It’s been a busy year, so much so, I didn’t get around to doing a KelbyOne live seminar until late June. They are fun to do, and it looks like I’ll do a few more as the year progresses. The Kelby folks actually changed the name of the tour in the middle of things (thanks guys:-) so it is now called “The Power of One Flash.” Good example below. A very patient lady helped me out by coming out of the audience in San Jose for this one flash snap.
It’s a one flash deal, but the flash is ping ponged off a white foam core board. It faces away from the subject, hits that board, enlarges and softens dramatically, and then hits a 3×3 Lastolite Skylite Rapid Diffuser, which is very, very close to her face. When the already bounced light translates through that, it gets really glowy and soft. It’s basically a home made soft box I make on stage.
At the top of the blog, the pic is three flashes, but I don’t get to three until the fourth hour, and only use the that many for about 10 minutes. The rest of the day is pretty much one flash treatments, which I regard as a serious act of restraint on my part.
The gentleman in the hat is lit with two rim lights, off to the sides and behind him. I shot in tungsten white balance, so the white light SB-910 units go blue. With a little underexposure, they get dramatically blue. The front light is a little beauty dish that used to be made by Flashpoint. Sadly, they don’t make it anymore, but I loved the controlled snap of the light, especially when used, as it is here, with a honeycomb grid. It’s tight, and really pops the subject, but let’s the other lights do their thing, as it’s overall field of coverage is really defined and narrow.
Also experimenting with a new style of umbrella. It’s big. (Called a 4 in 1 by the Lastolite folks, it is 51″ so the coverage is excellent.) Used in reflected fashion, it easily drapes Brad and Jan here in rounded, soft light. (This big source gets trotted out in the last hour, where I show some Profoto large flash units, and contrast that approach with multiple speed lights into one shaper.)
Then, with the addition of a tri-grip silver reflector, and some banter, we ended up here. These lovely folks have been together a long time, over 20 years, as I remember. Many thanks to them for coming onstage.
But turn the umbrella into a shoot through, firing only through the center port, you can make it a character driven light, such as the treatment here of Chet, also a wonderful volunteer from the audience.
The above pix are shot with the exact same light source, the 4 in 1, but configured in a different way, which yields decidedly different results.
Next one of these stops is Cleveland! Having fun doing these, and many, many thanks for all the gracious folks who come up onstage and help me out during the day. Most people don’t imagine at the beginning of the day that they will end up with a photo session in front of 300 plus people, but for a few, it works out that way. Hey, I get a great subject to work with, and they get a new Facebook profile picture. All good……more tk…..
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Lovely light as usual Joe. I like the blue side lights shooting at tungsten WB. Very nice.
I got mine at Photoshop World in Las Vegas, during a tradeshow demo by you, Joe. It’s my most prized photograph. Just a testament to how much you’ve impacted my photography.
Joe, I was at the Boston Workshop and wanted to thank you for a great time.
I thought some of the best shots of the day were of Brad and Jan. It wasn’t the most complicated light setup, but when you told Jan to bite Brad’s ear, their reaction was genuine. Thanks for the lesson, that in that case, has nothing to do with light.