Unique Photo Location Lighting Workshop Feb 25, 2017

We had a great workshops at Unique Photo, Fairfield NJ last weekend.  My workshops are a mixture of lighting, shooting, creating and sharing ideas.  Everyone gets to shoot every situation, working  with speedlights, studio strobes, light modifiers and color gels.   Unusual spring weather in NJ let us shoot outdoor and indoor!  

Here is a recap of the workshop!

Equipment used during the workshop:
Elinchrom ELB Qudra strobe
Nissin Di700A speedlight & Nissin transmitter
Dynalite Baja strobes
Rogue Flash Benders
Rogue Grid set
Chimera Lighting Light modifier
Sekonic Lightmeter
Pocket Wizard
Rick Friedman Location Lighting Kit by Rosco

I'm teaching a 1 day workshop in Boston on March 8 at Boston Center for Adult Education and Herwin Camera in NYC on March 25!  For the full workshops schedule, please visit www.rickfriedman.com. Hope you can join us!

Thank you everyone for joining us at Unique Photo! Happy Lighting!

Tuesday's Tips: Lighting London

This series of photographs is from my one day workshop "Lighting Goes on Location in London", part of The Societies of Photographer's Convention last month.

The group spent the day shooting in Piccadilly, Chinatown and Soho.  We used several different portable lighting kits, and rarely used light stands!  

Equipment & settings under each photograph.
1 Nissin Di700A Speedlight
Westcott Rapid Box
PocketWizard Plus IV
ISO: 100
Aperture: 4
Shutter: 1/250

1 Nissin Di700A Speedlight
Westcott Rapid Box
PocketWizard Plus IV
ISO: 125
Aperture: 4
Shutter: 1/125

1 Nissin Di700A Speedlight
Westcott Rapid Box
PocketWizard Plus IV
Crossfiltering with Rosco CTO gel.
ISO 64
Aperture: 4
Shutterspeed: 1/250

2 Nissin Di700A Speedlight
2  Flashbender XL
PocketWizard Plus IV
ISO: 100
Aperture: 4
Shutter: 1/100

1 Elinchrom ELB strobe with a Pro head
Rotalux Softbox Deep Octa 70cm
Skyport transmitter
ISO: 160
Aperture: 5.6
Shutter: 1/100

1 Westcott Ice light 2
ISO: 64
Aperture: 5
Shutter: 1/250

3 Nissen Speedlights,  
2 Rogue FlashBender XL
4 PocketWizard Plus IV
Rogue grid shot thru Rosco Cinifoil pattern from Rosco Rick Friedman Location Lighting Kit
ISO: 64
Aperture: 5
Shutter: 1/250

Rogue Reflector
ISO: 800
Aperture: 4
Shutter: 1/100

1 Nissan Di700A Speedlight
Westcott Rapid Box
PocketWizard Plus IV
ISO: 200
Aperture: 4
Shutter: 1/50

1 Nissan Di700A Speedlight
Westcott Rapid Box
PocketWizard Plus IV
ISO: 100
Aperture: 4
Shutter: 1/13

Most of the time the attendees photographed the models.  I took a few minutes at each location to demonstrate my lighting and shooting style. .  We started at 10 o'clock, with a  lunch stop at the pub between, we finished shooting after 5 o'clock!  All my images were shot on a Nikon D810 with a 24-120.  My camera was set Manual for all the photographs, lights were read using Sekonic light meter.

Come join me at one of my upcoming workshops.  Lots of lighting and laughing!

This spring, I am teaching Unique Photo (NJ), Boston Center for Adult Education Center, Harwin Camera (NYC), Cardinal Camera (Philadelphia & Charlotte NC) CanAM Photo Festival and Pixel Connection (Avon, OH).  I will be back in the UK for a series of workshops this summer.   Please visit my workshop page to see a complete schedule.

Tuesday's Tips: A Smokin' Workshop!

Recently I hosted a smokin’ workshop at my studio in Boston’s historic South End.   Actually it wasn’t smoke, it was fog from a Rosco fog machine!

This workshop was a 2 day advanced Location Lighting Workshop and everyone who attended had previously taken one of my workshops.  We decided to create a complex lighting job! 

It was a slightly rainy day in the courtyard behind the studio, so all the strobes and electrical connections had to be covered in plastic.  The courtyard is 22’ x 40’  minus the space for the garden, we had about 15’ x 30’ to work in.  The key to photographing smoke is to back-light it.  I will introduce you 2 smokin' lighting set ups from the workshop in this blog.

