Poker Painting with Light

Granted this was a lot of work, but really fun too. I was inspired by a photo in our Photo Printing Lab, that has the similar effect yet that one is a little more crisper than this. Yet I did want some blending to happen with this, I believe it adds to the chaos of this hand being won by some and lost by others.

To make this shot happen we started by metering and got a reading for 7.1, yet after the first shot we saw that was too dark, and not near the effect we wanted. My partner Alison and I decided to get the camera closer and up the apture a stop to f/14, to get the timing down to just the right on each character we did sort of a test strip. We took a photo where the the guy on the far left got 2 seconds of paint with the Mag Lite Flash light and then each other person then was increased by 2. So after our 2, 4,6,8 shot we saw that 6 to 8 was about right. We decided that we should shoot 6 seconds on the guys closer to the camera and 8 on the ones on the back side of the table. We played with that and then thought about popping a flash to really get some defination on each person and the table. The table was actually painted in last.

So on the last two shots we had a flash on manual pop at 1/32 on each person then painted them in for 2-3 seconds for the blending and rest of the detail.

As far as moving into the positions well that was just magic, and the help of a backstage and some cell phone light. I started in the gangsters seat, then we opened the shutter, once it was done I walked behind the black backdrop changed into the hoodie and used my little cell phone light to find my way back to my seat as the hooded dealer. That hoodie with its dark material became really hard to paint, and bring out. After being painted and flashed, I walked behind again and put my real college guy personality on with t-shirt and jeans and backwards hat. Finally I lost the jeans and went down to some boxers for the final look at the poker realm.

Multi Flash

Great we masterd using multiple flashes in the studio, now the real challenge of taking that into the real world.

I really liked that I could take this assingment outside to let shaddows fall off in the distance, yet Katie Barns did a really nice job with her multi-flash work at the Greek Week skits. I chose my photo of MU Students for Life painting crosses at 3 am because it is not only the hardest one I had to work to get, but it really did show something that would not have other wise been shown. With that shot I could let my key light stay on my camera and use it to stop my subject, and use my second flash to set out of fram to get a few of the 4000 crosses on the South Quad.

I didn't like the Cardboard Condo shots that I had of habitat for humainty so much because the shot I really wanted of someone walking by being caught in the key lights flash area, and then using the secondar to light up the boxes. I did have a few, but the one of the girl in the jeans coming home from the library was way too hot to turn in. Amazing how much flash power you need to show what you need and how the subject distance will always mess that up, plus you can't move around too much because the moment you change your angle the 2nd light isn't in the right spot or gets too much in to the frame. The other angle I tryed to attempt at Habitat was to shoot the new Brady wall example with their Cardboard Condo's in the back ground. Yet once again angles and distance became my enemy.

Blending Light

This asignment really depended a lot on our creativity and how we wanted to give emotion to the photo. While I got some good shots at the Greek Week skits, I thought that it looked like it had been done too many times before, and the only one that I really liked was 2169. It had good motion, and the color arrangement was great.

However, following the tragic events at VA. Tech I really wanted to be at the candle light vigil. Now my select from that really doesn’t have to much light blending going on, but it is more honest of the moment that I was in. More of the panning shots made the candle streaks look un-natural to me. Plus, this shoot reminded me of the headdress person in their hotel room we looked at in class. It really shows the slow movement of the candles from one person to the next. To get this shot, I had to gel my strobe because of the very orangish tungston light given off outside of Memorial Union, and I was balencing my self on a hand rail above the crowd so getting down, and asking the main girls name was not going to happen. Especially with speakers talking about VA. Tech.

Fill and Balance Flash

This assignment wasn't that bad to deal with, I'd even say I had some fun with it, and pushed my self a little more. Plus, it is easy to see why so many photojournalists use this effect as much as they do.
The tuckers and manager of the truck stop were really great about letting me take their pictures. I chose the location because I knew that the covering over the pumps could act like a big hat and cast a shadow for me to battle. However, it became more of an excise in light balance, because the day was over cast from the storms that morning. It was like everything outside the covering, was much like some one next to a window in a indoor situation. So it was like shooting into a big soft box, but I did have a few exposure readings for that kind of light that I was working off of, plus trying to stay with in my sync speed. Sean pointed out that the sky looked a little blown out which I can agree with, but the photo of Brian if you look under his arm you can still see the other trucks, and signs on buildings as they were that day. One other thing I needed to fight was a ton of metal around me, which really came off nicely; I was able to hide the flash, and his and other reflections.

As I mentioned once before, I know we didn’t have to shoot both fill and balance but I wanted to improve on the truck stop, and I found these guys playing soccer. While I did attempt my best Spanish with them to let them know what I was doing there, only one spoke broken English, which is very hard to get caption information on anyone, especially when they weren’t going to stop their game for me. Good chance to use my 300 mm lens and see what happened with it and the flash even though I think I messed that up. For one yes keeping the flash off camera works well for this technique, but if I was going to use my 100-300 lens again I’d mount the flash for better results. I’m enjoying the power to fill the shadows with just enough light, and give the photo that much more pop! Especially with these soccer guys I could see how my flash became more the key light as the night went on, and making a good picture like that would require a bit more power.

Yet over all I think I have a few images that worked well from this shoot. I liked the expression of Surratt in 1499 but I think the flash was too close/ too hot on his forearm, and the other man pumping gas into his red truck wasn’t bad but he wouldn’t stop looking at the camera, and it became too much of an environmental portrait. For both shoots I found my self still starting in TTL then switching over to Manuel when I was comfortable, and trying to dial down the power where needed. I read somewhere that putting a coffee filter over your flash will do a lot to diffuse the light off it. I wonder if I metered next time then added the filter and shot if that would work to make it a bit more forgiving?