Consider the Donkey

Seattle-based professional outdoor recreation and lifestyle photographer Chase Jarvis put together this half-hour video discussing how he shuffles his gear from here to location:



It's contains a lot of great information, especially for those who travel and photograph overseas.

If you don't have time for the 30-minute Advanced version of the video, Chase also posted a truncated, ten-minute version to YouTube.

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Ashley & Tyler, 10.06.07

Ashley and Tyler had a fantastic wedding, and shooting them was an absolute blast. It was great seeing a bride wearing her hair down. It was great to see a bouquet that wasn't full of roses or callas. The variety was awesome!

The ceremony was outside at the Eau Claire Dells. It had been raining the night before, and the near-record high temperatures during the day made the air humid. The colors were completely gorgeous, although they were maybe a few days or a week past peak. The Maple Hills Golf Course near Wittenberg, WI hosted the reception, more location shots, and a really awesome leaf throw, where the entire bridal party lined up with huge bunches of leaves, and on the count of three, tossed them way up into the air. (I told you they were cool.)











































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Carrie & Jeremy, 09.22.07

I had the pleasure of second-shooting Carrie and Jeremy on 9/22. Their ceremony took place at St. Stanislaus, with the location shots at Jordan Park, and the reception at Country Springs Hotel, all in Stevens Point.













































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Perseids

From 11PM on August 12th until 3AM on August 13th I was found outside at the Lake Hudson Recreation Area in Michigan. After exposing over 140 frames, I found that one of my images (the second I shot) had this gorgeous specimen, and another taken a couple frames later had several small trails that are almost unidentifiable.

However, it appears my expedition to see the Perseids was not ignored, as my Perseid image was used in an ABC News webcast. The image also reached into the top four images of the day on Flickr.

Back to Hudson Lake: I was sorely disappointed in the amount of light pollution in this supposed "darkness preserve". Several small townships around the area, especially near the radiant of the meteor shower, completely drowned out the darkness near the horizon. Had I known that it would have been so poor there, I probably would have went up to Waterloo and sat somewhere in the southwest area of that recreation area, as the northeast is relatively township-free.

The EXIF information for those interested:
Camera Make: Canon
Camera Model: Canon EOS 20D
Image Date: 2007:08:12 22:12:02 (Central Time, MI is ET.)
Flash Used: No
Focal Length: 17.0mm
CCD Width: 4.81mm
Exposure Time: 118.000 s
Aperture: f/4.0
ISO equiv: 1600
White Balance: Auto
Exposure: Manual
Exposure Mode: Manual

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"Self-Goboed" Shoot-Through Umbrella

Here's something neat about shoot-through umbrellas that I found useful when doing the kitchen Strobist assignment. I call it self-goboing for shoot-through umbrellas, or simply a self-goboing umbrella, and this is how it works:

Undo the removable back from three (3) of the eight (8) ribs. Which three will be determined by where the light is intended to go, but it must be three adjacent ribs. Now fold the removable back in half across the umbrella, like such:

For added security, it's possible to swap the middle fasteners on opposite sides. First, locate the middle of the unfastened side, which will be the fastener in the red circle:

The fastener in the white circle is the goboed side of the umbrella. Detach it from its rib:

Now replace the fastener you just removed with the fastener from the opposte rib:

And you're done. This will help control spill onto backgrounds, which I found very useful for richer gel color on the background, and there is a nice transitional gradient between the light and dark halves. The proximity of the flash head to the umbrella will determine how much transitional area there is.

Swiveling the flash head towards the open side is also possible, and produces a more efficient source of diffuse light. I could also see this being useful for those wanting to attempt something similar to the specular highlights and watch photos over at Strobist as well.

And finally, a comparison between shoot-through and goboed umbrella:

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A Fantastic Blend

My second try for the first Strobist 102 assignment. I know it's not a kitchen utensil... more like a kitchen utility, but I think this achieves more of what I had in mind when this assignment was given.

Lighting info: Two 550EX flashes. One shot through half a shoot-through umbrella, with an Omnibounce and CTO gel over the flash head. A second 550 was placed on the table next to the subject, and shot at the background. A Coroplast gridspot and blue gel focused and colored the background spot.

Not the setup shot for this particular image, but very close:

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