A while back I was in LA and went shooting with John. We went downtown, above the 110 Freeway where the traffic never seems to end. The bridge we were on is pretty high up and it gets a little scary when the buses come by. Try it and see!

If you have visited my site before you’ve seen this shot. I’ve posted it a few times but I actually have a blog format I like now so it’s time to get this one back on the site.

This is the Golden Gate Bridge, shot from Marshall’s Beach in San Francisco. It’s a little tricky to get to but it’s a great location.

Here’s how to get there:

First you have to get to the Golden Gate Bridge, I’ll assume most people will arrive from the city (south of the bridge). Take the last exit before the toll booths, signposted for “Fort Point”. This takes you into a large car park, stop at the stop sign and turn left. Follow the road round and under the toll booths to come out on the other side of the road. Stop at the next stop sign you see then turn right, drive about 0.1 of a mile and stop in the gravel car park on your right. Get out!

Now walk up the hill to the gravel path. Follow the signs for Baker Beach. After a quarter of a mile or so you will have the option to follow a sign for Baker Beach or Marshall’s Beach, take the latter and follow the path/stairs all the way down to the beach. Walk along the beach towards the bridge/big rocks. Take pictures, watch the tide. Enjoy the climb back up the hill!

A little break from the lighting posts today.

This is “Valley View” in Yosemite National Park. I took this on a very cold morning in February 2008, I was the only person out. I think it was about -8C which actually isn’t that cold. I have waited for buses, drunk, in colder weather than that!

I used two Lee Filters for this shot; a 0.9 ND Grad at the top and an inverted 0.6ND Grad at the bottom.

I just got home from a fun evening with Jorge & Rob. We were in a tunnel in the Marin Headlands shooting away for hours, trying new things, working things out, drinking beer….good times!

Rob was our model for the night, I think he only took two or three shots as he is far more model like than Jorge or myself! I took a lot of shots, as usual some worked and a lot didn’t. I like quite a few of the shots I took, we mixed hard and soft light together a fair bit and the results were pretty cool. I took a few shots where I purposely included the lights and I like them, so here you go….a shot with the lights in it!

Maybe, just maybe someone will get the obscure reference to a classic TV show from the title of this post…maybe….

As ever I’m looking for people who want their photograph taken for free.

Lighting Info:
Canon 580 EX, bare, 1/16th power, zoom at 28mm to camera left & right behind subject. Canon 580EX II, 28″ Westcott Apollo Softbox, 1/2 power, zoom at 24mm, 1/4 CTO to left of camera.

Today’s shot & post is by my friend Jorge Moreno, you can see more of his work on Flickr. I do have a version of this shot using the strobe rather than natural light, I will post it in the next few days so you can see the different looks that can be achieved. I think what I really learned here is something either Zack Arias or David Hobby said: don’t let the lights dictate the shot. This was an important lesson to me about visualising the shot in your head and once you have that straight THEN you can work out the lighting. In this instance I prefer Jorge’s natural light shot to my lit shots!

Anyway, over to Jorge ….

About me:

I’m 32, a native San Franciscan who became passionate about
photography as a teenager. I’m a self-taught photography addict–I
take photos everyday–always looking for ways to improve and learn
more about photography as art and lifestyle.

Flickr started as a place to organize my photos for friends and
family, but it has grown to become so much more for. I’ve met some
amazing people on it, and the Flickr community is a daily source of
inspiration. I fully believe that the community’s creativity in their
work along with their comments on mine, make my photography a million
times better.

My photography leans towards portraits which are intimate and
personal, even when I photograph special events. I believe people make
the best subjects, yet I try give that intimacy to any subject I shoot

About the shot:

I’m fond of photographs with the sunlight behind the subjects head. In this shot Paul was to my right and the Soft Box was to my left. I was in the middle with the sun right in front of me and the family facing Paul. I snap away a few shots trying to get the sun right behind them to sort of create a halo behind them. Just practicing.. I got lucky…

I aim more for candid moments so it was perfect because their attention was on Paul. For that one moment the Mom looked at me and I made eye contact through the lens and got the shot.

