Royce Bair's Night-Lit Landscapes

There are no AC plugs near Delicate Arch in Grand County, Utah, where Royce Bair made this night landscape shot. So all of his flashes needed to be battery-powered to illuminate the 20-meter tall formation.

Two of his light sources were Norman 400B's, weighing in at 6 lbs and from which he needed a total of 48 pops to make the image.

But his Big Gun required only two pops to balance with the Normans. That 110,000 lumen light source weighed about a pound, all-in. And it ran off of a 9-volt battery. Read more »

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On Assignment: Trattoria / 360

Having eaten at this restaurant often enough to put these guys' kids through college, I recently photographed brothers Gianni (left) and Carlo Morra at one of their three local Italian trattorias.

It is a simple picture, but there is much more here than meets the eye.

So keeping with last Thursday's talk of photo ecosystems, let's go a little more 360 on this one than just the typical lighting BTS. Read more »

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Thinking Out Loud: Creativity

As a site that explores photography through the lens of lighting, Strobist is necessarily overweighted in technique. But technique as an end to itself is almost certainly doomed to yield boring, meaningless photos.

So today, a short detour to explore the different facets of creativity. Because they are all important, as is recognizing your strengths and weaknesses in each area. Read more »

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Shimada Yohei: Close to Home

Photos ©Shimada Yohei

By Irwin Wong -- Nara, Japan -based commercial photographer Shimada Yohei’s Workman series involves lit, cinematic portraits of everyday tradesmen at the local level. Today, a look at how he creates the images — and the importance of the self-generated project. Read more »

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Control Flare from Sun, Rim Lights with a Shoot-Thru Gobo

Just a quickie today on the whys and whens of using a single, small shoot-thru shade to completely control contrast-killing glare when shooting into backlight. Read more »

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On Assignment: Night Soprano, Pt. 2

Here's the lighting layout from Part 1 of this shoot of mezzo soprano Alexandra Rodrick.

The lighting diagram is overlaid on a satellite image of the neighborhood, because the fill light and accent lights are actually two houses away from each other. And one of them is not even outside... Read more »

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Okay, So I'm a Little Addicted to This Thing…

Who's the creepy bald dude with the soulless eyes staring out at you right now? He's a computer rendering that I lit on the web-based Virtual Lighting Studio.

Yeah, he may look a little like a mass murderer. But he's your mass murderer, to light any way you like by playing with knobs and buttons at VLS.

On the one hand, I just blew 20 mins playing with this thing. On the other, pretty sure this guy is gonna kill me in my dreams tonight.

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On Assignment: Night Soprano, Pt. 1

One of my goals over the last year has been to push against the boundaries a little more, both creatively and technically. This portrait of mezzo soprano Alexandra Rodrick is a good example of that, so I thought we'd do a full 360-view with a two-part OA.

Today, we'll pre-think the lighting in theory (as before a shoot). In Part 2, we'll walk through the specifics as it was done. Read more »

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Ryan Brenizer's Panoramic Portraiture

All photos ©Ryan Brenizer. Click on any pic for bigger.

New York City-based wedding photographer Ryan Brenizer has so-perfected the art of stitched portraiture that the technique has become associated with his name. You know, kinda like the Heimlich Maneuver.

Take this image for example, done quickly on the fly at a wedding with a 35mm lens @f/1.8 and a single small light source. It's a technique that is particularly suited to small-flash photography – and to photographers who like to tote a minimal amount of lighting gear. Read more »

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Hard Light and Soft Glass: The Dirty Diana

First, a clarification. That's not Diana above. That's Robin Massie-Jean, a violist I photographed for the Howard County Arts Council.

The Diana in this photo is the lens. And really you can't even call it soft glass, because it's, well, plastic. Read more »

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Home Depot Homebrew of $643 Profoto Globe Saves You Enough to Buy a Paul Buff Einstein to Put it On

For the second time in a week, a Paul Buff mod that is so simple I wonder why I hadn't thought of it earlier. This one is via Houston-based photographer Stephen Hébert.

This Home Depot version of the famed Profoto Globe will set you back all of $10. I have seen people hacking these for Profoto lights using SP-systems mounts and/or gaffer's tape. But the fact that they mount right to an AB or Einstein is, like, poetic justice or something.

If you are really slick (and handy) you might want to try to drill some holes around the base for heat venting. And I am guessing the color temp is, er, "close enough."

But having enough money left over from the savings to buy the actual flash (and an additional $130 in other accessories) is icing on the cake.

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The Ambitious April Fool's Joke That Almost Was

©David Daniels

As I post this, we are entering into April Fools' 2012 territory. Believe nothing you read on the web today.

Personally, I love April Fool's. So much so that I would never post one every single year here on Strobist. Oh, I wanna. But I'd worry that we'd fall into that "it's expected" rut as have Google, NPR and the like.

That said, in 2010 I came this close to pulling off a duesy... Read more »

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Cold Shoe Your Monoblocs for Better Radio Performance

Here's an idea that is so simple I am surprised it did not strike me sooner.

It's one of several neat little design improvements in the new Einsteins, but it never occurred to me how cheap and easy it would be to retrofit my old AlienBees. Read more »

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A Little Grecco-To-Go for Your Tablet

Michael Grecco's Lighting and the Dramatic Portrait has been one of my favorite lighting books since it was released back in late 2006. That was far enough back to where publishers were not yet insisting on all of the e-Rights. So Grecco has done what any smart photographer would do, and has just co-released LatDP as a multi-platform eBook.

In fact, just thinking about all of the amazing photo books that were published before e-Anything makes me realize there is a huge i-Library just waiting to happen. And in a way which will see the royalties go where they rightly belong.

On top of that, we can support photogs directly (no offense, 90%-taking mega-publishers) while toting around a bucketload of inspiration on our tablets, phones, pods, etc.

In honor of the new LatDP medium, I asked Michael if he would give a little extra BTS on one of my favorite images from the book. You know, a lil sump'm sump'm just for us.

And he did… Read more »

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The 2012 GPP Shootout Video is In...

You've already seen the post mortem and final pics from this year's Gulf Photo Plus shootout. But now the official videotape version of Martin Prihoda and yours truly getting our butts kicked by Mr. Heisler is live, for your entertainment.

Oh, and hit the jump for a slideshow of student work from 2012... Read more »

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