The Skirt Chasers at Rancho Relaxo
March 26, 2009 | Filed Under photo | Leave a Comment
Hilary Chan, a friend of my wife, is in an awesome nut-crunching blues-really-hard rock band called The Skirt Chasers. They had a show at Rancho Relaxo last night, and having not shot a concert in some time (last one was Modernboys Moderngirls, with faulty flash triggers, aRgH!) I offered to get some stills for them. Hadn’t heard the music before, and it was supreme.
An SB 600 and an SB 28 were both rattling off at 1/4, gelled 1/1 tungsten. One was behind Hilary, and one was to the camera left in front of Jason, hanging inside a wall lamp. You gotta make use of the facilities however you can, especially in small and tight venues! Shots of Jason were usually at iso 400, F/5-5.6 and shots of Hilary were at iso 640 at the same aperture-ish. Shutter was about 160, so’s not to let much other light in outside of the flashes. More shots in this linked Flickr set. All shots are straight outta the camera jpegs.
The Ting Tings on Q
March 23, 2009 | Filed Under photo | Leave a Comment
They’re on Q today (if ya missed it it’s on again at 10pm). Didn’t get to meet’em or anything, as with most Q shoots this one was a quick in and out. I find I’m leaning more and more on the Lensbaby since I got it. The soft shots it produces (thanks to the included plastic optic) are somewhat wonder-inducing for me. I’m pretty sure I’m gonna pick up the single-glass optic as well (they’re interchangeable), but in the meantime the plastic optic is workin’ a-OK.
The shot is incredibly blurry, and while I do have technically better ones (including the one currently on the Q site, down by tomorrow), this one was still my fave.
Sean Galbraith enables OVERDRIVE
March 22, 2009 | Filed Under photo | Leave a Comment
Taken during my rock band birthday party. This was shot after many a drink was had by all. Sean (also a photographer who has exceeded his monthly web traffic quota at the moment) was cross lit by two flashes, ungelled/modified. You can see one of them pretty obviously in the shot, the other was in the upper corner or the room on camera left. Pretty much my standard setup, though at other times I’ll gel the flashes (works better when there’s fewer people in the room, but in this case we had a little fire hazard going).
Joel Plaskett
March 20, 2009 | Filed Under photo | Leave a Comment
Joel stopped by the Drive studio not long ago. Last time I saw him was when he was playing with Thrush Hermit over a decade ago. He had longer hair back then.
While I did shoot him with my “normal” lenses, I also pulled out my new Lensbaby Muse that I got for my birthday a day or so before. First time using it in studio and these shots are straight out of the camera (doing more Raw+Fine JPG shooting lately). Lensbaby had an F/4.0 aperture, using a plastic optic. Had two lights on him, one gelled tungsten and the other left bare (I think), while the camera white balance was set to ‘daylight’. First shot is hitting him mainly with the tungsten gelled flash.
Canada’s Next Great Prime Minister
March 19, 2009 | Filed Under photo | Leave a Comment
I was on set to shoot Canada’s Next Great Prime Minister for the CBC (Magna had its own set of photographers). All the shots on set were without any of my own lights, except for some posed shots at the end where I held out an SB600 with my left hand. After-party shots were with an SB600 with a bulb diffuser on. I categorically refuse to use TTL as I never find the exposure to be accurate. Click the thumbnails to see’em bigger. Good times!
