here's a visual guide that may help.
And here's an even funnier take on the scene:
Thanks for stopping by again folks, happy weekend to ya!
29/365: The Park Brothers.
Some good fellas here. Guy's night tonight. There shall be whiskey.
Strobist info: One speedlight into a shoot through umbrella, camera right.
28/365: Amerigo Vespoochie
WOW. I really called it that. Really? I couldn't help myself. It's WAY late tonight for this post, well into the 29th. Stayed up till 5:30am yesterday, finishing a draft of a DVD for a client, so my day started late today anyway. And as friend just reminded me, its 11 where he's at. But damn it was hard to think of a shot this late in the eve. I just walked around the house for 30 mins trying to find something interesting to shoot, but not too complicated to light. American flag? Sure! Sleeping dog? Why not?
Strobist Info: one speedlight in Orbis ringflash, which also commands a second flash in group b, justin-clamped to my shelf and outfitted with a Honl speedgrid. Could I get anymore stroby? It was all manual, so prolly not.
It's just too cute to let be I'm afraid. It's like I was trying to shoot one of those ridiculous posters Angela from The Office is so fond of. In direct opposition to this shot is the ACTUAL shot I came away with today, whilst walking through Chapel Hill with only my camera and a 50mm lens. Didn't post it to the front, as it wasn't a Strobist pic, but it's my favorite from the day. Kinda morbid, perhaps, but I've been known to shoot this stuff before. Don't know why I'm attracted to making pictures of this particular subject matter, but it may have something to do with my love of composting. Or maybe I'm that kid from 'American Beauty.' Wait, that can't be it, I don't shoot bags. Hit the jump, I promise it ain't that bad.
Don't know why, but I like this shot. Sorry it's gross, but there's some good lines in there. See you tomorrow.
27/365: A Light Peppering.
Hehe. "Peppered." Always makes me think of Dick Cheney blasting that guy with a shotgun. They said Cheney just 'peppered' him. That sure is a nice way of saying he shot him in heart. I digress. Tonight's shot is another from the archives, back in the season of our bountiful garden. I had this pepper sitting on the table for a week, but before I finally cut him up and cooked him in olive oil with garlic, I decided to channel my inner Weston. Read more, and see some variations...
Edward Weston is celebrated as one of the great photographers of the 20th century, a real pioneer. You have probably seen his famous 'Pepper #30,' which has always been one of my favorite studies in organic form. Apparently, he took a lot of pictures of his peppers, this one in particular, to get the right play of light across the voluptuous body. He often used long (hours long) exposures and small apertures to capture the sunlight as it moved through the room and across the pepper over time. The sun usually makes for a pretty harsh light source (think hard shadows at noon) but if you can capture its path across the sky in one exposure, it effectively becomes a much larger source of light relative to the subject, and the shadows soften and the form reveals itself in subtle gradients.
I tried something different. Painting with light is the technique of using a constant light source to 'paint' in the exposure. Like last night's multi-strobic shot, it requires a long shutter, and therefore a tripod and little or no light to interfere with your 'paintbrush.' Mine was a mini maglite. In order to restrict the amount of light and narrow the beam, I used black gaffer's tape to form a tight cone around the business end of the flashlight (torch to you Brits), so that only a small hole at the tip allowed the light thru. I had a nice little light source, but with a 97 sec exposure, I had time to feather the light around the entire frame and essentially record the tiny light as a large source. I tried various directions of light, sometimes multiple directions in a single frame, sometimes aiming at the pepper, sometimes trying to hit only the cutting board. When painting with light, you have to keep the light moving, feathering it around, or it will create hotspots in the exposure wherever it stays in one place too long. Of the many shots I tried, I like these three the best. My personal favorite is this one below, which is less eye-catching, but I just love the texture of the bamboo cutting board. Which one you you prefer? Sound out in the comments.
26/365: Backyard Rave
I find myself struggling with content again. It's been said, if you want to take interesting pictures, put interesting things in front of your camera. Or become a more interesting person...
Ok, fair enough, but I live (and work from home) in Mebane, NC. Lovely town, but I really don't know anybody here except some good neighbors (and there's some pics coming of them). Wifey doesn't especially like having her pictured blasted to the world here (although you all have confirmed what I told her many times yesterday, that she takes a GREAT picture), and I can only put myself in my pictures so many times, having only two 'looks': Blue Steel and Stunned Ranger. If I lived in a city, or had friends that I saw more often than Friday, I would have them to photograph at least. And I have, every time I have been somewhere other than this computer on any given night. Another problem is my current challenge: to design and use lights in every picture I post. So landscapes are out, for now. I have various objects of interest sitting around, and they will eventually fall under my camera's gaze, but I really like taking pictures of PEOPLE. Ok, so I'm complaining about not having a life, apparently.
Lacking content tonight, I decided to go for technique and trickery again. Rita helped me demonstrate some multi-strobic flash.
Even though we call these lights I've been using 'strobes' they usually only flash once per exposure. However, when you set them to the 'multi-strobic' setting, they do like the strobe lights in a club: fast repeating bursts. With the Canon strobes I'm using, you set the frequency and total number of pulses, then base your camera's shutter speed on that. For example, in this frame I set the number of pulses to 6, with a frequency of 2 hertz, or 2 per second. Therefore, I need at least a 3 second exposure to catch them all.
