The Push Up

Believe it or not, this jumper is about to whip that rope under her feet and then catch herself in the plank position. This is an example of what you can do with a strobe that has a very long flash duration. It means that, unlike my Einstein 640, it can't freeze motion with strobe(which wouldn't happen anyway with this much ambient). What it does mean is that with some careful Macgyver skills I can steal just a portion of the light from a very long duration with an extremely flash shutter speed. This was captured at 1/1250 outdoors shot at f2.8! I used a single Interfit EXD400 light through a large PLM boomed above. I can't wait for it to be warm again! http://flic.kr/p/k3M2m7

Punchout

Experimenting with some backgrounds found in Adobe Exchange. I had no idea what Adobe Exchange was until I watched a tutorial by Glyn Dewis on Youtube. Apparently it's exactly like an app store for Photoshop CC users. This particular app is called Adobe Paper Texture Pro. It comes with some awesome textures that are perfect for composite backgrounds. The best part is they are all free! There are some paid apps but plenty of free ones too. This is an old image of a Tracy showing off her gloves. Can't wait to have some more fun with these backgrounds! Lit with a beauty dish above and reflect below and barely camera left. Two rim light with gridded softboxes to help separate her and create the composite. www.nakean.com http://flic.kr/p/iQSQar

Mysterious Hot Pants

This photo was toward the end of our senior shoot. We photographed around Alki Beach and the water taxi in West Seattle until it started raining on us. I have no idea how her hair is as perfect as it is in this photo because it just spent the last hour or so being blown this way and that by some pretty powerful gusts of wind! Ok, let me address the tittle of this photograph (Mysterious Hot Pants). They were, most certainly, pink. Not crazy bright but everything else she had going on was darker. Almost 2 full stops darker! I took advantage of a little trick I keep preaching about, which is convert your image to black and white. Then see where your eyes take you. Straight to the pants and legs. I needed to tone these hot pants down and did so using the burn tool in Photoshop. It Really helped to even out the image as far as lighting was concerned. The Mysterious part is all in the eyes and slight covering of one of the eyes. I can't quite tell what she's thinking but she seems pretty confident about whatever that might be. shot with a beauty dish boomed directly overhead, rim lights on either side with gridded strip boxes, gridded and nd gelled x800 through silver reflector low and camera right. http://flic.kr/p/i8gC27

Skate King

I've had the perfect background for a long time and just needed a skater with board! Enter Miles Tucker. Doesn't hurt that he's comfortable both in front of and behind the camera! The park is Jefferson Skate Park which is part of the 6th largest park in Seattle. And would you check out that view! Not talking about Miles, but he's not too hard on the eyes either. You've got the mountains to your left with the goreous seattle skyline just to the right of him. One of the best features of this park happens to be what makes this photo work so well. That would be the giant Tower of Lights for night skating! If you haven't checked it out, you owe it to yourself to swing by sometime! It has a huge playground for little ones with several things to keep the adults entertained as well! This particular shot of Miles was taken in the West Seattle Studio. Gridded beauty dish boomed above with a large softbox below for fill. Two strip lights on either side to emulate the large lights in the background that he was dropped in later. http://flic.kr/p/hsM6L9

Leading Lines

An image a couple definitely in love! I love the leading lines of the bridge in this image. They draw your eye right to the couples embrace. It was an overcast day which was great for lighting but challenging to keep the background bright enough. Shadow recovery to the rescue with Lightroom! Photographed with Large Octabox boomed overhead with Einstein 640. http://flic.kr/p/gH4Lw9

We did it!

The ladies showing their mad ups after the weight of the wedding ceremony was lifted from everyones' shoulders. I don't know how Holly managed to get that high with a dress that heavy and that form fitting! Thanks girls for being so awesome and helping me have fun on your special day! Lit with single large Octabox just boomed over my head while I lay on the ground to snap this image. Miles keep an eye on that boom for me my man! http://flic.kr/p/gqWK4Q

Beautiful Boy

Sure wish I got to see this face every morning! Working early hours makes it impossible but on the day when I do, I can't help but smile ear to ear! Morning everyone and Happy Friday! Lit with a large octobox boomed overhead and two strip boxes lighting the seamless background. http://flic.kr/p/gn7vzi

Ropeworks Owner

Meet my Partner Rene. World Renown Jumproper extraordinaire! This woman can get a 3 year to do double dutch, She holds world records for speed jumping, but mostly, she just makes jumping rope look easy. It's anything but, however, she manages to pull off the most difficult of tricks with this exact smile on her face! That's show"woman"ship! Check out her blog at www.Learntojumprope.com This was lit with a single beauty dish boomed overhead with Einstein 640. Fill is with a large silver reflector below. No background light or rim lights. Background is a white seamless and I just love how it's a nice gradient grey. It's also great to have a strobe which allows you to shoot at 2.8 as this photo is. http://flic.kr/p/gieBSr

Ooh baby

Man how this kid grows!! Mom got him dressed this morning and he looked so much older to me for some reason. I had to take a photo in order to try and freeze his ever increasing aging! Stop growing little man!!! He brings a smile to my face every time I see him. This was lit with a large octabox boomed over the camera with two strip lights to light the background. I almost never use my white background but I think it's time to bring it back. http://flic.kr/p/ggKQMr

Cool Blue

One of Christoph Mayr's picks from a while back at Bothel Landing Park. Gotta be one of my favorites as well! The sun was coming in pretty hot in this image and I was lucky enough to have another senior along for the shoot to hold a defuser panel and knock the sun down a bit. The Heavy lifting was done with an Einstein 640 through a large Octabox camera right. An AB800 was behind and camera left for rim and hair light. http://flic.kr/p/ge77Yp

