Poise

Poise, originally uploaded by DrFireball.

Swinsty reservoir

Just an hour or so available taday and almost didn't do it. But worthwhile shoot none the less. Great dancer - Fliss - someone introduced to me vai another 'tog on modelmayhem (Jixels) and I am very grateful. Very pleasant and professional and superb dance skills and deportment. I have really fallen on my feet!

Shoot used the fantastic El Octa - had a small breeze and caught it three times!

Worth the hassle though as the quality of the light is superb.

Cheers

DrF

Toria

Toria, originally uploaded by DrFireball.

Great shoot with Toria Brightside at Fewston reservoir. Despite the cold (minus 2 at times) the sun was out and Toria was an absolute star - never complained! This was almost the last shot of the day for me and was taken on top of Almscliffe crag. I had wanted to shoot against a great sunset but that was not to be (I would love to know how you can predict good sunsets.....) A little bit windy so I used the Elinchrom 135cm deep throat Octa on a monopod and held by an assistant (in this case it was Justin). The lighting was one Elinchrom Qudra triggered by the in built skyport and worked flawlessly. I shot with B&W in mind (using the B&W picture style in the canon 5DmkII and then did the final conversion using LR3.

All in all a great day - despite the weather!

S

Next step the Apprentice

Next step the Apprentice, originally uploaded by DrFireball.

Well, it's been a while since I posted to the blog....

Met up with a great bunch of folk from the Leeds Stobist Flickr group and Exposure Leeds last night. As part of Leeds Photo week we were allowed access to Leeds Temple Works.

Lovely venue full of ideas - only problem - not enough time. Principally spent the evening with Justin Zhang of www.justinzhangphotography.com. Learnt a lot - mainly in composition. We use similar gear which helps and I used the Deep Octa on the Quadra heads with the baffle and front cover off and a gold deflector so that it worked like a beauty dish.

Justin has a very keen eye for lighting and it was a useful thing for me to send time in front of the lens for a change. Very confidence inspiring for the model to receive explicit direction - chin up etc.

Very much looking forward to meeting the folk again!

Cheers

DrF

MIss Dani California

MIss Dani California, originally uploaded by DrFireball.

Result of another productive shoot with Dani.

Having had a lucky ebay find of an Elinchrom Octa I was obviously keener than keen to put it to good use. This session saw me switching from high key to low key shots simply by using the Octa behind me (akin to a ring flash) and shooting against a black b/g, then revesing the setup and shooting with the Ocat as a background as seen here.

Wonderful ligjht and I understand why the pros rave about it so much.

Very little post processing - B&W conversion in LR and text added in PS.

Michael, Night

Michael Night, originally uploaded by DrFireball.

Can't claim that the idea for this one was entirely original, but then I suppose few ideas truly are.

In essence I taped two strobes (a canon 580 exII and a cheap sunpak 430 clone) into the roof of an elinchrom umbrella. I attached a pocket wizard and headed off to Leeds.

First truly urban shoot that I've done and pretty much as expected we had a few passers-by but nothing out of order, One bloke did ask if we were police (Mike's suit possibly - either that or a guilty conscience!) and then couldn't seem to grasp what we were up to.

I then used the quadras to give a touch of fill so that the suit and brolly didn't get lost in the darkness. I set the camera (5dII) up on a tripod and used live view to compose the shot (as the camera was higher than me!). Worked rather well.

There was a lot of ambient light and the trick was not to blur too much of Mike's right face. Ended up using a 17 second (or so) exposure using bulb mode and a remote shutter cable. I used a high f number - around 16 or so to get the stars on the street lights. Didn't bother trying to use a light meter on Mike, rather set the falsh output manually and readjusted according to the highlight alert on the camera. Ended up with 1/16 flash output from each strobe.

At one point an ambulance went past and the light trails were great but the exposure on Mike not so - such is the hit and miss nature of this type of shot.

I am used to taking around 150-200 shots on a locaation shoot, however this time amazingly 8-9 shots and we were done - did have work the next day!

Cheers

DrF

Photo lay out on site

Just a quick note to say that the photos are cropped by the layout of the site - for correct compositions just click on the photos.

Happy Shooting

DrF

Courtney - Sutton Bank

Courtney 1, originally uploaded by DrFireball.

Plan A was for a trip to the seaside, however the rain was against us and after waiting an hour the rain was getting heavier and we set off for home. Plus side of the rain of course was the moody skies created when the rain finally stopped (typically not far from home...) So we took a short detour and headed for Sutton Bank.

This was taken next to the path near the gliding school - few passers-by but no hassle and some great shots.

This was taken with my favourite current set up of the Ranger as Key and the Quadras for fill. Metered the sky and balanced the flash.
Personal criticism would be that:
1. the middle distance is somewhat dark (next time will try a ND grad filter.

2. too much light in the foreground - I now have some grids for this.....

3. Courtney's black dress blends in to the scenery too much - something more colourful would have been interesting (although possibly a distraction...)

As is my current workflow there was a simple conversion to Jpeg in LR and no other post procecssing - not even a crop.

Hope you enjoy.

DrF