When you live in a smaller town, say 100,000 people, you start to think you have found about every location to shoot. Sometimes I just get in my car and drive around hoping to find some abandoned truck or gutted house that would make an interesting location. On one such trip I found new racquetball courts the city had just built at a new community center. These courts were perfect for a ‘studio’ shot, lots of nice white walls, or creating an interesting sports image. I called in PJ, an athletic model in town, and we were ready to go. Luckily for us we had a great stormy sky building for a good backdrop. I often try to time shoots where the weather looks interesting; plain blue just doesn’t cut it. We did video of behind the scenes on this one, take a peek.
We did two different lighting set ups for this image. The first shot was an action image of PJ hitting the ball. Since there was going to be lots of movement, we used Elinchrom Ranger A heads for the fast flash duration. We used a deep Octabank on one head and a standard reflector on the other head, positioning them in a cross lighting set up. The trick was capturing the shot just as PJ hit the ball. We darkened the ambient exposure to add drama to the sky.
The final image, a static portrait, was done using three rangers and one quadra. We used two strip banks on opposite sides of PJ for accent lights, and one deep Octa for our main light. We also added a little kicker light with the quadra with a standard reflector on the right. Tech: D3, 24-70mm lens, F11, 1/250, ISO 100.
Okay, I’ll admit I like new photo gear, but getting the new Elinchrom Ranger Quadra delivered to me in Wyoming while teaching a photo workshop was better than my first bike at Christmas! Yep, this lighting system is going to change the way you use flash. I’ve longed for more power and faster recycle time than I get from smaller flashes, but pack and head systems are just too big to carry when traveling or hiking to remote locations. The Quadra changes all that. Weighing just over 6.6 pounds, I can easily carry the quadra and heads in my photo backpack with room to spare. The Quadra packs 400 watts of power, recycles in 1/2 second at full power, has a built in Skyport receiver for wireless firing and flash output control, shoots 150 flashes at full power, and recharges to full power in 1 1/2 hours…WOW! 
One sure sign that summer has arrived in Colorado are convertibles driving down the street with radios playing loud. This concept inspired me to create a dreamy summer shot. Photographing people in mirrors is a tried and true concept, so I thought I would spice things up some with interesting light. Katrina is a friend, and happens to drive a black convertible Saab…perfect. The first challenge with this image was shading her from the sun. This was done fixing a California Sunbounce Sun Swatter above her out of view from camera. I use the sun swatter frequently, it has a soft white material that diffuses the light well. Next was lighting Katrina’s eyes. I first started with a SB900 shooting through a Lumiquest Softbox III, but this tended to add light in places I didn’t want (see set up shot). So I switched to a Lumiquest snoot, which just hit her eyes with little spill elsewhere. Next, I added SB900s from left and right , both positioned slightly behind her. These flashes added accent light to her hair and chair. The accent lights added flare to the image, so I added Honl TTL gobos to control flare. Tech: D3, 24-70mm lens, ISO 400, 1/250 at F11.
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.