Bridges of Love

Victor's pic of the session with Yesica at the Arboretum. Been incredibly busy with other work and was excited to get to this image and add some finishing touches. This particular day was very cloudy with a few moments of sunshine peaking through. Using a large modifier really helped to mask the use of flash and keeps the image a little more natural looking. Lit with a single Einstein 640. http://flic.kr/p/gcniha

Father and Son Hawks

Recently purchased sweatshirt and jersey for my son and I and felt the urge to get a studio shot in with sporting our new gear. This was a super quick edit as the game had started by the time we finished taking the photos. Had to clone out a light stand that was between us and also changed the crop from vertical to horizontal. Added a bunch of background to the left to give my some more space. Lit with Einstein 640 directly above camera. Reflector just below and out of the frame. Two strip lights with ab800's behind us and camera left and right and lastly the x800 directly behind us for the green spot on the background. www.nakean.com http://flic.kr/p/g5Njfg

Einstein Greatness

Here's my first selfie with my new Einstein 640 light. I purchased the Cyber Commander as well which means I can now control each light in the studio or on location with one single remote!!! This thing is AMAZING!!!! If any of you know me then you know I'm crazy about my lighting and make several trips back and forth between the lights and my camera before I'm satisfied with the results. Sometimes I wish had a pedometer just so I could log the miles traveled between mere feet between lights and camera. Now when my light is boomed high or group lights are setup high I won't have to bring them down in order to adjust the power I want. Moreover, I can meter from the remote itself! It will give me the readout of each individual light in fstop and I can then correct each individual light to the exact fstop I would like. No more "close enough" exposure even when in a serious time crunch. Suffice it to say, "I'm in love!" Lit with Einstein light in Beauty dish boomed overhead with silver reflector just below frame. AB800's behind and either side for rim lights through strip lights and x800 directly behind for soft spot on black seamless. If you're looking for a great studio or location portrait, don't hesitate to look me up! www.nakean.com www.photos@nakean.com http://flic.kr/p/g3YuFQ

Who Framed Roger Rabit

My assistant Erin kicked ars each and every 14 hours we spent photographing Friday morning and afternoon! Spunky attitude and quick witt helped us get through this long day! Thanks for the help setting up these shots for Seattle Prep Soccer photos! This pose and eyebrow totally made me think of the 1988 film Who Framed Roger Rabbit! Lit with a single light through an umbrella camera right and feathered into a reflector camera left. I had a rim setup behind subject and camera left but turned it off to judge my exposure for skin tones. The best way to know what your lights are doing is to turn them on all one at a time. http://flic.kr/p/fQY8a1

Jenna Hayes

Possibly my favorite photo of @Jenna Hayes at Bothel Landing Park. Photographed with large softbox camera left feathered far in front of Jenna. Hair light behind subject and camera right as well. Reflector just below and camera right. Hopefully I'll have a chance to photograph this Gymnast in action! http://flic.kr/p/fMWF2M

Confidence

Christoph Mayr posted up on the bridge at Bothel Landing. One of the 4 seniors I photographed that day. Thanks for all your help carying gear and posing for photos! This was definately one of my favorites from the shoot. Lit with Large Octa Camera left. I thought I was done taking this giant outdoors, but the light is just too gorgeous not to use it. I don't believe in compromise when it comes to great portraits! I'll let someone else do that. http://flic.kr/p/fCSr8b

A thin line Jumper

Here's Danielle performing the Leg over at Hiawatha Park in West Seattle. With sun behind her, I'm finally getting the seperation I want from the images. It's not in the best spot to shoot (almost directly overhead) but I've learned to work with that mangy ball in the sky in just about any position and condition. Here the 64" PLM is boomed overhead at a little more heigt than her eye level. I am laying on the ground with the camera actually resting on the track quite aways away. I'm using the 85mm and I have it stopped down a few stops at f2.8 My shutter is, you guessed it, 1/1250. The DOF really helps take some attention off of the flash and provides a more natural looking photograph in my opinion. What do you guys and gals think? http://flic.kr/p/fymEpQ

Poised and ready to jump

Here's the very begining of our shoot at West Seattle highschool. Jessica was nice enough to pose for Rene and I after assisting Rene in teaching a jumprope class for kids. I'm still having a ball trying to understand what I can achieve with faster shutter speeds and flash. It's something you have experiment with quite a bit to get right because you don't get every ounce of your flash power with each pop. No meter will be able to tell you if you are exposed correctly. Thank god for digital!!! Here I have a 64" PLM boomed overhead with my interfit exd400 doing all the heavy lifting. It's shot with my 17-50mm lens at f4 and the speed is the 1/1250 that I've had good luck with in the past. I'm waiting to do some test shots in the studio to find what shutter speeds and power settings work best on the stobe. http://flic.kr/p/fy4RzW

Julie

An all natural light shot at Lincoln Park with the Trusty 85mm 1.2. I sht at f2 to get a little more DOF here and used a reflector just below and to the right to bring a little more of that gorgeous light in. We worked hard for this one with the last direction being a little dip in that front shoulder. Photography is a game of inches folks! http://flic.kr/p/fw3q3k

CJ's Hog

Playing around with High Speed sync once again. Had to get a shot my son's ride in the backyard! Lit with giant Octa camera left. Again shot at 1250 shutter speed at f2.8. http://flic.kr/p/fuSXEn