Tuesday's Tips: "Live from New York !"

We had a great time presenting my my Location Lighting demonstrations during PhotoPlus Expo 2017 in New York!  Here are images from my ExpoImaging Rogue Flashbender live demonstration using Nissin speedlights at Unique Photo Booth.  

Both are 2 speedlights photographs with Rogue Flashbenders against the same black velvet background on a 4 foot square stage, achieving very different visual effects.

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Main Light: Nissin Flash Di700A with Rogue Flashbender XL
Hairline light: Nissin Flash Di700A with Rogue Flashbender XL and ExpoImage purple gel
The Speedlights were trigged using a Nissin Air 1 Transmitter.
Shot with NIKON D810
ISO: 250
Aperture: 4.5
Shutter: 1/160

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Main Light: Nissin Flash Di700A with Flashbender XL
Hairline light:  Nissin Flash Di700A with Rogue Grid
The Speedlights were trigged using a Nissin Air 1 Transmitter.
Shot with NIKON D810
ISO: 64
Aperture: 5
Shutter: 1/200

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Lighting Demos using Flashbenders at Unique Photo booth during the PhotoPlus Expo 2017.

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This is the view from my hotel room in NYC.

Now it's on my next workshop!   Location Lighting Workshop will part of the Xposure International Photography Festival in Sharjah, UAE!  Nov 22-25th.   I have an exhibit of my presidential photographs at Xposure. This is going to be great festival, come join us!

I'm kicking off 2018 Location Lighting Workshops with a Bahamas cruise and model workshop with my good friend Vanelli.  Jan. 5-8th.  This will be a lot of "Lighting and Laughing"  Join us!  More info about upcoming workshops can be find my workshop page.

 

Tuesday's Tip: Lighting Hyunah

This week's Tuesday Tips is a photograph from my studio.  As a photojournalist and corporate photographer, I do the majority shoots on location, although I do use my studio for some assignments.  Quite often, I use my studio like my test kitchen exploring new lighting techniques and testing new equipment.  All of the light in this photograph was produced using 3 Speedlights and a plant!  Ok, I used some other equipment.

My wonderful model for this shoot is Hyunah Jang.  A superb photographer, now working in Hawaii. 

The main light in this photograph is a Nikon speedlight shot through a  Flashbender XL Pro Strip Diffuser.   The hairline light another  speedlight with  a Rogue Grid  and a 1/2 CTO orange gel on a boom overhead.  For the background we placed a third strobe on the floor behind the screen with a blue gel  and fired it through a plant to give us the pattern on the screen.  We  used a piece of foam core to bounce the light from the Flashbender back on to our model’s face.  ISO 125 Fstop 7.1 and Shutterspeed 1/100.  

This set up works in a really small space and with the exception of the screen and plant is really portable.   The end photograph just does not feel like it was shot in a  really small space.

Gear used in this Shoot:

Nikon D800
Nikon 70-200 f2.8 zoom lens
Nikon 3 Speedlights
4 PocketWizard Plus III
ExpoImaging Rogue XL Pro Strip Diffuser (main light)
ExpoImaging Rogue Grid with gel (Hairline light)
Rosco Blue gel (background)
Formcore
Manfrotto Justin Clamp (to hold a form core)

Tuesday's Tips: Capturing Santa!

Merry Christmas!

The Challenge in this week's "Tuesday Tips,  Capturing Santa"  is balancing the strobe light, the ambient light in the sky and the holidays lights in the wagon.  I shot this near my studio in South End neighborhood of Boston.  The key to making this photo work, was waiting until the ambient light in the sky dropped to the point of being almost dark and matching exposure on the sky to the tungsten light in the wagon. At that point, the side of Santa's face nearest the camera was underexposed.  The solution was a Speedlight on camera, the flash compensation was  -1 stop with a small Rogue Flashbender.  To determine my ambient light, I used the in camera meter.  The exposure was ISO 400, 1/30 second at f2.8.  My camera was set on manual and my strobe was set on TTL.  This was not a set up shot, so I had  to make the photograph in a very short period of time, like 3 frames.

It's getting cold in Boston. Stay warm for the holidays season, and Merry Christmas!

Tuesday's Tips: Happy Chanukah!

Happy first night of Chanukah!  The Festival of Lights.   For this week's Tuesday's Tips I thought I should light the lights.  Since it 's the first night, I lit the menorah with 1 speedlight. 
 

 
I shot this photograph in my studio in Boston's South End using a single Nikon Speedlight shot through a Rogue Grid with a blue gel.  I put a Rogue Flashbender on one side of the grid to further narrow the beam of light from the Speedlight giving me drop off on the light in the foreground. 