Set Up 1

Main light was Dyna lite Baja 600 with Chimera strip light with barn doors to control the direction of the light.  We set up another Dynalite Baja directly behind the model with a 20 degree grid anda Rosco blue gel.  We placed 4 Nissin speedlights with different color Rosco gels in ziplock bags on the ground and in the tree.  The lantern was lit with amini optical slave with Rosco yellow gel and a piece of Rosco Toughspun to cut the exposure . A cross screen filter was used to create the star effect. Rosco fog machine was at stage left, just outside the frame. 

Nikon D810 Lens (mm): 46
ISO: 200
Aperture: 7.1
Shutter: 1/250

In this photograph we changed some of the filters and removed the cross screen filter.

Nikon D810 with a Nikon 24-120 f4. lens.
ISO: 200
Aperture: 7.1
Shutter: 1/250

Here is what the courtyard looked like without lighting.

Gear used:

1 Rosco Mini V Fog Machine
5 Rosco gels from my Rosco Location Lighting Kit
2 Dynalite Baja strobes, 1, 400ws and 1 600 ws
4 Nissin Di700A flashes ( in plastic bags to protect from the rain)
1 Chimera strip light with barn doors
1 mini flash with an optical slave
5 Pocket Wizard Plus III
2 Pocket Wizard Plus IV
2 PhotoFlex light stands
1 cross screen filter

Set Up 2

This is 2 Dynalite Baja and 1 Nissin speedlight set up.  1 Dynalite Baja with a Chimera strip light as main light and the other with a grid and Rosco blue gel as back light.  There is a Nissin speeslight with Rosco red gel in background as well.

Nikon D810 Lens (mm): 100
ISO: 100
Aperture: 4
Shutter: 1/100

Behind the scene.

Gear used:

3 Rosco gels from my Rosco Location Lighting Kit
2 Dynalite Baja strobes, 1, 400ws and 1 600 ws
1 Nissin Di700A flash
1 Chimera strip light with barn doors
1Pocket Plus III
2 Pocket Wizard Plus IV
 

Here is our silly group photograph from the smokin' workshop!  Thank you for everyone attending.  Last but not the least, thank you for good friends at Rosco for lending us the fog machine!

Nikon D810 Lens (mm): 24
ISO: 500
Aperture: 10
Shutter: 1/250

I will be at Unique Photo Expo 2016 on June 24 through 26! Hope to see you there! 

Happy Lighting! and Please Don't Feed the Models!

Tuesday's Tips: The Photo Brigade Video Podcast

Happy Tuessday!  I am excited to tell you I was recently interviewed by Robert Caplin for the Photo Brigade Video Podcast at Adorama in New York City.  The video podcast is now available!  I talked about a bit of my career as a photojournalist, my approach to lighting and my  Location Lighting Workshops.  

Check out the Photo Brigade! Great resource for the photographers! 

Here are the behind scene from this interview at and around Adorama in New York City!

Thank you for having me!

Tuesday's Tips: Fun with Lights!

Last week I introduced the new version of the Rick Friedman Location Lighting Kit by Rosco during a 2 hour Location Lighting Workshop presentation at B&H Photo in New York.  The idea for my Location Lighting Kit came from my "must have" in my camera bag: correction filters, color gels, PhotoFoil and Toughspun.  Using a Dynalite Baja B4 Strobe, my Rosco Location Lighting Kit, a few PocketWizards, a couple of Nissin strobes and a Sunbounce reflector, the goal was to demonstrate different types of lighting, starting with a single strobe and end with elaborate lighting with a projected background all in two hours at the B&H classroom.   Please view the video!

Our wonderful model, Hillary Button, is standing in front of a plain white backdrop.  The photograph below is our set up. The main light is a Dynalite Baja B4 400WS strobe with a 20 degree grid.  The front of the strobe is wrapped in Rosco PhotoFoil, to control the beam of light, so the model is lit without any light from the Dynalite strobe hitting the backdrop. The black foam core further prevents white light from hitting anywhere on the backdrop.   Behind the model's head is a Nissin Di866 flash with a Rosco Night Blue gel #74, giving her the highlights around her hair.  To create the background, I took a sheet of PhotoFoil and cut out the pattern, and hung it from a small boom in front of flash.  I used a Sunbounce Flash Bracket to connect a Nissin MG8000 flash to the same light stand as the boom holding the PhotoFoil pattern.  In front of the Nissin flash is a Rosco CalcolorBlue #90 gel.  The PhotoFoil and the gels are included in my Rosco "Rick Friedman Location Lighting Kit."  The photograph was shot with a Nikon D800 and a Nikon 105mm macro lens on an Induro Tripod connected  to my computer with a TetherTool cable.

