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

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