Diaper Cake…seriously….

Hi Friends,

Those of you who know my wife and daughter know that they just can’t help themselves when it comes to creativity.  Well, they kind of outdid themselves in preparation of the “diaper cake” below for a baby shower at our church today. No baking required as this “cake” is made completely of rolled up disposable diapers, situated around a bottle of sparkling cider.  The flowers, stamped borders, letters, butterflies, etc. are the icing on the cake!  (Chiaki is a Stampin’ Up! demonstrator (check out her website), so pretty much everything that comes out of our house has her creative touch…not to mention glitter).

For the photography folks, this was shot in a light tent with a Nikon D2x; Nikkor 24-70 f/2.8; and a pair of SB-800s: one for the white matteboard seamless background, and a second from camera right to light the cake.

Chiaki’s offered to “bake” these cakes for other folks in need of a baby shower decoration/gift. Contact her through her Stampin’ Up! site above, or at chiaki@stampingpro.com for details.

Thanks for looking!

A few more photos from “One Voice”

As I mentioned in my earlier post, I realized after attending the “public” performance of One Voice opening night that there were a number of additional photos that I absolutely had to shoot from the audience POV. Ian, the director, kindly arranged to have the cast in make-up and costume EARLY prior to Saturday’s performance to enable me to do a pick-up shoot.

I had only a few scenes that I really wanted to recapture, along with a couple portraits I had in mind.  So, without further adieu…

Clayton Prescott as Nicodemus:

Ian Talbot as Joseph of Arimathea:

Ian and Clayton-The Pharisees:

Clayton, Ian and Darrell Conrad (Jesus of Nazareth) (see the play to understand the significance of this image):

John the Baptist:

Clayton again…

Thanks again to cast and crew for indulging me!  More stills from the shoot are here: One Voice Gallery

If you’re in Orange County (CA) or the neighborhood, you still have a chance to see it Sunday, April 19th at the Candlewood Theater at Anaheim First Church of the Nazarene (click here for directions): doors open at 7:00 PM, curtain at 7:30 PM.

Small Strobes Big Results Workshop comes to Orange County

Hi Friends,

I was privileged yesterday to host David Tejada’s Small Strobes Big Results^TM Workshop at my church in Anaheim.  David is a commercial photographer from Denver, CO who specializes in location corporate portraiture.  He has fully embraced the minimalist lighting approach and developed this hands-on workshop to share his knowledge of how to achieve studio-quality results with hotshoe flash units.

As I mentioned to David in a follow-up email, I’m still reeling from all the info! I was seeing SB-800s, DIY modifiers, cold / warm white balance schemes, and lighting diagrams in my sleep last night!

We spent the morning going over grip gear, technique, etc.: you know…the essentials of light.  Pizza arrived at around 11:30,  as did our model who was with us for the remainder of the day.  From my own photography / small flash lighting experience, I knew much of the technical aspects of what David presented before the workshop. But seeing it applied, and watching David and his assistant, Erik work through the lighting in practice–thinking it through out loud–is a tremendous benefit and really firms it up in my mind.  This is how it would work in a real-life situation.  You don’t always have control over the environment in which you’re required to make your images, but you DO have control over your lighting, your composition…your images.

Read all you want…watch online videos…but there’s simply no substitute for the hands-on experience like David did for this workshop.    And I won’t give away any secrets, but he had some really terrific techniques for very natural looking lighting that I can’t wait to try out myself!

Suffice to say, if you have any, and I mean, ANY interest in small flash lighting, you’ve got to attend one of David’s Small Strobes Big Results^TM workshops.  He does them all over the country, so contact him through his website and find out when he’s coming to your neighborhood.  You can’t help but come away from it a better photographer!

Masquer Ministries Presents-One Voice: A Drama for Easter

Hi Friends,

I’ve been honored (and humbled) to be able to shoot the dress rehearsal of the last 4 or 5 productions of Masquer Ministries, a phenomenal drama troupe who make their home at our church in Anaheim.  Well, this week, I was able to get in the way of these very talented actors again, and photograph the dress rehearsal for their Easter production of “One Voice”: the story of the life and ministry of Jesus through the eyes of  Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus.  Click the video above to get a sense of the passion and craft of this production. It’s about 6 minutes long…You won’t be disappointed.

It’s kind of funny… One of the cast members asked me the other night after the rehearsal what I thought of the show.  As I stammered for a witty reply, I realized that I hadn’t really “seen” the show I had just photographed. I was so focused on capturing the fleeting expressions and moments that I didn’t really appreciate the scope of the production as a whole.  But as I was putting together the above video montage of the images, the significance of the message really struck me, and it brings me to tears each time I watch it.  This production will speak to someone over its six night run…I guarantee it.

Here a a few stills from the show:

More stills from the shoot are here:  One Voice Gallery

If you’re in Orange County (CA) or the neighborhood, performances are this Friday through Sunday (April 10-12) and next Friday through Sunday (April 17-19) at the Candlewood Theater at Anaheim First Church of the Nazarene (click here for directions): doors open at 7:00 PM, curtain at 7:30 PM.

Hope to see you there!  Have a blessed Easter!

Urban Portraits: Overpowering the Sun with Multiple Speedlights

I drive past this building every day and have often wondered how it might work as a background for portraiture. I had a vision of a really contrasty image with nice rimlighting, and had planned to use the setting sun to provide that rimlight from camera right (behind the subject), and to use an SB-800 w/shoot thru umbrella as the key light to camera left.  

I talked the munchkins into running over there the other evening after work.  Sky was overcast, and a little dim which made for nice diffuse lighting and wide open aperture (shooting with the Nikkor 24-70mm at f/2.8), which in turn gave me a nice shallow depth of field with the kids standing about 6 feet from the wall.  But it was lacking the contrast / edginess I had envisioned:

Went back to the same postered wall today at around 5:30 PM…clear blue sky, sun relatively low in the sky, but still quite bright…and with the setting sun at his back, there was the rimlighting I was looking for on Conner’s left arm (camera right).

The image below was shot with the Nikon D2x / Nikkor 24-70 at  f/4.5.  Keylight was 2 Nikon SB-800 Speedlights in a shoot thru-umbrella about 90 degrees to camera left (just out of frame). Why 2 Speedlights you ask? Because I was shooting in high-speed FP sync mode at 1/320s at f/4.5 (100 ISO) to maintain a fairly large aperture / shallow DOF while shooting in bright sunlight. FP high-speed sync lets you shoot with flash at faster shutter speeds than the “normal” max sync speed of 1/250s, but it really cuts down on the output of your lights. By ganging multiple Speedlights, you can compensate for the loss of  light in FP mode,  and “overpower” sunlight at large aperture / fast shutter speed.  In this case, both Speedlights were at full (1/1) power.

Even though f/4.5 is a fairly large aperture, because Conner was right up against the wall, the resultant shallow depth of field is not as apparent as in the images above where he was about 6 feet from the background.

Here’s the DIY “gang flash” bracket I made from a strip of aluminum and 3 cold flash shoes.

And in use either in reflective or shoot-thru mode with an umbrella, triggered remotely with the Nikon SU-800, or PocketWizards:

Thanks for dropping by!  Feel free to leave a comment if you’re so inclined.