This photo is a mixture of available light and strobe,  when deciding on exposure for a photograph I always start my exposure with the element I can not control.  In this photograph that element is the light from the candle.  I used the camera's light meter, set on spot meter to read the light from the candle.  Below you can see what the image looked like with no strobe and with strobe, without the blue gel.

The last part of the setup was moving the menorah so I had reflections in the base.

The photograph was shot with a Nikon D-800 and a Nikon 105 Macro lens, Rogue grid set, Rogue flash bender, Pocket Wizard TT5 & TT1.  The menorah was on a black velvet backdrop.  The velvet did not reflect any light, giving me the total black background.

Shalom, May Peace be with everyone this holiday season! 

Upcoming Workshop:
2015
January 14-18, 2015
The Societies Photographic Convention.  London, UK

January 16
SWPP Lighting on Location. London, UK

January 17
SWPP A Day at the Asylum. London, UK

January 18
SWPP Location Lighting Workshop Demonstration. London, UK

February 7, 2015
Hunts Photo, Portland, Maine

February 19
Stonybrook Camera Club Evening Lecture 

February 27
Horizon Photography Summit  Wilmington, DL

March 2-5
WPPI 2015

March 21-23
Can-Am Photo Festival Amherst, NY

March 24
Gateway Camera Club Evening Lecture

March 31 -April 1
New England Institute of Professional Photography: 2 day Location Lighting Workshop

 

Tuesday's Tips : Fun at PhotoPlus, New York

I had a great time at PhotoPlus in NYC, presenting 5 lectures and live demos for Sunbounce, Rosco, Expoimaging and Unique Photo during the show.  Here are a few of the photographs recapping PhotoPlus. Enjoy!

Rosco released the new version of my Location Lighting Kit.  The kit includes 27 Rosco color gels, Cinefoil, and Toughspun, a must-have in my camera bag.  I presented a Live Location Lighting Workshop using my kit to create photographs at the Rosco booth shooting the model against a white backdrop

Thank you for the great make up, Kate Easterbrook who came all the way from Toronto!

This was a 3 set-up: The main light was a Dynalite Baja Strobe with a small Chimera striplight.  The background was created by blowing a Nikon Speedlight  through a pattern cut in a sheet of Rosco Cinefoil with 4 color gels.  The black cardboard is to prevent my main light from hitting my background.  The hairline light was a Nissin Speedlight with a color gel, Toughspun, and Cinefoil.  All the gels, Cinefoil and Toughspun are in my new Rosco Rick Friedman Location Lighting Kit.  I mixed 3 different brands of strobes and fired them using Pocketwizard Plus III’s. 

I did another fun demonstration at the Expoimaging booth, using a Rogue XL Flashbender, set up as a strip light,  3 Rogue Grid sets and 3 color gels.  The set up for this shot was 4 speedlights.  My main light was was a Rogue XL Strip light on the left side.  The hairline light was a Rogue grid with an orange gel placed directly behind the model and aimed at her head. The side  light was a Rogue grid with a blue gel placed to her right side. The background light was a Rogue grid and a red gel aimed at the backdrop.  

I did a live demo for Sunbounce Hasselblad Bron on the show floor stage working with Sunbounce Bouncewalls, and Sunbounce MicroMini reflectors.

At the Unique Photo booth I presented my Location Lighting Workshop presentation.  I am delighted to say that we will presenting  another Location Lighting Workshop at Kips Castle in the spring!  Kips Castle is a old castle located at Monclair, NJ.  We had great photo fun last time.  Registration infomation is coming soon!

My good friend, great photographer, and creator of Digital Photo Experience, Rick Sammon interviewed me about my new "Rosco Rick Friedman Location Lighting Kit".   If you have not subscribed to his podcast,  sign up today! Its a great resource for photographers, and stay tuned for my episode!

In the mist of PhotoPlus, I also managed to see many of my photo friends including Jim Morton and Jason Etzel at the Dynalite booth

To unwind, the Flug Halloween Party was the place to be.  The party was sponsored by my friends at Resource Magazine and Hasselblad Bron.  I know it's hard to tell, but the person in the middle is Resource Magazine publisher Alexandra Niki, on right is photographer Gabriel Biderman.  Both Gabriel and myself recently led FujiFilm Photo Tours.  

You can see many more behind the scene photos from PhotoPlus on my Instagram, RickFriedmanPix.  My next 2 stops for my Location Lighting Workshops are Hunts Photo in the Boston area in December and  at the Societies Photographic Convention in London in January.  I'll be teaching my Location Lighting Workshop "A Day at Asylum with Rick Friedman" (love the title!).  Hope you can join us!