A little warmth for these cold days! Had some fun in the studio with pin-up models Miranda and Kayla, friends of my assistant Aaron. We set up several backgrounds and collected a vast assortment of props beforehand to create some cool situations the models could seamlessly move into. The lighting set-up was pretty consistent, large light bank for the main and some undiffused  heads for edge. Aaron brought his extensive collection of Coca-Cola memorabilia and we used them for quite a few images from the shoot. These two images are my favorites of each of the models and I think the props helped with the mood of the shots – an old rotary desk phone from my Mom’s answering service and some glam sunglasses left over from a Halloween party.

Headed downtown early Sunday morning to get set up to shoot the Shamrock Run for Evan Pilchik and EP Events. On my way to the Start/Finish line, I noticed (and heard!) these bagpipers and drummers warming up. I always enjoy the hand ballet the drummers use when twirling the mallets and like the framing in this shot. See more results of the Shamrock Run photography. While I truly enjoy the mournful sounds of bagpipes, (I am Irish after all) whenever I see or hear them, I always think of an old Irish joke. “Do you know why bagpipers always march? To get away from that god-awful sound!” Happy St. Patrick’s Day!

OK, so the books are out and it’s been wild getting feedback and emails about them from readers all over the world! We’re currently in discussion about another book that I am very excited about if it gets final approval. I can’t say much about it right now but suffice to say it is a subject very near and dear to my photographic heart.

Since the pace has eased up a bit around here I thought I would post some of the images either used or shot for the books and provide a little backstory on each one. First up is this shot of my neighbor Damien for a story on urban farmers and for the Canon Speedlite System DFG. With little daylight left I wanted to explore the whole warm/cool visual tension with Speedlites. The Canon 5D Mark II was set to an indoor tungsten balance to turn the background a deep blue and the foliage behind Damien was lit with one ungelled Speedlite at around 1/8th power. Since the camera was set to tungsten white balance and the flash produces daylight white balance without a gel, the whole background goes blue or very cool tones.

A second Speedlite @ about 1/16th power and mounted on a stand with an FJ Westcott umbrella-style Apollo softbox was used as the main light. I taped on two full CTOs (color temperature orange) gels and shot about 12 frames. Set-up and tear down took about 15 minutes.

In post production I decided I way overdid it with the CTO’s and backed off the saturation for less intensity of the colors. I now have a full kit of 1/4, 1/2, and full CTO’s for next time. I like the visual tension between the two different color families. What do you think?

Mimi the Clown came to the studio recently for some promo shots and to help me out with a few images for my new book on Canon Speedlites. After she got into costume we did various poses showing a range of her expressions. The original plan was to do some shots outside in the fading light, then move into the studio once night fell. Unfortunately, the light faded quickly to black but we moved outside anyway.

As Mimi danced and mimed in what little ambient light there was, I set up two Speedlites on either side of her, one on the left zoomed all the way to 105mm undiffused, and one on the right in a Westcott softbox. I like this shot because after fiddling with the settings on the Speedlite, I forgot to zip the softbox back up and a tiny sliver of light escaped from the bottom that lined up perfectly with her fooot and the shadows from her legs. A mistake that added to the overall image. Mimi thought it gave the shot a “highwire” look!

Afterwards, we moved back into the studio for the top shot and the rest of the shoot. When Mimi was done, we shot some portraits of the real person and I think she cleaned up nice!

Nighttime portrait of a friend of mine on the roof of an office building in downtown Portland for my new book about the Canon Speedlite System, due out in January 2010. One 580EX II was used, triggered by PocketWizard Multi-Maxes, and fired through a small white umbrella on a stand camera-right.

My book is finally out in the bookstores! As many of you know,  this spring I wrote a digital field guide for an exciting new Canon camera, the 5D Mark II, for Wiley Publishing. I hadn’t wanted to blog too much about the process while I was writing it because part of me wasn’t sure I could complete the book within the required timeframe but now that it’s published, I thought I’d share some details about the process.

Around October of last year, my friend Mark Fitzgerald of the Digital Darkroom called me to see if I would be interested in writing a book about the new camera (not yet out) for the company that publishes his Lightroom and Photoshop Bibles. “Absolutely” I said, having never written a book before! Mark hooked me up with his Acquisitions Editor who was overseeing the project and long series of emails and phone calls commenced. 265 emails all totaled. Wild.

It was an extrodinary learning experience. Where I had hardly ever, in all my years, looked in the camera manuals that come with new cameras more than a handful of times, my 5D Mark II manual is now, literally falling apart from over use, checking and rechecking procedures and language for accuracy.

I’ll be highlighting different aspects of the book in future blog posts but wanted to get this up today. You can find more info about the book from Amazon here, Barnes & Noble here or Borders here(Borders has the previous 5D DFG author listed :-P .) I’m now hard at work on my second DFG for the series, this one on the Canon Speedlite System due out in February 2010 and a third one (top-secret!) is in the works. Wow, it’s like a whole new career!

This one for a massage therapist/florist was actually shot in a misting rain. Well, she was in the misting rain, I was in the studios main doorway nice and dry (can’t get the camera wet, nooo!). I just popped two Speedlites on lightweight stands, moved them outside and shot it like any other studio portrait.