The photograph below is from the beginning of the presentation.  The lighting in this image
is from the Dynalite Baja B4 strobe, which is powered by an internal battery, shot through a Dynalite medium soft box.  On the right side of the model's face is a Sunbounce Micro-Mini reflector.  

To determine my exposure, I use a Sekonic 478DR light meter (photo on right).

In this photograph of Hillary, I have added a Rosco Calcolor Lavender 60 gel to the Nissin MG8000 flash behind her head.

And here I am having another rough day at the office!

Thank you to our wonderful makeup artist Kate Easterbrook for a great job and from coming all the way from Toronto.  
I hope you can join me at one of my upcoming Location Lighting Workshops for a couple of days of Lighting and Laughing! This weekend I will be at Hunts Photo & Video just outside Boston.

Tuesday's Tips: Leaping Suzy

This photograph is from my recent trip to Miami for Photo Workshops Miami. The night after the workshop, several of us went out for one more night of shooting, before I returned Boston. We were shooting below the MacArthur Causeway Bridge.  Our wonderful model from the workshop, Suzy joined us.

The photograph is a single frame, lit with one Dynalite Baja 400WS strobe with a reflector, to the left of the camera. The Baja is a monolight with a built in battery.   I wrapped the end of the reflector in Rosco Cinefoil to control where the light would hit. I folded the bottom of the Cinefoil slightly up to prevent spill light on the ground. 

The photograph is a mixture of strobe and ambient light. When mixing strobe and ambient light, you start your exposure with the element you cannot control.   I started the exposure by reading the light on the bridge and the background using the meter in the camera.

My exposure for the image was 13 seconds, f16 at ISO 400. I set the strobe output slightly higher than the ambient light in the background.  This makes the background slightly darker and my model stands out.  To read the strobe I used a Sekonic 478 Light meter.  During the 13 second exposure, I timed and fired the strobe 3 times with the PocketWizard Plus III, I was holding. We marked out the 3 positions where the model would leap and I would fire the strobe.

I used a cable release to prevent possible camera shake.  As soon as I pressed the cable release to start the exposure, Suzy leaped as I press a test button on my Pocket Wizard Plus III to fire the strobe.  We repeated it twice more.   After the 3rd leap,  the model walked off the set while the camera was still exposing. . This was shot on my Nikon  D800 with a 17-35 f2.8 lens on my Induro tripod.

The photograph mixes movement along with timing between the photographer and the model.  The lighting is from four sources, although I only added one. 

I will be presenting my Location Lighting Workshop at B & H in New York City on May 7th and at Hunts Photo and Video in Boston on May 16 & 17! Hope you can join us!

 

Tuesday's Tips: Lighting a London Asylum!

My destination Location Lighting Workshop held at the Societies Photographic Convention, aka SWPP in London resulted in some wonderful images and was  an event teeming with an abundant source of gear and creative alternatives.   The workshop was held at the Asylum, at Caroline Gardens Chapel in Peckham, London..  The Asylum was built between 1827 and 1833, bombed during WWII and semi restored.  This provided an incredible  place to hold a lighting workshop as it afforded us endless possibilities to create moods and scenes depicting a variety of situations.  We had 2 great models and masses of equipment from The Flash Center, Rosco, PocketWizard, Chimera Lighting and Rogue Flash Benders. 

The lighting on this image was an Elinchrom Ranger Quadra strobe with a Chimera Strip Light on the right side of the model. On the left side of the model and slightly behind her was another strobe with a Rosco #83 Blue gel.  Placed in  front of the blue gel was a grid made out of Rosco CineFoil to control the light direction and break up the light beam.  The smoke was created using a Rosco Vapour fog machine.
If you back light your smoke, it will  have a greater effect.  This is true when using a fog machine or when photographing smoke from a cigarette or cigar.  This photograph was shot on a Nikon D-800 with a 24-70 Nikon lens at 35mm, 1/100 of a second at f5, ISO 100.

The photograph below is a mixture of strobe and ambient light.  The light on the models face is from a strobe through a Chimera 30" beauty dish.  The light on the left side of the background is ambient light and the colors were from the bright sunlight  shining through the stained glass windows about 20 feet above the floor.  This was shot on a Nikon D800 with the lens at 24mm , 1/125 of a second, at f 4 ISO 1000.  

