Golden Gardens Stretch

For composites, lighting has to match your background. As a photographer it's funny how differently you see the world in terms of light, quantity of light and quality of it. When you start creating composites in which you need to capture backgrounds it ads a whole new element in which to view your surrounding through. Thanks Angela for being patient and bending over backward, literally, to make a cool image. Strobist info: Photographed in my West Seattle Studio Einstein through 60" Softlighter boomed above, b800's through gridded striplights for rim lights on either side. www.nakean.com http://flic.kr/p/nU22LK

Bed Time Storys

I haven't had a lot of inspiration regarding composites lately. There are so many amazing images online to draw from, but the more images I see the harder it can be to find my own vision. This popped in my head last night and I just had to execute! Lit with 60" Photoflex SoftlighterII above camera with Einstein E640 2x AB800's through gridded striplights for rim. http://flic.kr/p/nTxCbM

Put Me in Coach!

I've been wanting to create an image like this for some time now. I had a cancellation and decided to make lemonade out of lemons. Finally got my lens back after being away for repair for almost a month and half! I've been shooting everything with either my 85mm or my 17-40. I was screwed if I needed anything in between but made it work and zoomed with my feet. This was lit with a couple of gridded strip boxes on either side turned almost all the way up (ab800's). I had an Einstein 640 through a gridded beauty dish for the key and I filled the shadows with a 64" softbox behind me . http://flic.kr/p/jCU589

Silent Storm

Getting setup for my last shoot, I thought I'd take a few test shots. shush, don't tell anyone. I wanted to play with some brushes as it's been a while since I dug them up in their dusty folders on my computer. A bit of Render Clouds, Lightning brushes and smoke brushes along with a composite background. Lit with Beauty dish boomed overhead and striplights on either side for the rim. Background light placed behind me and pointed at the background for som separation. Best part of using backgrounds in overlay blending mode is that they keep the overall lighting you had in the original image. If you had a background light on gray paper it will still appear to have the same background light in your composite! http://flic.kr/p/j4EUp7

Ready to Shoot

Another Photo of fellow photographer Miles and a new favorite textured background from Creative Cloud. Just found a few more thanks to Brian Abby, and courtesy of Shadowhouse Creations. I'll be using those in the future for sure! Lit with a gridded beauty dish above with large softbox below. Strip boxes on either side of the subject and just behind. Shot in the West Seattle Studio. http://flic.kr/p/iYLVqm

Skate or Die

-Or just look into his Dreamy eyes.... I really liked how we filled the frame with Miles and his board. The compression at 105mm works well to keep lines straight and image flat. Dimension relies solely on the light and shadows. There was something so intriguing to me about keying from beneath for some of these images and I think I'll be revisiting this setup soon. Lit with Large Octa on the floor and pointed up for main. I filled in shadows with a beauty dish from above. Two rim lights provided by stripboxes on either side. The board and shoulder, camera right, or catching a bit of the background light as well. www.naekan.com, www.nakeanworkshops.com/blog http://flic.kr/p/i5QqrW

Not so Mr. Nice Guy

Trying a more dramtic look with the key light coming from below with just a bit of fill from a beauty dish above. I'm also letting the rim light rap a around a tad more than I normally would. I love the dram the light creates here. I'm reading a great book my Gregory Heisler in which he remind me that commercially speaking, "men only have to look interesting". http://flic.kr/p/hEtCjY

The Boarder insisde

Epic shot of my friend/photographer Miles. It's rare as a photographer that your favorite photos are inline with each others but I have to admit his picks are pretty dang close to mine! Love the shadows in this shot. This one was lit with a couple gridded stripboxes on either side and slightly behind Miles. Gridded Beauty dish was placed directly above his head. Lastly, an x800 to his right and pointed the background with a 40 degree grid for the background. I love the pattern from the gridded stripbox camera right. http://flic.kr/p/hkimvX