Fire is life !

Its been for a while I took these pictures but didn't get good time to post on the blog...so lets start with this nice quote...


A house is not a home unless it contains food and fire for the mind as well as the body.-Benjamin Franklin

Ok let me admit here, its not my own idea, I see this on the net and inspired to try it myself. Its good exploring what other photographers do since it helps me to learn more more and more........

I used Lighter Fuel to get the flames on the glass top. As usual the complex part was achieving "correct" exposures. I started with 'Program' (P) mode to understand what camera thinks about shutter/aperture/ISO to get the correct exposures, obviously the 'correct' was not so correct since it was little overexpose due to low light, but at least I got some reference to start with. After some more attempts I settle down at f/11 at speed between 1/10 to 1/30 and ISO 200 to give me the so called correct exposures.


After the some plain flames shots I tried playing with different objects, the natural choice was Ice but an Egg also came into the frame which I theft from kitchen as my wife was about to prepare egg omelet for my daughter.... needless to say I end up eating this half boiled egg to avoid any further consequences ;)

Cannon T1i with 18-55mm kit lens on tripod

Vineyard shoot

A different experience

Low light is not so bad....

On last Friday (08/12) my colleague (Scott Thomson) told me that he is going for moon ling Kayaking in Fox river. I thought its a good opportunity to shoot some of his pics in Kayak.Unfortunately the weather was cloudy and rainy....but the light was perfect to get some magic exposures.

By the time Scott arrived on the bay it started raining and I was in a dilemma whether I should take some strobist shot or wrap up the idea. Thanks to Scott who cooperated and I got few shots which I took with two off camera flashes (Vivitar DF383), one kept in his Kayak facing on his face and other I was holding in my hand to lit up the kayak. I  wish, if there was little more ambient light, the shots would have turn differently...anyways I enjoyed the shoot :)

Flower power..

Whenever I see flowers I feel the power of nature which brings me down to earth.


By plucking her petals, you do not gather the beauty of the flower. - Rabindranath Tagore 

What people can do with Canon 60D ?

I recently came across this cool video of a Japanese band Adrop; for this song they used 250 Canon 60Ds with 'on camera' flash systems.....I am zapped with the creativity so wanted to record this on my blog...am sure you will like it....Can I ever think of such crazy idea .....naaa

Check the making of this video...

if you go here you can see the still pic's from the music video
http://www.androp.jp/brightsiren/

Doty Park shoot

After a long time I got an opportunity to participate in  a group photo shoot for "Focus July Monthly Meeting" which was at Doty Park, Neenah,WI.... thanks to Christy Euclide who organised this.

I had no specific agenda in mind but I was carrying a Westcott 60" umbrella light modifier so wanted utilize it as much as possible. To be honest I am not very happy with the results since I got lot of hard shadows where I was expecting the soft light....might be either I am still not placing the light in right direction or I should have at least one more fill light. The One-Light technique is not quite simple as I thought earlier.... I need to learn more from Zac Arias.

 The best thing about such shoot is, you get new friends who are either professional photographers or newbies like me who came to learn and experience the new things....happy shooting

Model: Skylar Kuehnl
Place: Doty Park, WI
Light modifier: Westcott 60in umbrella

Kids...its fun to shoot

I thoroughly enjoy photographing kids, recently I got an opportunity to photograph two lovely kids of my friend (Rajas Kirtane).... 3months old Ishan and his bro Yash....I was able to take the shots as these kids cooperated very well...

My main intention was to produce "High Key" shots which would have lots of white or highlights in totality without much compromise on skin tone.... I know I need to learn a lot on compositions and exposures but I believe my baby steps will take me to achieve this one day.... every photo shoot is a learning experience for me and I enjoyed it with satisfaction.

This was my first shoot with new Westcott 60inch Umbrella I bought last week and I am totally satisfied with the quality of light it produced. I wanted to photograph Ishu baby for long time but I was waiting to get my budget ready for this umbrella.... looking at the results I feel this light modifier is worth to its cost $47.

Set up: 2 Vivitar flash in 2:1 ratio, one with umbrella and one background. f/5.6 to f/8, 1/200 (sync speed for Canon T1i), ISO100

Harley Davidson....get macho !!

Well before the summer starts in Green Bay, people comes out with their Harley Davidson  on the road.... its one of my dreams to ride this bike before I leave US. Whenever I see someone riding the bike I miss my Royal Enfield Electra... I don't know how long I will miss it..well..

     So I thought instead of creeping I should at least photograph a bike (die cast model) which I bought from Harley Davidson museum at Milwaukee. I photographed this bike previously on a seamless white background with CFL continuous light bulbs, this time I have experimented it with couple of flashes with Grids made out from drinking straws.....after lot of experiments I got few good exposures, here they are.....

Here is the set up: I have used 2 strobes with grids. One of that is covered with blue gel paper which has projected blue spot behind and another on the right to highlight bike details. Also couple of foam boards are used to give direction to the light. The set up shot is very poor and you would hardly see the flashes but it may give you some idea behind the shot.

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