Here are a few more images from the Asylum workshop.

At every "Location Lighting Workshop™" we create our "Silly Group Photo" Here is  the Asylum image.  Thank you to Canna Gray of Rosco and Ian Pack of The Light Side for all their help during the workshop.

Please join me at one of my upcoming "Location Lighting Workshops™"  Click here for the schedule.

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!

Tuesday's Tips: Shooting Colorado!

A few weeks ago I traveled through Colorado from Denver to the Telluride Photo Festival.  I had the honor to teach two Location Lighting Workshops and presented two lectures; one on location lighting and one on my career as a photojournalist.  While in Denver, I went to the Denver Botanic Garden to view the Chihuly exhibit. It was amazing!  In Boulder, I stopped off at Chimera Lighting to see where my softboxes are created.  The next day, I headed to Colorado Springs to visit a great photographer and friend, Allison Ernest.  After Colorado Springs, I had an amazing drive across the beautiful state.  

Here are a few photographs from the trip:

Location Lighting Workshop attendee, Mark Burrows, modeling in front of a gray backdrop. This gray backdrop was colored using blue Rosco gels, with a pattern created by shooting the strobe through Rosco CineFoil with holes cut into the CineFoil.

The setup for the above photograph:  The main light is a Dynlite Uni 400 with Rosco ToughSpun over the strobe to soften the light.  The background light is a Nikon Speedlight SB900 with gels and Cinefoil.
I used a Sunbounce MicroMini reflector to bounce back some of the light.

Here, we have moved outside the studio and are using a Dynalite Baja strobe with a Chimera beauty dish as our light modifier.  In this photograph we are using the strobe and beauty dish to control the light on the model's face while initially exposing for the background.  Each of the students had a PocketWizard PlusIII on their camera to fire the strobe.  The Baja recycled fast enough for every student to work off one strobe.

Here is our set up at the beginning of Colorado Avenue in Telluride.  My friend, and an amazing photographer, Marla Meredith is modeling for us.  We are using the Dynlite Baja and the Chimera Beauty dish to light the model's face and balance the background light.

Back in the studio, this was lit using a a Speedlight and with a large Flashbender as the main light and Rogue Grid set as the hairline light.  Thank you Carin Somers for being a wonderful model!

The Chihuly exhibit at the Denver Botanic Garden in Denver.  This is amazing art and light.

Sunrise over Garden of the Gods in Colorado Springs.  Yes, I really did get up early enough to photograph a sunrise!

Hanging out with Eileen Healy at Chimera in Boulder, where all my soft boxes are born!

Reflections over the Box Canyon in Telluride. This town is a photographer's playground!

Sunset over the hills above Telluride.

Star trails over Telluride.  The exposure on this image 1221 seconds at f16, ISO 100.  The light on the mountains and the forest is from an almost full moon.

Telluride, CO

Time to leave Colorado and head for New York to PhotoPlus!

Leaving Telluride...  Next stop... New York for PhotoPlus. I'll be presenting my Location Lighting for Rosco, where we will be introducing my new Location Lighting Kit.  I will also be at Shoot NYC for SunBounce, at the ExpoImaging booth and at Unique Photo.  Hope to see you there!

PhotoPlus Schedule

Thursday  October 30
Noon-  California SunBounce #245
1:30- 2:15  Unique Photo Booth #937

Friday  Oct 31
ROSCO Booth #165

Saturday Nov 1
12:30 – 1:15  ExpoImaging Booth #134
2:30 – 3:15  Uniqu Photo Booth #937

Tuesday's Tips: Making great light with your strobe sitting on the camera!

What can we do with flash on camera?  The answer is A LOT!  

I like using my Speedlights off camera whenever I can, but there are a lot of times as a photojournalist when I don't have time, or space to set up off camera strobes.  Like when covering news events, catching spontaneous moments with politicians and celebrities, and making quick portraits.

I often bounce the strobe off a white wall or ceiling to direct my light.  I change my shutterspeed to achieve good lighting balance and to add or freeze motion.  The Speedlight is a small harsh light source, by bouncing the light off a wall, the ceiling, or using a light modifier you can take a small harsh light source and make it a much larger and softer light source.  By using one of a few small light modifiers like a Rogue Flashbender or a SunBounce Bounce-Wall with your strobe light, you can greatly improve your speedlight on camera.  I use the Flashbender at events and the Bounce-Wall for quick beautiful portraits.  

