P52W12 - Ghost

P52W12 - Ghost

Hung out with the cousins tonight. We ate, watched dvds, and played with the camera and flash. Abby loved the 'ghost' effect! And that's her in the mirror. As you can see it's not technically excellent, and not entirely accurate (the 'ghost' is wearing glasses), but the shoot was loads of fun. :)

Strobist info: Abby was holding the half-snooted 430EX (@ 1/16th power) in front of her.

-arland-

P52W05 - Popcorn!

P52W05 - Popcorn

Shot this after watching 'Dear John' with Belle, Weng and Janet at MoA last night. We talked about how far we've come since those days when we only had a point-&-shoot top play with, when night shots meant holding still for a second or more so as not to be blurry, when the only flash was the one built into the camera.

Now we have this. One flash on a Gorillapod at camera left slightly behind Belle, and another flash also at camera left being held by model/lighstand Janet. :)

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At The Greenbelt Park

Weng and the Lights

What is Fashion?

Up Late

-arland-

Tungsten

A couple more portraits from this weekend...

JP in the Street

Job in the Garage

Bokeh Lesson

We had a bokeh tutorial on night #2. It was difficult as hell using the kit lens, but we gave it a proper go.

TV
For this pic I wanted to make it seem like the TV was lighting Belle. I put the flash on the TV set, and exposed the shot to kill the ambient.

Like Old Times
It was quite dark in the garden so I had a hard time focusing, which explains the lack of sharpness. But I liked the rest of the pic, so there.

Tweetums
Here I tried a vertical composition to show as much of the backround lights as possible.

Tears, Almost
Rey shows off his acting skills. There are supposed to be tears.

Bokeh
This was right before one of the flashes tumbled off the garden chair where I placed it. (Which reminds me: I should try to fix that broken receiver.)

Under the Umrella
With one gone, I experimented with the placement of the remaining flash. I attached it to the pole of the giant umbrella stuck to the table and bounced the light off the multicolored canvas.

-arland-

MoA Fountain

And here's the last batch of my favorite pics from Thursday's night out with Weng.

MoA Fountain - Weng(2)

MoA Fountain - Janet

MoA Fountain - Kai(2)

MoA Fountain - Anne(1)

MoA Fountain - The Ladies(1)

MoA Fountain - Weng(1)

MoA Fountain - Anne(2)

MoA Fountain - Kai(1)

MoA Fountain - The Ladies(2)

-arland-

Late Night Reading - Workflow

Too bad I forgot to take a picture of the actual setup. :| Anyway, here's how I arrived at the final images from the previous post:

1.) I picked a location. I knew I wanted to use that light post as a background. So I headed to our second-floor terrace and set up the gear at one end. I set my camera to expose for the background. The right side of the frame was fairly empty, but it's ok. That's where I'll be sitting.

Late Night Reading - Setup 01

2.) The right side of the background was dark so I put a flash in my sister's room. I pointed it out the window to light the neighbor's roof a bit. (And you'll also notice it lighting my left shoulder in the final pics.)

Late Night Reading - Setup 02

3.) I used a playing card on a light stand to set the focus, and to test the key light. I put the light on a Gorillapod wrapped around the window grills, camera right. I gelled it CTO to match the light post.

Late Night Reading - Setup 03

4.) And here's a shot with the key light off to show how dark it was.

Late Night Reading - Setup 04

And that's it! Here's the finished product. :)


-arland-

Late Night Reading

Catching up on my reading... :)

Late Night Reading 01

Late Night Reading 02

Late Night Reading 03

Late Night Reading 04

-arland-