Flash Bus Review - Wisconsin Tour 2011

Joe McNally & David Hobby the most popular and highly followed names in the world of Photography. When I came to know that they are conducting off-camera Flash seminar (Flash Bus 2011) in Madison Wisconsin on Apr15th, I could not stop myself and registered for it. I feel myself lucky to be able to see these guys in real action so early in my photogrphy journey. I have been following David Hobby through his blog (strobist) and seen lot of Joe McNally's work and still trying to understand how he deals with difficult situations.

The registration fee was $99 was it worth ? If you’re new to off-camera lighting or have started dabbling a bit into it and have read a number of books and/or online articles and still can’t quite wrap your head around all of it, then yes, the Flash Bus Tour is worth it for you. It might be a bit dizzying and difficult to keep-up and I doubt you’ll retain or even learn everything that is talked about by David Hobby or Joe McNally, but the opportunity to hear them speak and explain first hand in person was extremely valuable.

These two gurus are masters of on-location lighting with small speed lights (i.e. flashes), but their lighting methods are as different as night and day. David favors manual exposure, while Joe likes Through The Lens (TTL) exposure. The thing that made this seminar so valuable was that they effectively demonstrated how the same “beautiful light” can be created by different equipment, different light modifiers, and different lighting approaches.

I read and watch every bit of instructional material I can get my hands on but I really feel like watching someone implement this stuff right in front of me will be really instrumental in my education, and thoroughly inspirational at the least.


What I enjoyed most was each of their personalities. Each of them had their own style, but both were incredible funny, personable and great to watch on stage. They have a great stage presence, and when they were not on stage talking they were more than happy to talk to people, shake hands, and were down to earth about the whole thing.

With "Strobist" David Hobby my favorite !

With "Numnuts" Joe McNally the great !

Low Key Drama

Low key photography is something I learnt new this week, so thought of attempting it. Light in 90 deg always creates a dramatic mood. Models are as usual the ever ready my family :) Keeping Urvi still for these pics was a challenge, I had to promise her a candy just for a this shoot....kids are always demanding and she got it as promised...

Exif:
f/5.6, 1/80sec, ISO 200
Flash- Vivitar DF 383 @ 1/8 power

Setup: I placed a flash inside a closet to restrict the light spreading all over the places. Here is the light diagram I found it online  

Happy Holi....

Happy Holi to all of you.... this is my 3rd holi which I am missing being outside of India :( . So this time I thought lets celebrate it with some food colours ....

Exif: Canon T1i f/11, 1/60 ISO 200
Flash - Vivitar DF383

The set up- though the flash is not visible, it was directed from above towards background to get the reflected light through the water.

The Smoke....

I had fun taking these incense stick smoke photographs ....there are tons pictures of such smoke photographs on the net so I wanted to try it myself. I have used slim box to direct the flash light on the smoke and avoid it spilling over the black background. It is interesting to see how many nice smoke formations comes out of that little incense stick which we don't observe otherwise....

Here is the set up

Zack Arias....

Zack Arias is a guest blogger to my photography Blog....how does that sound? Zack is a great photographer and I wish one day he would be a real guest blogger on this  Blog-spot. I just picked this video from online resources and placed it here. This guys has inspired lot of photographers through his work and story of struggled life he went through. This short video is so touching, haunting and inspiring...which describes his story in his words..


If possible I would definitely like to attend Zack's One Light Workshop

Heavy Metal Shoot - Green Bay

Last Sunday (02/20) I had participated in a Photo shoot organised by a Green Bay photography club, the whole experience was not less than a roller coaster ride... I went back with couple of good shots and lot of lessons.
During my engineering days I never thought that someday I will encounter a mechanical factory full of professional models to shoot... Mechanical factory is all about workers in blue/gray uniforms,production targets, supervisor hovering around to check if any worker is hanging around, machines are making all kinds of noise in which you barely hear what other person is saying etc etc - The scene was total opposite in the factory I visited yesterday....the shop was filled up by rock music, photographer were setting up their shooting gears and all over the floor funky chunky models were roaming around with all kinds of fashion clothing which I had seen only on TV or fashion magazines.......now just imagine !!
Looking around this chaos I had no idea from where to start and what to do....by the time i took out my camera and light stand, one model approached me for a shoot. Believe me I had no words to reply, I just said yes and she quickly started posing by nearest available machine...I was literally sweating... but then I took some pictures and showed her...according to her it was fabulous pictures of the day !! the fact is day was just started .... hehehe..she must have understood what is my level ;))
After couple of shots, my brand new Vivitar flash fell down from the light stand...i realized during all that hasty set up i did not fix it properly on a light stand (lessons learnt - don't get confused, cool down, make sure every equipment is in right place and then start!!)
After a little warm up I requested couple of models and found that everyone was interested to get shoot. All these models were either professionals or studying in some fashion schools. Through this kind of photo shoots they are benefited by creating their portfolios (may be for free) by various pro/learning photographers and increase their network. Also the photographers get opportunity to shoot various models at one time one location - so its a win win game ! I liked the whole concept of meet up shoot...

I get to know what all photography gears used by Pros and how they handle it. Most of the time, the minimum the equipments the better it is..... I have observed most of the photographers were untilising one light equipment gear with keep it simple strategy...which was cool.

Here are some of the shots....

 

 

The entire photoshoot ....

Water Drops.....

2 days back I bought Vivitar DF 383 flash which is a budget flash; my dream came true. After an exhaustive review around the budget speedlites I decided to go with Vivitar although Yongnuo YN-560 is also a good flash (may be that will be my next flash). 

So the first experiment I wanted to do was to capture the water droplets as many of the photo enthusiast does. I am happy with my Canon T1i & its kit lens (18-55mm) which gave me these satisfactory results which I am happy to share with you. To be honest I don't know what difference it would have made if I had a macro lens..

The set up was quite simple, but since it was related to water my daugter Urvi was very much interested to help me in everything by playing in it....she wanted to almost swim in that cake pan filled with water. Finally she was successfull to splash water on the camera and flash unit....and got a 'fatka' as a reward :)

I used the gift bag & a gift wrap paper as background, the colours of droplets are reflected from these backgrounds.

And here is the setup..

My Valentine...

On this valentine day I dedicate this post to my greatest supporter, best friend, and wife Kamakshi. I believe any hobby to continue, you need a great support from your near ones and someone should understand how much you are into it...Kamakshi motivated my photography hobby by always saying yes to the things I do, the things I buy, assisting me in photography set ups, by giving me various suggestions, telling me where I am wrong & most important is sparing time whenever I need it...what else I want ?? My blog is a outcome of her suggestion..she wanted me to record my experiments and she believe this way I will not lose the traction on my hobby.... trust me that’s a "BIG" support and motivation.

Many a times I feel guilty that I am so much obsessed with my hobby, I just don’t give attention to her likes and wishes. I am very poor in getting any kind of gift to make her happy...so thought of expressing my feelings to her through this post… Kamakshi you are my Valentine.. J

Winter outside office

Everyday during lunch I see these sit-out benches outside the office canteen, these days they are covered with snow and looks beautiful.... of-course I wanted to photograph it. Last weekend it was a sunny day so I came to office just to shoot it and gone back with these pictures... 

The Glass

It was my long time wish to photograph a glassware and today I gave a shot to utilize a reflection of light to capture some pics. I have used white cardboard sheet & 2 CFL 100w equivalent lights. It would have been great if I had a good strobe unit to for richer reflection. To get more light I have used +2 exposure compensation keeping the ISO100 to avoid any noise.