My rule for Speedlight photography (on and off camera) is: set the camera on manual, and the strobe on TTL.   I use a Hoodman Loupe, to study my LCD screen.  It's worth the money investment, especially under bright sunlight!

I photographed Keith Richards, Chuck Berry and Leonard Cohen at the PEN Literary Awards at the John F Kennedy Library.  In a situation like this always start your exposure with the element you can not control.  In this case it is the blue sky outside the window.   My camera was set on manual and my strobe was on TTL.   I used my camera's light meter to read the sky outside the window, then I used my strobe to fill in my subjects.  My shutterspeed was 1/250 at f7.1.
I used a small Rogue Flashbender on my Speedlight to soften the light. The Flashbender is a small soft box you put on top of your strobe, that fits in your camera bag for on camera strobe!

When photographing in a room with windows you have be mindful of your strobe hitting the window (reflective surface). Either make sure the reflection of the strobe is behind your subject or move to the left or right, so you do not see the reflection.  At this event the only gear I had with me due to the size of the room was a Nikon D-800 with a 17-35 zoom, a Speedlight SB-900 and the Flashbender.  The rest of the gear was outside in the hall.

I shot this during Presidential campaign in NH.  I was behind the bar with President Obama and the Secret Service was standing right behind me.  There was no time for planning, it happened quickly and as a photojournalist you need to capture the moment.   You never know when you are going to be told by the Secret Service to leave the room, so work fast!  My shutter speed needed to be fast enough so that I could capture the President sharp, but slow enough that I would have ambient light in background.  My shutter speed was 1/40 at ISO200 & F 4.5.  I used a dome for this.

I shot this during Chinese New Year at a neighborhood community center.  Strobe was on camera with a small Flashbender.  My shutter speed was slow enough so there is a feeling of motion in the scarf, but fast enough to freeze the dancers, who were standing still as they moved the scarf.  My shutterspeed was 1/5 at ISO 200 & F 6.3 hand held.

Adventurer and author Guy Grieve, was photographed at Walden Pond, in Concord, MA for The Gurdian. This photograph is completely back lit, giving me the highlights on the water on  his hat and jacket as well as preventing a harsh light on his face.  I used a Speedlight on camera to fill in the light in his face.   My camera was set on manual and my strobe on TTL.   I used the light meter in my camera to read the water to give me my ambient exposure.  My shutterspeed was 1/250 at ISO 100 & F10.

The light on the model in this photograph is from a Speedlight on camera bounced off one of my favorites light modifiers, The Sunbounce Bounce-Wall.  The background light is available light.   I started my exposure with the element I could not control which was the background and I used the Speedlight to fill in the light on the model.   My shutterspeed was 1/320 at ISO 200 & F4.  I wanted shallow depth of field, so my background was out of focus.

I shot this photograph in the lobby of a convention center before my presentation for Professional Photographers Association in Atlanta.  There was no pre-planning for the photograph.  We saw the backlight and created the image within a few minutes.   You can see my shoot with Bounce-Wall at Hasselblad Blog!

 I shot this photograph in Watertown, MA after the Boston Bombings suspect was captured.  There were large crowds, many photographers and  many police officers.  I shot this photo with a strobe on camera, bouncing it off of a white satellite TV truck parked behind me.  This gave me a large reflector to bounce my strobe off of.  You want to bounce your light off of a white surface.  You will have a color change if you bounce your light off anything other than a neutral color.  My exposure for this was shutterspeed 1/50, ISO2500 & F2.8.

 

When you walk into a bar and they are hosting a drag bingo, and you only have a camera and a strobe, what do you do?  
This is a 2.5 second exposure (@ F8, ISO 640),  hand held, while zooming the lens. The strobe only fired for about a 10,000th of a second, so some of this photograph is strobe and some of it is ambient light. The camera is on rear curtain synch (this is a topic for another blog).

I have many workshops and lectures coming up.  I'll be at the Hasselblad, Rosco, ExpoImaging and Unique Photo booths at Photoplus Expo in New York,  October 29-November 1
Come stop by and say hi!

To see a complete list of my upcoming workshop, please visit my workshop page!

Happy Lighting!

Tuesday Tips: Lighting up the Night!

Last night I had a chance to work with the brand new Dynalite Baja strobe, the newest addition to the Dynalite line.  The Baja is a self contained battery operated 400 watt second monolight with an internal battery.  I really like the quality of the light coming from the Baja. The recycling time was almost immediate, and the built in modeling light was great.  It's not heavy and easy to work with.