Please visit Jorge on Flickr!

Last night I was in a field in Palo Alto shooting a family a part of my time for prints project. Once we were done Jorge, Chico and I continued to shoot, using ourselves as “models”. Jorge posted his shot of me in this mask on flickr this morning so there’s no better time for me to post my shot of him!

We planned out a much better shot using this mask, we’ll do it, all we need is two Alien Bees and one more Pocket Wizard & a battery powered smoke machine!

Lighting Info:
White Lightning with open reflector at 1/8th power to camera left, Canon 580EX II, 1/16th power, zoom at 35mm, full CTO at 90 degrees to the subject on the right.

As you know I’m running a time for prints project so I can learn how to light and to build a portfolio. I’ve shot a few people now, but I knew all of them so it was easy to just go and do it with no stress involved. Of course, I can’t spend my whole life shooting people I already know so I was very happy when Michelle and Joe contacted me to volunteer as models. We met up this afternoon and went out in San Francisco for a shoot. I was stunned when 3 hours had passed in the blink of an eye, I probably would have kept on shooting and shooting but the Vagabond II ran out of power (note: I never used it in this particular shot)!

I’m going to post a few shots from this session as we got quite a few that I’m happy with. Big thanks to Michelle and Joe for volunteering and their patience!

Lighting Info:
Canon 580 EX, 1/8 Honl Speed Grid, 1/8th power, zoom at 50mm to camera left. Canon 580EX II, 1/16th power, zoom at 24mm, full CTO pointing at wall behind subject.

Continuing on with attempting to learn to light I met up with some friends of mine, John and Mel. John and I have shot together before so it was a nice relaxed shoot….in the middle of the day. Shooting in the middle of the day is hard! The ambient was very bright so even at my max sync speed the ambient light was too bright. We tried a bunch of shots before giving up and heading for the shade; the small hotshoe flashes just weren’t up to the job (well, they probably are but I dunno how to make ‘em work for me).

In the shade we had a much easier time, we took a lot of shots using soft light, hard light and a mixture of both. This shot is all hard light; a bare 580 EX for Mel & John and a gridded 580 EXII with 1/4 CTO gel onto the foliage behind them.

We tried a lot of different things, some worked and some failed miserably. I definitely learned a lot and I was very thankful that Mel was directing the poses so I could concentrate on the technical aspects of lighting that continue to kick my arse!

As ever I’m looking for people who want their photograph taken for free.

Lighting Info:
Canon 580 EX, bare, 1/16th power, zoom at 50mm to camera left. Canon 580EX II, 1/8 Honl Speed Grid, 1/16th power, zoom at 50mm, 1/4 CTO to front and right of camera.

It’s been weeks since I posted anything here, in fact it’s been weeks since I took ANY photographs at all. Reasons? Poison Oak, Prednisolone treatment for Posion oak making me crazy, apathy, frustration and most of all…no models! It is therefor, with great pleasure I present to you another shot of my son.

Want to see some shots of other people? Be those people! I’ll even stand in front of the camera for you!

I wish I could do the Dustin Diaz thing but I don’t have those mad skills.

On the plus side, I got a spot at the October OneLight Workshop in Seattle.

Lighting Info:
Canon 580 EX II, 1/8th power, zoom at 24mm, 43″ shoot thru umbrella to camera left.

This was supposed to be a landscape post. Obviously it’s not!

We drove down to Pescadero so I could take some long exposure shots of Pigeon Point Lighthouse but when we got there there wasn’t a cloud in the sky. Generally I won’t waste my time shooting landscapes if there is no interest in the sky, I’ve shot far too many dull cloudless sky landscapes and I have only ever posted maybe two of those online!

Abandoning the landscape plan we turned around and headed for home. I’m not one for coming home empty handed so we stopped at Pescadero State Beach and I set up one Canon 580 EXII with 1/2 CTO and a 1/8 Honl Speed Grid on a stand. Took about 30 shots, kept about 5! I need to up my success rate, which is easier said than done when you need a model that will stand still!

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