Breakdown

Sabrina and Rick are recently engaged co-workers who joined me for a photo shoot yesterday. Not only are they both good looking and very photogenic, but were incredibly patient while we spent three hours setting up and shooting the "breakdown" story. Rick's beater F150 served as the perfect prop while lovely Sabrina grows increasingly impatient with his inability to fix the problem. This was a great opportunity to try multiple strobe units to light our subjects as the light slowly fades to darkness. For those with an interest, the setups are shown at the end of this post. Click on the pictures for larger versions.

What a beautiful day. Sure glad I have a handyman around!

What a bummer. I hope this won't take long.

I'm thirsty. Can we PLEASE get going?

He sure is cute when he fixes things.

Maybe I can help!

What if you turned this little thingy back here.

Will this take much longer?

I'm SOOO bored!

My whole night is ruined.

Forget it. I'm out of here!

Signs of Spring

Our backyard has been filled with songbirds lately, all busy preparing their spring nests. With my camera on a tripod close to the feeder and a radio control, I have been having fun capturing some of their activity.

Glass blowing by Alice

"Alice" is a pottery fountain that was a gift from my mother 30 years ago.  After years of sitting dormant, I finally replaced the broken pump and she is pouring water from her vase once again.  She was a patient subject while I lit her with a softbox about 110 degrees camera left and a blue gelled flash aimed through some wine glasses to cast shadows on the wall in the background.

I then placed the blue flash high and to the right, aimed at the water, and moved in close with a macro lens.   The softbox was 90 degrees camera left.  Each exposure was completely different and the amazing  water droplets reminded me of blown glass.  Click on the images to get the full effect.

Fun with Flash

Stacey and I had fun at Christmas playing with remote flash, colored gels. soft boxes, and snoots.  The "mad woodworker" would be me, illuminated by three snooted flashes with red and blue gels.  Good to be using my safety goggles while cutting a 2x6 with my miter saw, but the picture clearly illustrates why I should also have been wearing a dust mask!!  The neighbors must have been questioning our sanity as we composed the picture in the driveway in total darkness.

These pics of Chris and Claire were illuminated with a 2x3 foot soft box (at about 90 degrees camera left), complemented by remaining natural daylight on a very overcast day.   The brick wall was lit with a second flash that was gelled with an orange filter.

Day 11

My laptop died on the last day of our trip and I was very concerned that all my pictures were lost, but thanks to the Apple Geniuses, all is well. Here is a traditional pic of Seattle as well as some of my favs from the trip.