The bayblade warrior

If you have a boy in elementary school you probably know about this latest craze, bayblade tournaments played at a small plastic stadium. Bayblades are spinners made of different materials and styles that compete against each other until one or both run out of stamina. It’s quite fun.

My boy asked me to take a cool photo of him playing bayblades, after our trip to Target to get one. His stadium is bright orange and semi translucent, so that gave me the idea of making a picture with an orange theme. Here is the result, and details on the lighting follow:

This image was created using four portable flashes:

1. The key light is an old SB-24 with a home made snoot made out of cinema foil pointing down at him from camera left. That’s creating the light on his face and his right hand. It’s harsh light hence the dark nose shadow.
2. There is a background light, another SB-24 with a Roscolux orange filter pointing up and towards the black foam core background about three feet behind Pablo.
3. The third light is a SB800 actually under the stadium shining thru it. To make this happen I have the stadium resting on a large cardboard box with a circular hole I cut, slightly smaller than the stadium. I have a flash inside the box pointing up and sending light thru a piece a rip stop nylon taped to the hole. This light is creating the glow around the bayblade stadium.
4. Finally there is another SB800 with a piece of cinema foil as a flat snoot projecting light to illuminate the Bayblade brand name - without this light the light shining from behind would have made the sign quite orange, and I wanted it to be visible.

There you have, a bayblade warrior at play! 

Tonight I photographed my children playing with their iPods - I didn’t have a specific idea in mind initially, just wanted simple images of life at home.   Here below is a first image:

Children at hime

This image above is pleasant, shows clearly the two children in a home setting and it shows that they are holding their gadgets.  However, it falls a bit short on the story telling department for a couple of reasons.  First, they are not engaged with their toys - they are posing for the camera, and this makes the image more about the interaction between the children and the viewer than between each child and his or  her toy.  Also, it’s hard for the viewer to discern a clear message coming from the picture.

Playing

This second image, a candid, has more story telling content, as it shows the children interacting with their players, seemingly unaware of the presence of the photographer.  The story is about children and their electronic toys - so now we have a theme for the picture, but we still don’t have a story, as there is no message or specific point of view conveyed by the image.

Isolation

Now we are getting somewhere.  The iPods cover their faces and make it impossible for them to connect with the viewer, and they are isolating themselves from the viewer by their widgets.  They are also isolating themselves from each other even though they are so close to each other… The photo has a theme, children and electronic toys, but it also has a point of view and a message - a visual story that speaks about the dangers of letting children get caught in the alternate reality of electronic games and other devices.

The subjects are the same, the lighting is the same, but in this case, it is the pose that provides the symbols for story telling.

In addition to light at the time of exposure,  color and tonal manipulation as part of digital processing are critical elements in defining the mood of a photograph.   Hard contrast, combined with hard light, creates a raw feeling, whereas soft, low contrast light is soothing and pretty.

I show a couple of examples here from a recent shoot.

Pretty headshot

This first image above uses delicately soft light created with a very large octagonal softbox.  Note how shadows are low contrast and soft, while at the same time the light contours the shape of the face and produces a pleasant impression of three-dimensionality or volume.  The message that the simple composition, designer glasses and carefully done makeup send is that of calmness, self-confidency and beauty.

Raw

This second image above of the same model is the opposite.  A white background is used, but instead of using soft, gentle light, harsh lights have been used - they generate high contrast shadows projected against the white background.  The shadows are not only very visible, but the upper body shadow is disjointed from the lower body shadow, as two different flash heads were used for this effect.  The gradation of light to shadow on her face is really harsh, almost as an illustration - due to additional contrast added in postprocessing.  The mood here is drama and raw sensuality, as opposed to soft femininity.

The photographer can use light to help define the emotional content of a photograph, not only to create the exposure.   The “quality” of light is decisive in defining the mood of an image.

In 2011 I want to focus mostly on story-telling photography, still with a focus on people, but less so on pure portraiture. I kept that in mind when I was photographing in southern Spain, and I wanted to share some of those images along with the context for the story.I am not as interested in technical feedback on the images as I am on your emotional or intellectual response to them - do the images speak to you or move you in some way? do they make you want to know more? Technically all the images are done with ambient light, and in some cases with a pretty high ISO.

1. Flying over me. This place in Seville is popular with kids and families, as the birds are used to people feeding them and only fly away when some dog gets assertive with them. This is what happened here, and I simply pressed the shutter as the doves started to fly towards me. This images speaks to me of the old fashioned parks in Europe, like this one built in 1929.

2. Skipping horse manure. Spaniards, including children, dress well. Here I captured two sisters with their pretty coordinated outfits maneuvering around horse manure from horse carriages in this historic district in Seville. I liked the contrast between their preppy looks and the dirty streets.

3. Rowing with suspicion. Seville built a massive square for the 1929 World Expo, the Plaza de Espana, which has been recently renovated and people can again rent a boat and row in the semicircular pond around the plaza. I caught this family rowing and they caught me too. I liked the suspiciousness in their faces, especially the boy.

4. Last goodbye. This was hard to watch. I was strolling in Carmona, a town near Seville, where the toll of bells spoke of death. I approached the group of people waiting outside a church, where a funeral limo was waiting. Eventually the relatives of the deceased appeared, and much to my surprise, the driver of the limo did as well, carrying a small white casket by himself. These two images capture the moment in which the tiny casket is placed in the car and the grief of the mother.

5. Sand lipstick. Taken in the Mazagon beach, a beautiful stretch of sand. I loved the absurdity of the older woman applying makeup while the sand truck was coming. The only story here is whatever we want to fabricate.

