Light II

Some more lighting situations . . .

High contrast sun and shadow.

Diffused light through a screen door. This is a merged image made from two shots, one focused on the door, and the second focused on the people outside then manipulated in Photoshop CS4.

This image is high contrast but boosted front light with a SB-900 flash.

Photographing Smoke

Interesting patterns and shapes are revealed when you photograph smoke. This one taken with a desk lamp on the right and a SB-900 with a snoot on the left, with a black backdrop. To further block out the background I shot this with ISO 200 at 1/60 th second at f11 on Aperture Priority with the Nikon 105mm Macro lens. Apparently this is a popular pass time for some? http://photocritic.org/artsmoke-photographing-smoke/ http://www.gavtrain.com/

How David Hobby created a his 'coming into a shaft of light' look

I just purchased the book 'The Hot Shoe Diaries' by Joe McNally and after browsing it for a little time somewhere there was a mention of stobists blog, a blog about learning how to use off camera flash. McNally apparently reads it too. So I checked my links in the right hand side of the wfrblog under 'BLOGS I READ' and saw a new entry 'Variations on a Two-Light Theme, Pt.2'. Reading David Hobby's entry I was interested in trying to re-create his lighting. Especially when I looked at another example by photographer Peter Yang (here).

So here is my self portrait version . . .

If you read how David Hobby created a his 'coming into a shaft of light' look, what I did was mount my SB900 flash off camera on a manfrotto light stand about two feet, and above, my face. Held up a piece of black card with my left hand acting as a gobo (a card that blocks light) I also had my D300 on a tripod with my (eBay) Phottix Cleon Wireless Remote Control and Nikon 105mm f/2.8 lens on auto focus. I really want to master off camera strobes, they give you such great lighting possibilities.