Vanessa of Lioness

June 29, 2009 | Filed Under photo | Leave a Comment 

My fave Toronto three-piece, Lioness, played the Alternaqueer showcase at Pride Toronto this year. They went on stage late at night. I didn’t have my F/1.8 with me, so this file was “pushed”, even after shooting it at iso 1600 with a slow shutter. Their set was epic, last 20 seconds it started POURING rain. Vanessa looked great in her arch-angel wings and “Lioness” necklace.

Rob’n'Kate

June 28, 2009 | Filed Under photo | Leave a Comment 

Rob I’d previously shot a more serious headshot for. Today, I just felt like messing around with really harsh and directional light. Both shots were taken at is0 100, F/5 with an SB600 pointed at them hard from camera left about 9 feet away or so. They is an engaged, trivia playin’ couple who’re kinda awesome.

Sonny Rollins on Q

June 25, 2009 | Filed Under photo | 1 Comment 

The jazz pianist legend is on Q on Friday, June 26 on CBC Radio One at 10am/10pm (nation wide, unless you’re in freaky-deaky Nfld.). Love the man’s beard.

Rob’s headshot

June 15, 2009 | Filed Under photo | 1 Comment 

Rob’s an online journalist as well as a fiction author. I taped together a bunch of newspaper pages and used them as the background

Simple 2 light setup. Lighting idea was to have light coming down on him, but going up behind him, a sort of cross gradient of sorts. Didn’t take a pic of the lighting setup (we were running behind on playing a round of Buzz Quiz) but here’s the skinny:

- SB600 in a shoot-thru white umbrella, gelled tungsten. Umbrella was a few inches away from his face, upper left of frame, and it was pointing down as far as my stand would let me.
- SB28 on the ground under his chair, ungelled. Was pointing straight at the wall, no tilt, but it was a 24mm spread for the gradual up-light.

The bit of cold rim lighting on the right comes from the sb28 on the ground bouncing off my green walls. Ends up being bluish-greenish ’cause of the lack of gels on it.

Nikon D90 with a 50mm f/1.8 lens: ISO 100, f/2.8, 1/160. D-Lighting = “normal”, “standard” colour.

True to the Strobist Boot Camp II assignment, I got Rob to take my picture too once we were done: www.flickr.com/photos/photendo/3628390727/

Shot for Rob, and for the Strobist Boot camp assignment: strobist.blogspot.com/2009/06/boot-camp-ii-first-assignme…

Skydiggers, two shots

June 11, 2009 | Filed Under photo | Leave a Comment 

They visited the Radio 2 Drive studio for a session. I recall them being nice guys.

Two lights. One in a silver reflective umbrella, to the hard right of the guitarist. Another flash, left bare, about 60 degrees away from the umbrella pointing directly at them. Not the most inspired setup, but had to get’em all in. Often with these shoots, I won’t know how many people are coming, or where they’ll be sitting until they actually sit down. Working fast is fine in the studio, and I usually get about a minute to not only get the shots I need to promote the show on the site, but another 15-20 for slideshows that we make for teasers online.

In order to spice things up, I’ll often switch my lights around while they’re doing their sound check (assume I get two minutes, so after one minute I’ll run over and move a light somewhere else). For the shot below, I moved the bare flash and put it slightly behind the singer and to the camera’s right. It ended up casting light at an upward angle, made for a better headshot if someone on the CBC site wanted a closeup.  Took two more shots before the host came in (my cue to pack up and leave ASAP).

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