Hello everyone. This weeks post comes from another photo shoot with Leigha and Kim. Having just finished “The Hot Shoe Diaries” by Joe McNally I decided to head out and try out some of my newly learned small flash techniques. This first photo was taken with the 580ex flash way up on a light stand over my head with a Honl Snoot used as a reflector. I then opened the photo in Photoshop CS4 and imported it into NIK Silver Effects Pro. Wow what a killer program. Almost feels like cheating. :-). I really like this photo for the eyes. Like I said in an earlier post “It’s all about the eyes”. 

Ok this is were the experimenting with the flashes starts. I had one on a light stand off to camera right about a foot higher than Kim. This flash had a 3/4 CTO gel on it to warm it up and I had the Honl 1/4 inch honeycomb modifier on the front of the flash. The other flash is on a light stand behind Kim with the Honl Snoot used as a reflector and a 1/2 CTO to slightly warm it up. This was aimed right at the back of her head to add a highlight to her hair. Both flashes were remotely triggered with the Canon ST-E2. This was a tricky thing to do as the trigger requires there to be some kind of “line of site” to trigger the flashes. I had to put it on a remote flash cable and do some crazy gyrations to get the signal to the rear flash. Makes life fun that way.  Very little had to be done in post as you have pretty much all the control you need with the flashes.

Ok, these next two shots are just some fun shots we tried. I must confess that these are pretty much taken right out of “The Hot Shoe Diaries”. I loved Joe’s pics so much I wanted to see if I could do  something like them. Granted his are 10 times better than anything I was able pull off but we sure had fun trying. This first one is Leigha showing us her total terror scream as Kim is in the background, wearing a way oversized sweater and brandishing a shoot-thru umbrella like a weapon. The flash on Leigha is just over my shoulder on the left with the Honl Snoot again as a reflector. The other flash is down the sidewalk about 20 feet with the Honl Honeycomb and a green gel. The honeycomb created a really nice spot on the wall and a great silhouette of Kim jumping up right at the count of 3.

Next we have Kim giving us her best Damsel in Distress pose while it was Leigha’s turn to be in the sweater and brandishing the deadly umbrella. If you squint and use your imagination, the umbrella almost looks like a chainsaw. I have to give Kim and Leigha much props on this night. I was doing a lot of “trying things out” and a lot of it didn’t work. They were very patient and just had a blast with the whole thing. Plus they were real troopers cause it was pretty damn cold out that night.

As always I hope you all enjoy my crazy stories and crazy pics.

Peace