Off to a Fast Start

The year, that is. The facts of the calendar. The pace. Not me, really. I haven’t accelerated at all. In fact, I might have lost a gear along the way. It’s barely mid-January, and I’m already in danger of being left behind. That’s nothing new. As I showed in my last blog, had a blast at the end of December shooting underwater production for a Kelby class. During that same visit to Tampa, I also shot a light shaping class. Definitely fun. The below was shot with an Acute 2400ws unit outside this abandoned warehouse, some strategically placed holes in the wall, a smoke machine, an overhead beauty dish, and two Speedlights flicked off the floor into a silver Lastolite panel. More on this class at a future time.

 

I’m surprised actually that the lovely Orshi, above, posed for me again. Last time we worked, I had her fictitiously killed off in a noir-ish scene in a seedy Tampa hotel that was definitely on the bad side of town.

The shot at the top the finished the clicking for 2014, but there I was on a plane on Jan. 4, heading for Vegas. You always figure the year is bound to be interesting when the first stop is Vegas. First night there, I was humbled and honored to receive the PMDA Photog of the Year award. Shocked the heck outta me, I tell ya. But it was a wonderful evening and certainly a positive opening salvo from 2015. There have been years I’ve started off staring at an empty calendar and a pantload of bills, and looking at my (very) used cameras and wondering if I turned them upside down whether any loose change might fall out of them.

Then….onto CES. The Consumer Electronics Show. The gods of technology were in full cry at the Vegas Convention Center, I’ve never seen that many people walking around in slack jawed stupor, literally being actively concussed by the visual power of curved megaplex sized TVs, ear popping, thrumming, shock wave audio capabilities, and of course a popular display mannequin amazingly infused with seemingly human woman qualities and who appeared to be more conversational and friendly than the person who checked me into my hotel.

It was all very impressive, in a numbing sort of way. For me, it was a simple lesson in how to feel like a troglodyte. But, I tried to turn the overwhelmingly gee whiz uselessness of the environment into an advantage. I was shooting, seminar style, in the Nikon booth everyday. And I said often to the weary throngs in the booth, you have just spent several hours wandering canyons of circuitry and gadgets you will never, ever use. Only to arrive here at the Nikon stage, where in a half an hour, I could actually teach them something they could use–how to use a speed light to make CES go away.

Let’s face it, ya can’t do much in three yards of stage, with no backdrop, and a couple of small flashes in hand. You are facing off against about a zillion different color temperatures, and a background so jumbled and distressingly colorful it looked like somebody ate a convention sized bowl of Trix and then barfed it everywhere. The only healthy thing you can do in this environment is to make it disappear, and for that mission, the speed light is your magic wand.

Thankfully, my foreground was occupied by the lovely Alexandra, all like, seven feet of her, in stilettos, doing her showgirl thing. Below is an available light snap from the stage. Nice, huh?

You just know you’re in trouble here. Especially onstage in front of like, 300 to 400 people. You got a half an hour, and less than half a prayer. Shutter speed becomes your friend, as does high speed sync. Not to mention maybe a calming, zen like interior chant, “Be one with the photon, be one with the photon.”

Actually it’s not that stressful. I try to have fun at these things, engage the audience and try like heck to make sure at least somebody goes away with a modicum of useful information. And if I screw up, well, it ain’t the first time, so it wouldn’t exactly be news.

But, via the relationships of shutter speeds, f-stops, and flash, in fairly short order, with some help from the audience of course, I was able to take the superfund cleanup site of a photo above and turn it into something respectable.

Nikon D810, three SB-910 units, two behind her, firing through red gels, and one up front, on a paint pole, with a little Lastolite Speedlight Box attached. 1/8000th @ f1.4, with 35mm prime lens. Alexandra, on cue, sprouts wings and a smile. I go click, and, at the combo listed above, the clutter behind her goes away. Except of course for the dude who chose to wear frikkin’ white pants in the lower right. Maybe he just came in off the links. Oh, well. The high speed maneuver crushed just about everything else, and for a brief split second of exposure, the absurdist world of CES, a riotous Pandora made of ones and zeroes and wires, went away, tamed by a four battery speed light. Technology I can use…..

More tk…..