Rain Rain Go Away!!!

So I decided that I needed to go out and take a few photos. I called up a buddy of mine to go and get some night time freeway shots. I took a look outside and it was pretty cloudy so I was hoping that it wouldn't rain. I contemplated if I wanted to chance it but I decided to go anyway. As soon was we got to he location, it started pouring!
I had my camera on a tripod, set it to manual mode F16, ISO 100, 30 sec shutter speed. I was only able to fire off a few shots before the rain came down. Oh well, I guess I will have to try again another night! Enjoy!

Christmas Shoot with Tasha Woodfall

So back on 11/04/07 I get a message on ModelMayhem from a young 16yr old name Tasha Woodfall. She wanted to setup a shoot when I had time. Now don't get me wrong, I've never shot a minor before so I didn't know what the legal terms and conditions were, so i have to do a lot of goggling and asking other photographers who I knew had worked with her before. During that time work was very crazy so I had no time to shoot so I told her that I would get back to her as soon as things settled down. She then told me that when I was ready to contact her mom and she will be handling all the coordination for the shoot. No problem!

Well has weeks went by Mrs. Woodfall and I went back and forth via ModelMayhem messages, either I couldn't make the date or Tasha had already had plans. Finally this past week we were able to settle on a date and she had interest in a Christmas theme and since its is that time of year, I had no problems with that.

Now don't forget that I'm still using my friends Canon 40D and I'm still getting use to the camera and its operation. So I was a bit skeptical on if I should use the camera on a TFP shoot or not, but I convinced myself that I'd be fine.

Now usually I shoot at my friends "make shift studio" but he told me that it was rented out of the rest of the weekend and I couldn't wait till Monday. I quickly contacted another photographer who had another studio but at a slightly higher rate which I didn't mind paying because it was available that day.

The studio was small which was a concern to me. I didn't have my 17-40 lens with me, even if I did I would be hesitant to use it because if distortion, so I had to use my 24-70. The 40D is a 1.6x crop camera verses my Mark IIN which is a 1.3x crop camera, and since the studio was small I was worried that even the 24-70 wouldn't have been wide enough to do complete body shots.

My idea of a Christmas shoot was Tasha in her Christmas outfit and I was going to use a green gel to make my white back ground green. Since I only had 2 lights (2xAB400) I figured I'd use a hotlamp on the gel the background..... BAD MISTAKE!!!! I ended up warping the gel. Lighting was a bitch. Luckily another I called another photographer, which is a lighting guru, to come down and observe. He helped me as much as he could with the lighting, we had to compromise on some small things in order for it to work. In the end we ended up point on strobe up at the ceiling and and off to the left hand side (bare bulb), the other one right in front with a large softbox. I had to shoot under the box.

The shoot was a good one, obviously Tasha has work with numerous photographers so she had tons of experince. She was easy to direct and had a varitly of emotions. Her mom also had a few ideas also that was fun and easy. Im sure she will make it in the modeling business with no problems.

Test shoot with Louise (aka Weezie)

So I haven't had a chance to shoot many models lately. I've been busy assisting other photographers and trying to learn a thing or two from each shoot that I haven't been booking my own shoots. So one of my friends told me that he ordered some gels from AlienBee and wanted to use them in a shoot. Well I thought about using the gels also in a shoot but I had to find a model that would let me test it on her. I send out a few email and and finally I just asked a friend of mine if she would let me test it out on her, she agreed... SUCKA!!!!!
I finally got around to booking a make shift studio, now its time to shoot!

So for this test shoot I used three AlienBees lights which consisted of and AB400 with a Large Softbox and two AB 800's one was holding the gels and the other had a Large Ooctagon Softbox on it. The lighting was tricky for the shoot. We had to sandwich the model between to lights while using the third light to blast the backdrop with the colored gels. It took a couple of times to figure it out but one of the biggest mistakes of the night was not rolling the backdrop all the way out. Not doing that cause me to have minimal working distance for my model. Also, I wanted to try out my 85mm f/1.2 but the issue with this lens is that it has a minimal focusing distant of 3 feet and that is a big issue when you barely have enough space to shoot with in the beginning.

During this time I was using two different camera. One was a Canon 40D and the other was a Canon 5D. The purpose of using two different is because I am in the market for a backup camera. It sucks pretty bad to be cameraless because you had to take it in to the shop for whatever reason.
The shoot started late (10PM) so I was trying my best to keep the shoot short, but since this was my first time doing a test shoot with gels it went pretty long. I didn't have a light meter (nor do I know how to use one) so I had to eye ball my settings. With the two camera I shot at sync speed (1/250 for the 40D and 1/200 for the 5D), I did most of my adjustments by using the aperture which was usually set between f/8 and f/11.
One of the biggest issues I had was with the gels lighting. I was using a green gel, but the 7' reflector had a hole to place an umbrella. Since I wasn't using an umbrella we had to cover the whole with a piece of tape to prevent light spill from the top. Some how the light keep spilling from the bottom (see pictures to the right).

Overall I think I got a few good shots. I wasn't expecting much since it was a test shoot and I explained that too her. Weezie was kool as hell to work with, but I guess the fact that I know her from work kinda helped out also.
I hope you enjoyed reading!

Hot Import Nights 2007 Honolulu, HI

So I decided to go to Hot Import Nights and check out the import scene. I must say it wasn't all of what I expected. Maybe I was comparing it to the HIN in the mainland (ie the other 48 states), but this one was just plain old crappy. I mean they did have Ursula May (left) and Sara Bronson (right), from Deal or No Deal, and Tera Patrick ( I think we all know who she is). Out of all the women there I think Sara Bronson was the hottest. I mean Ursula May look like she had her lips done which gave her a "fake" look. But Sara look like she just stepped out of a magazine. Most of the people there were mostly interested in the UH vs UW game that was going on. I mean at one time there were about 150 people crowded around one of the cars that a built in 42in screen showing the game.

The lighting was pretty crappy in the building it self, in most of the areas it was barely any lit so I found myself shooting at ISO 800-1000 most of the night but I was impressed how noise free they came out (the picture of Ursula and Sara was taken at 800 ISO). I think some of my best photos came from the gogo dancers on stage. I was digging the gels they had on the strobe lights on stage. I found myself taking most of my shots there even though it was hard because there were tons of people there so I had to try to wedge my way through and get as close as i could (I was using my 24-70 f/2.8 lens), but the effort was well worth it I think.

As I wondered around various booths at the event, I did see some familiar faces. I keep forgetting that every GWC (Guy With Camera) came to this event to shoot the import models. One of the few places I stop by and hung out was the Epower Sports booth. My good friend Elliot and his crew where hanging out when Warren comes out and brings his Alien Bee Ring Flash and started flashing everywhere.

All together I think it was a decent night at HIN, but was it worth $25... hell no! Was it worth the presale price of $17.50..hell no. I think this even should have been priced from $12 (presale) and $15 (door). I will go every year (as long as I live close to one) because it was a good chance to network with model and photographers and also see some half naked women walking around shaking that money maker. But any event is a good one when you get Ursula May blowing you kisses!

Thanksgiving

What a better way to start off my blog than to do it on Thanksgiving. I have been excited about this day so I could get some pictures of a turkey but come to find out it was harder than it looked. Most of my problem was steaming from the white balance. The photo looked good on my monitor but when I uploaded it online, it was horrible. I had to upload it to my Smugmug account for it to look ok.
After a few shots of the turkey, I put the camera down and started stuffing my face. HAPPY THANKSGIVING!