Shots of Janet with the New Strobe

I shot a few photographs of Janet tonight using the new studio strobe. I hope the sitters at Help Portrait are going to be more cooperative. LOL Getting her to open her eyes is very difficult. Getting her to look the direction I request is impossible.

This is shot with the 43” bolly rather than the 86” umbrella/softbox that I plan to use. There is no need to set up that large an umbrella in our small house. I was shooting on the very lowest sitting, 1/128th power with the bolly about four feet away and still getting a setting of f/10-f/13 at 1/250 sec. I did move it back about a foot and I think that is a better distance for a head and shoulders. I am very pleased with this image but I can’t wait to get the cables to use the Pocket Wizards and the dark backgrounds. It was pretty awkward trying to get a meter reading holding the Sekonic in one hand, the camera in the left hand and trying to reach the AF-ON button to focus and the shutter release at the same time. PW’s will solve that problem nicely.

I also want to try this combination on a boom as a beauty light for butterfly lighting. I have got a total of twelve of the PowerVision DVD’s and the Nikon Creative Lighting DVD which I will be poring over for the next few weeks. I am really looking forward to this project. I really wanted to do full length shots but I think I am going to switch to all head and shoulders. I really like working in close when I am photographing people but we will have to see how it goes. I may go with the 85mm to give them a little personal space.

The latest PowerVision DVD has a great lesson from a photographer named Walton in Kentucky (doesn’t look anything at all like John Boy.) His wife is his assistant and they do all the portraits with the sitters in dark turtlenecks against dark backgrounds, my kind of photos. They are all converted to black and white on a square format. Very impressive stuff. I’m going to give it a try when the dark backgrounds arrive. Don’t have black turtlenecks but do have a tight necked very dark blue sweater—the same ones that Janet and I were photographed wearing in 1985. I told you I never throw anything away. Don’t know where they are right now but they are here someplace. LOL