6. Living on the edge. With the economic boom in Spain immigration has greatly increased, especially from Latin American countries. Making a living in Spain these days is tough, as the economy has turned sour and unemployment is rampant. One way to try to make a living is selling stuff on the streets, but permits are nearly impossible to get, and vendors are constantly harassed by local police. I think this image shows how nervous the vendor is, watching out for trouble.

7. Spanish pride. This couple lives in Vejer de la Frontera, a beautiful white village in Cadiz. They rent a room in a tenant house that was built adjacent to the Moorish city wall. In fact, they hang their laundry to dry on top of one of the wall towers, which makes for a funny tourist experience - big underwear hanging next to 700 year old stones. Here the man of the house shows his pride and his wife to the camera.

8. Maintenance. There is some ambiguity in this capture of a couple of guys fixing their horse carriages. They are actually changing one of the horse shoe’s in the middle of the street, but it looks as if they are concerned with the thin tire around the cart wheel. I spent some time talking with them and suggested that they charge tourists for picture taking, as it would be more profitable than waiting for passengers. They looked at me funny at first, and then they immediately saw the truth in my proposal and started to discuss how to place a sign requiring tourists to make 1 euro to take pics of their tired horses.

9. Tapas bar at noon. This is the interior of Bar Tino in the heart of Sevilla, a tapas bar that’s been there since the time of the Romans  The bar has a terrance outside where people sit to have some food and wine, and also a counter whence I took this photo.

10. Freshness between the Virgen and St. John. This photo was taken at the Triana Market, where they sell the freshest seafood. This shop keeper was helping her customers with a smile on her face. On the back wall I noticed two religious images, the Virgin Mary, and the Spanish Saint John of the Cross. There is quite a bit of traditional religious fervor in this Triana neighborhood.

11. Fishing village in Portugal. Not much of a story telling picture, but it does reflect the calm and simplicity of living in a fishing village by the ocean. This picture was created in Tavira, Portugal, where I had the most wonderful seafood lunch I can remember.

Lighting setup: 3 portable flashes - no ambient light was used.

Key light - to camera left, SB800 with 20 degree grid.

Fill light - SB800 pointing to the wall to camera left (not visible) - barebulb, used the wall as a bounce reflector.

Accent light - there is an SB-24 flash hidden behind the lamp on the top right corner. The lamp was actually turned off, and the light you see coming from it is the flash.

I am not too happy about her frontal position and the shadows of the bow and her right hand, but this is just an exercise for me to try different lighting setups at home. The way to eliminate this shadow problem would be to have her wear dark, which would change the mood. I coould also reduce the shadow contrast using a larger source of illumination, but that would change the light structure in the background. So I would need to think about it more.

The original color image had a color shift, with the fill being 5600K and the key and accent being 3200K color, but I wasn’t pleased with the color trickery and decided to process to black and white with Photoshop. Simple is good.

Violinist II

Tired violinist

And the behind the scenes setup:

Sleeping musician and lighting set up

I had a couple of technical issues with this simple portrait:

(1) The shoot-thru umbrella was sending light up and to the wall, producing a shadow of the umbrella, I solved this by standing a piece of black foam core board on the umbrella, behind the flash, blocking light from going to the background wall.

(2) Her sweater was red - I did the B&W conversion of the sweater separately to achieve a darker tone that wouldn’t compete with her face.

(3) The flash on the keyboard was spreading light too much - I solved this my wrapping a piece of cinema foil around the head and making a snoot out of it to focus the light on the keyboard.

Final effort

Lighting: 4 strobe lights plus ambient. The portrait was made on location at a high school track this morning.

Light 1 - Key was a 22 in. beauty dish with a 40 degree grid in front of the model and pointing down, about 12 ft from her.

Lights 2 and 3 - There were 2 SB800’s one on each side behind the model, with grid or snoot, acting as kicker lights and putting a highlight around her arms and shoulders.

Light #4 - A bare SB-25 flash on a boom right above her providing a kiss of light on her hair.

Fill was ambient light.

My assistant sprayed some water around Amara to create a fresh “real” feeling.

I said to him, how about a sunset portrait? And he said, “Sure, let’s pretend I am holding the sun!” - I don’t know if he’s seen this kind of fun picture before or what, but it was totally his idea.

It took five minutes to set up my beloved EX600 strobe on stand, mount the 70-200mm lens on the D700 and take the equivalent of a roll of film. He picked these two. Colors are straight out of the camera, as is the exposure - I desaturated his bright blue shorts to make them less distracting.

Good photo fun!

Spaghetti with meatballs

KayLee, a model I have worked with before, and I headed to an Italian restaurant to do a spaghetti and meatballs portrait. When we got there, at about 11am, the table next to the one with the map of Italy over it was taken up by three cops. I talked to them and reassured them that they would not be part of the picture  KayLee came to me whispering if she was going to be arrested for taking a pic next to a glass of wine, as she is under 21. I reassured her that the cops where busy with their own meatballs and they could clearly see that the wine was just a prop. With all that out of the way I ordered this mega spaghetti plate for her and set up the lights.

Lighting: two SB800 flashes. One, the key light, set to camera right on a stand, with a 32 in thru umbrella. This light was about 4 feet above her and feathered. One with a 20 degree grid set 3 ft over the table and pointing down on a Nano stand with a C-stand arm attached to it. I was afraid to set up a full C-stand in this tiny place.

D700 camera with 70-200mm lens and Pocket Wizards controlling the flashes manually.