Joe Mcnally took my photo!

Artist: JOE MCNALLY Copyright: JOE MCNALLY Not only did I get to experience an awesome Seminar taught by one of the greatest speedlight photographers in the world, Mr, Joe McNally Photography actually took my photo on set yesterday! I met some cool people and new creative connections and got to spend some time with a good friend. I couldn't bring myself to edit them just yet so these are straight from his D4s! Lit with tiny gridded beauty dish boomed above camera. Two bare speedlites at 45 degrees behind myself on either side for rim. www.nakean.com http://flic.kr/p/nRdusV

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

Grandma

Happy Belated Birthday Nana!!! She's always been the rock in the family! Love this woman! Lit with a single Einstein 640 through a shoot through umbrella camera left. http://flic.kr/p/nsruq9

Bench Babes

I've been wanting to shoot with my crazy concoction for quite some time now! I figured out a way to sync my big studio strobe with my flash at 1250th of a second all the way up to 2500th of a second!! That means I can shoot wide open or close to it in the daylight with flash! I wanted to try it out on my own family photos before I used it for clients. I'm pretty confident now and the results speak for themselves. This was lit with a large PLM camera right. http://flic.kr/p/naPaP8

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Bright smile

Lit with Einstein 640 with a blue gel through an umbrella camera right. The blue gel was used to warm up the cloudy and blue temperature outdoors behind the subject. Reflect low and camera left to fill in the shadows. http://flic.kr/p/k2nCxU

Take Flight

A little gem from our shoot a while back! Love this girl and her spunky attitude! Thanks, Erin, for being you! Lit with beauty dish boomed above. Stripboxes on either side with ab800's and ab800 behind for background light. www.nakean.com http://flic.kr/p/jXju1c

Goldilocks and her Kawasaki

-One of my favorite images of Erin in front of her 250cc Kawasaki we managed to get into the the studio Wednesday. Oh yeah we busted out the fan baby! The lighting was a little more tricky than I was used to. I pulled the grids off the softbox eventually but think they were still on at this point. They were placed between Erin and the bike in order to perform double duty. I needed them to light both Erin as rim lights but also add definition to the bike. I could have lit the bike with the main light as well as Erin but that would have been much more flat. I think the striplights help bring her away from the bike and keep them as separate entities. Not an easy feat with the space we were working with. We had a light gridded and attached to a rafter above to light the background and last but most important a gridded beauty dish boomed above to light Erin. http://flic.kr/p/j74je4

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 Ride

Had a great time with Erin in the studio today with her bike and motocross gear! Here's one of the images I could wait to get to and start editing. Thanks again Erin! Lit with stripboxes on either side with grids removed for rim. Einstein 640 on lowest power for just a touch of fill inside the helmet. b800 behind her on gray background for background light. http://flic.kr/p/j3L6CU

New Best Friend

-"You're my favorite Deputy!" Man, my son can't get enough of his new pal Woody! Only problem is I'm stuck operating Woody at all times. I have lost my identity as father and have now become the Sheriff in town, well West Seattle anyway....ok really just my home. Flash can be a ton of fun even when it's on the camera. Here The flash is pointed directly at the ceiling. You can see that most of the light is coming from above and actually hits my sons face more than Woody's. Had I added a warming gel, the light would have blended in even more! Happy New Year and happy shooting everyone! What's your child's favorite toy this year? http://flic.kr/p/iPn28q

Family Holiday Photo

-I love taking family photos, but I love it even more when i get to be in them! You can try these with a tripod and a timer but I would recommend getting yourself a wireless remote before attempting with children, or with this many people for that matter! We took countless photos and just like at work, there's almost always one or more people not looking straight ahead. Too often I don't offer to take my families photo, thinking it's a hassle and a bother for them all. More often than not it's exactly what they all hoped for! Thanks for wonderful Holiday breakfast, fun opening presents, and a wonderful outing at the park! I hope we can do it again soon! Lit with a single Large Octabox with Einstein 640 directly over the camera. I think I'm in love with 50mm 1.2 L !!! It goes back to Glazer's rentals tomorrow.... :( http://flic.kr/p/iBrCZR

Don't be a sucker

Just got home from dinner and felt the need to photograph my little man with his lollie pop! He wouldn't let me call it a sucker! This was so much more! In his defense it was far too large to suck on. I must say I like having the background light suspended from the rafters rather than to the side as it helps keep the fall off much smoother and linear to the edges. I love the look of the wood floor but struggle with the paper background roll exposed. Does it take away for you at all( I see it all the time in images)? Lit with a large Octa camera right and reflector camera left. Gridded strip boxes either side and the background light superclamped above on a rafter and pointed behind him. http://flic.kr/p/hwEQ7J

Centered-

Here's a fun shot of David at the school we were photographing student portraits at. Lit with a single 64" PLM (Huge silver umbrella) directly behind me. I love the way the light falls off to the edges. I would have loved to have added a little hair light but the wide angle didn't really allow for one to not be in the frame. It was shot at 17mm on a full frame. The more I think about it the more I wish I would have used the giant spot light behind him and the camera right and pointed it at him while placing a strobe in front of it. This way I would have an excuse to have a light in the photograph! If stage lights were on it would have really added as well but I didn't want to go poking around the school when we were really just there to photograph the children. Thanks David! http://flic.kr/p/gNsmxQ

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

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