Tom Bol Photo Blog

Maybe it is being born in California, I don’t know, but I spent a major part of my youth skateboarding in empty pools, dreaming about half pipes, watching Tony Alva tear it up.  I still skate today on my 30 year old Alva board.   The other day I met Eric, a  high school student, and watched him do tricks I didn’t know were possible on a board on flat pavement.  So this naturally led to a photo session in the park.  I decided to shoot a cross lighting set up, using a Elinchrom Rotalux Deep 100cm softbox as my main light, and a gridded (40 degree) head as an accent light.  The deep Rotalux softbox has a great quality of light, somewhere between a beauty dish and a standard lightbox.  Eric would skate to his mark, do some wild move, and skate on through.  Of course I wanted lots of takes to get a good shot, but I couldn’t seem to wear Eric out.  In fact he suggested he do tricks over something, like some of my expensive camera gear.  I had faith in his abilities, but we opted for a softbox instead of me.   tech: ISO 100, 1/250, f 18, Nikon D3 and 14-24mm 2.8 lens, Elinchrom Ranger packs triggered by Skyports.  We underexposed the ambient exposure by 1/1/2 stops and added some ‘snap’ using Photoshop and Lucis Art.  Check out the short video behind the scenes.

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Fort Collins isn’t a major urban center, but we do have a few good alleys in town.  One of my favorites alleys is in the old town section.  We wanted to create an urban style image, something with attitude but not over the top.  We chose Maya to be our model, she is fantastic in an urban setting, and has clothes to match. We shot video (go Randy!) on this shoot, you can see behind the scenes here:

We used Elinchrom Rangers for strobe, a 53 inch octabank, a smaller square lightbox and grid spots on the accent and background lights.  The first image came together after creating some highlights on Maya’s right arm and in the background.  Without these accent lights, her black sweatshirt got lost against the background..it is all about separation.  The other challenge was filling in light under her hat, which the big octabank had no problem doing. Basically cross lighting on Maya with a third strobe hitting the background.  Technical data is D3 camera, 28-70mm 2.8 lens, 1/80 sec at F22. Main light 53 inch octabank, accent light on arm is 30 degree gridspot, and background is 40 degree gridspot on the brickwall.

For the next image we wanted to bring out more of the alley into the image, something to add more drama and mood.  We set up with Maya at the entrance to the alley, and used a similar formula for lighting.  The main light was a 27 inch Elinchrom softbox. We also had a 30 degree gridded strobe aimed at her shoulders, and another 30 degree gridded strobe hitting the wall on the left.  In the background was a 20 degree gridded strobe, the fourth light in the set up.  This fourth light was important to draw the viewer from Maya through the rest of the frame, and helps add depth to the shot.  Technical Data:  Elinchrom Rangers for strobe, D3 with 28-70mm 2.8 lens, 1/125 at F22. Skyport wireless system used to trigger strobes.

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