With the Baja strobe and Chimera Beautydish combination as my main light, I photographed a model, Eddy Twal in the front and back of my studio in South End's Boston.  I used a Sekonic L-478DR to read my light.  All strobes were triggered by PocketWizard Plus III.  My camera was set on manual and the color balance was set on daylight.  When working on location I use a Hoodman Loupe to view the images on LCD screen.

Shot 1

This was photographed at the same location as my last week's blog "Strobe on, Strobe off!"  Different strobes give you different looks. This image is a mixture of strobe and ambient light, with a hand held long exposure.  This is a single light photograph, using the Dynalite Baja strobe, Chimera medium beauty dish with an egg crate diffuser, held by my assistant with a 1420 VAL Spigot on painter's pole for the light stand. The VAL Spigot is produced by my friend Ian Pack in the UK.  This is a great adapter to add to your lighting kit.  My camera was set at an ISO 200, 1/4 second and F4.  The feeling of movement is created by shifting my camera from left top to down.  

Shot 2

In this photograph I used the Dynalite Baja strobe with Chimera medium beauty dish with an egg crate diffuser and Sunbounce 4'x6' zebra reflector.  This is also a single light photograph.  My camera was at ISO 250, 1/6 second and F4.5.  My shutter speed was determined by the ambient light, I wanted to have the yellow door lamp bright, but not overexposed.  I choose F4.5 for depth of field.

Shot 3

This photograph is taken behind my studio.  My main light was a Dynalite Baja Strobe with a Chimera medium beauty dish with an egg crate diffuser.  The backlight was a Dynalite Uni portable strobe with a Rosco CTO gel, to warm the color,  Rosco Toughspun to soften the light and Rosco Cinefoil to craft the light.  In the set up photograph, my assistant was holding black foam core against Chimera beautydish to shape the light, and produce the drop off of light in the lower right corner.  My camera was set at ISO 200, 1/2.5 second and F 4.5.  

Due to my training as a long time photojournalist,  I try to do it all in camera.   Less time spent in front of computer is better for my soul....!

I hope you can join me at one of my up coming "Location Lighting Workshops™" in Telluride, CO and at the Societies Photographic Convention in London, UK.  Please look at www.rickfriedman.com/workshops for a complete list of upcoming events.

September 29-October 1 at the Telluride Photo Festival, Telluride, CO

January 16-18, 2015 Societies Photographic Convention, London, UK

For another post on portraits in the dark, please look at my blog post on "Shooting at Twightlight in Costra Rica" 

All the Rosco products are included in Rick Friedman Rosco Location Lighting Kit!

Happy Lighting!

Tuesday's Tips: Making Gray Skies Blue

How do you create a dramatic photograph on rainy cloudy day?  Easy, Have a beautiful model with a red dress, a castle and a Rosco CTO gel on your strobe. This photograph was shot in Caerphilly, Wales,  during one of the 10 stops on my Location Lighting Workshop Tour of the UK sponsored by SWPP.   

In this week's "Tuesday Tips" I'm going to talk about cross filtering technique with strobes.  When this photo was taken, it was raining and the sky was muddy ( See the workshop group photo below). 

Have you ever set your camera on tungsten and gone outside to shoot?  What happens?    Your photograph turns out blue!  So use this to your advantage on a cloudy day.  Set your camera white balance to tungsten, and place a Rosco CTO orange filter over the flash.   A CTO filter is a color correction filter, converting your speed light, which is balanced for daylight, to tungsten.  You color correct the skin tones of your subject while your background turns blue.

The model is lit by a single speedlight with a Rosco CTO gel in front of it, shot through a 24x30 soft box on the right side, with a reflector on the left.   Now the output of my speedlight is tungsten, which matches my camera setting. Because of this, the model has proper skin tones and the background is now blue.   This filter is available as part of the Rick Friedman Location Lighting Kit .  Fun fact, my favorite soft box brand is Chimera Lighting, it makes beautiful light!

To determine your exposure, use your camera meter to read the "Element you cannot control":  In this case it is the ambient light on background.  My strobe is set on TTL and fired with a PocketWizard and if you want your background darker blue, under expose the sky.

 

Come join us for one of our upcoming Location Lighting Workshops. 

July 10, 2014  Hunts Photo.  Holyoke, MA

Sept.29-Oct 5  Telluride Photo Festival, Telluride, CO

Jan 16-18 SWPP Convention, London, UK