In the Barn…

So I’m sure all three people that read this blog realized that I haven’t written one in a few weeks, but I assure you it’s been for good reason.  Before I get into that though I ‘d like to mention that I may have made a mistake in the Brushman post a few weeks ago.  During Lamar and my conversation somehow I was confused inside of back to back conversations and Tim “The Brushman” Fuller came from the old Fuller Brushman ads, not Brushman Pro.  Not sure how the confusion with Brushman Pro came about, and neither is Lamar but I guess I just picked the wrong day to stop sniffing glue before my shoots.  My apologies to anyone who knew the origins and was completely confused as apparently I was.

On that note, there’s been a lot going on so there’s reasons to be confused.  Been MIA from the blog and life burning the candle at both ends here in March, and while I love doing what I do it’s been exhausting.  The only way my girlfriend Shannon gets through it is when I take her with me to some of the not so exotic locations that I’ve been visiting; especially this location shoot for our friend Joan of Dark.

(Nikon D3s, 1250ISO, Nikon AFS 24F1.4, 1/25oth@F1.4.  Two Dynalight 400Uni’s in the barn set to Full power aimed at 45 degree angles towards the roof fired by Pocket Wizard Flex TT5 units, Single SB-900 Speedlight fired by Pocket Wizard Flex TT5 unit set to iTTL-2.0 on a stand held overhead through a 32″ umbrella by the one and only Dill Hero, all units fired by on camera Pocket Wizard Flex TT1)

That’s my all time favorite photo of Shannon.  I think it drives her nuts that it’s my favorite, but that’s ok she looks extra happy to be out jumping around in the snow and I dig it.  I dig it so much in fact it’s the desktop wallpaper on my computer.  In nerd speak though, this series of photos (including the ones from this series that I can’t post yet) were a revelation to me.  I didn’t realize that I could fire large studio strobes along side of iTTL Nikon Speedlights at the same time.  The camera was controlling the light of the speedlight outside the barn, and the lights inside the barn were just firing the intensity they were set too.   In the words of our host, “Brilliant”.  (Although he considered the photo of Shannon brilliant because he thinks she’s hilarious as opposed to the iTTL/Manual control issue I’m excited about.) I did NOT play with mixing Manual Studio Strobes with iTTL strobes in my review of the beta units here.

(Nikon D3s, 250ISO, Nikon 85mmF1.4D, 1/500th@F2.  Single Nikon SB900 set to iTTL on a pole fired by Pocket Wizard Flex TT5 unit through a 32″ umbrella, all held by Tom Klubens.  Light fired by On camera Pocket Wizard TT1 unit with SU-800 attached.)

That’s Dill.  We decided that for this project we were going to drive all night to our location and shoot at sunrise.  To our dismay though, the sunrise wasn’t as spectacular as we had all hoped, which happens.  Tom took some advantage of the sunrise in photos that he shot towards the bluff, but I decided I wanted to shoot my segment here in these trees.  Dill here, running on 29 hours with no sleep was more than happy to put on his modeling face for a test shot.  There were A LOT of test shots, and downtime mixed together with a lot of shooting and or flip videoing with Dill’s Flip on a stick.

(Nikon D3s, 500ISO, Nikon 24mmPC-E set to Wonky (i didn’t write down what lens settings specifically sorry) 1/100th@F3.5.  Single Nikon  SB-900 speedlight in each corner to camera left and right set to iTTL -0.7  for a little bit of fill fired by Pocket Wizard Flex TT5 units, all trigered by an on camera Pocket Wizard Flex TT1 unit.)

While we’ll all be sitting on the final images out of this series for a few months and some look nothing like the test shots shown here, the trip was a definite success as we were able to get all the shots we needed (except for maybe one which we are taking care of today).  Everything has gone off to our client for approval before the high res shots get sent out as well, and here I am sitting at home writing this blog with the flu.  I suppose that if I didn’t have the flu I’d not have time to write the blog, but that’s besides the point as I have quite a few things to do without the flu…  Luckily nobody got really sick on the trip though, and our host was very gracious to have us as we were gracious for him to allow us to be there.  Special thanks to the Fabulous Loraine for making the arrangements and taking care of all of us while we were there; no easy task when roller derby folk are involved…not to mention me whose first inclination was to go into the tragically dilapidated barn to put up lights after being warned of my impending doom… Speaking of which, The shot to follow is just a small part of what came of working in the barn…  More Soon.

(Nikon D3s, 1600ISO, Nikon AFS24mmF1.4, 1/250th@F2.  2 Dynalight Uni400 heads inside the barn set to full power (one on each side) set to 45 degree angles up towards the roof fired by Pocket Wizard Flex TT5 units, triggered by a Pocket Wizard TT1 on the camera)