So. Lock the camera on a tripod. Minimize any other ambient light that will burn in over the 3 second exposure (turn off the porch light). Minimize the flash's light spill on any inanimate objects in the frame, like the trees and the ground. Not moving, these objects build up their exposure on the camera's sensor (or film, whatever) with each flash pop, and will get really bright, whereas any moving objects (Rita and ball) only get exposed in the location(s) they are in when the flash pops. If the background gets any light, it will expose thru the dark areas of your moving subject as well.
So basically, multi-strobic flash is an interesting way to capture movement over time. Add a constant light source to the moving object (like a headlamp to Rita's collar), and you can track the movement in two ways in the same frame. Only problem is that since it is completely dark, Rita may have some trouble actually finding the ball as it bounces around (although to be fair, she's not much better in the daytime). The strobiness may also make the neighbors think you're having a rave in the back yard, and the repeated flash bursts may even cause you or the dog to throw up a little, or seize like a kid watching Pokemon. And you may just spend an hour in the cold dark without ever getting the dog to jump up like you want, and making a lot of semi-interesting frames that still aren't what you are trying for (stickler's note: she's not wearing the collar lamp in these frames).
And you may accidentally trigger the remote as you go grab the light stand with headlamp attached that you used for a focus aid. Change shirts, man.
If at this point you haven't been too geeked out, and now you want to see a master do this correctly, you can watch Old Joe McNally do it with more style, and more ballerinas, here. I had been wanting to try this for some time, but he beat me to it. And damn, he has a lot more flashes than I do...
25/365: The Dogwood Deddy #1
Got me some gray seamless paper. I think I'm really gonna like it, even a lot more than the white seamless. The Dogwood Deddy likes it...
Strobist info: one speedlight in large shoot thru umbrella camera left and forward. This is two separate images combined in post.
24/365: Three Stooges
Debating what to shoot for today's 365 shot, I turned to myself and suggested, "Tonight's a good night for an archive shot." Thinking it over, my left-brain scoffed at the breach of regimented 365 Photo Project rules, but right-brain was content to live outside of that particular box. Rita, on her 18th hour of sleep for the day, contributed little to the conversation.
Taken in November, I was trying out different lighting setups one night and since my wife got tired of the BORING task of sitting for me, I had to be the subject. I don't blame her, it IS boring to watch me figure out how to be a bigger geek. Rita didn't seem to mind. Or notice. Or breathe. Had to check to make sure she was alive. This is three separate shots merged in Photoshop, and may have resulted from adding Gin to Juice.
Strobist Info: 3 exposures with the same lighting setup, merged in photoshop. One light in small softbox camera left and high up, another speedlight in a Gary Fong lightsphere dome thing, gelled with a full-cut CTO, clamped to the shelf behind the couch and meant to simulate a lamp that's there, and a 3rd speedlight in an Orbis ringflash to bring up the shadow details.
23/365: Raleigh Flow
Another day of picture-makin'. Today was in Raleigh, NC, with a fun set of people. More pics after the jump...
Meet Brian Flores, a progressive, positive hip-hop artist I met last year. I shot a good number of frames with him today in Raleighwood, walking around downtown and attracting attention from passers-by. The pictures are meant for his official web page, which is coming soon, but you can check his music here: http://soundcloud.com/flores-1
Strobist Info for the above shot: One Canon 580exII in shoot thru umbrella camera left and back a bit, triggered with Pocketwizards.
This next one is another one of my favorites from the day. Shot with a manual Nikon 50mm 1.2 with Canon EOS adaptor. Impossible to focus that lens thru the viewfinder, wide open. Many bad frames. A couple good ones.
And here's Juan, who kept the people at bay and told any kids that asked what we were doing that we were with Sports Illustrated and were just killing time until the limo showed up. Most believed him.
All in all, a fun day, but now I'm exhausted and ready to kick back. Thanks all for stopping by.
22/365: Identity Theft
Not much to say again tonight. It's been one of those days...get up, work out, and then go to it all day, work work work until you can get to the bar to meet some friends. Luckily, a portion of today's work was staff portraits for one of our clients, which of course required some lighting. Had a few hours of shooting some fun people, a crew that really is like family at this point. Snapped this one in the midst of some prop fun.
In this setup shot, the main light is down, but you can see the background light.Some funny business going on in there...
21/365: Night Rider
Ok, yes, I know. It's after midnight. I missed a day, by one hour. Well, I had to go see a Neil Young Tribute band, and music has to take the driver seat sometimes. Like Joe here. Rainy night in Chapel Hill, me, Joe and the girls just crusing the town, looking to score some cheap gellato. Shiiiiiiiiit yeah.
Strobist info: one canon 580exII hanging from the passenger sun-visor, aimed at Joe's face, triggered in manual slave mode by on-camera 580exII. Long shutter speed (over a second) blurs in the ambient lights. Couldn't really decide between the posted shot and this one:
Which do you like more?
Not much to say tonight, I'm just tired, and its late. Thanks for stopping by, and pop a link in the comments if you have some photos to share yourself.
- LLG