From the Archives: How to Shoot Christmas

It's that time of year again, when you can spend quality time with the family during the holiday season and secretly be working on your light balancing skills.

(Try not to be too obvious.)

At this point, even the most serious procrastinators finally have their lights up. If you get anything really cool, stick it in the Strobist Flickr pool for us to see, flash or not.

Also, from 2007, one way to approach lighting a whole room with two flashes for Christmas morning.

:: How to Photograph Chistmas Lights ::
:: Christmas Morning Lighting Tips ::

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Today's Special: A Cuppa Joe, With a Squeeze of Lime

If you are into in-person, hands-on learning there are a coupla great new options on the radar. Hit the jump for details on new offerings from Joe McNally and Bert Stephani.
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McNally has just announced that he has revived the Dobbs Ferry workshops. If you are anywhere in the northeastern US, you'll want to take a look at the new one-day programs that Joe is now doing direct -- i.e., not as part of a third-party organization.

The classes are very small (just Joe and a dozen mouth breathers) and he has set it up as an intense, one-day program which includes a light (heh) breakfast and lunch. They run from 9:15 a.m. until 6:00 p.m., or until your head explodes, whichever comes first.

More info here.


Something Juicy from Bert, Too

You EU-types will want to take note of Bert Stephani's new gig, "Squeeze the Lime," in which he and partner-in-crime Pieter Van Impe will be doing lighting seminars of several different lengths and formats.

They have uploaded their first "Squeeze the Lime" video, embedded below. It could be a tad NSFW-ish in your typical US cubicle hell. But it'll play just fine in European offices, where you'll probably want to call your boss and coworkers over to watch along with you.


More info here.

:: Other posts/videos from Bert ::

Speedlinks: December 18th, 2008

In this most eclectic edition of Speedlinks, we feature:

The "Crotch Flash," a "POS," a slideshow without slides, an inside job gone horribly wrong and a little piece of American history...
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• WTJ has a video interview with a shooter who was pretty much assigned to shoot an entire issue of a fashion mag. Of interest to the alternate-style lighting folks, the "crotch flash," which shows up at about the 8:00 mark.

• You know how all of those photo gear review articles in magazines will sometimes tiptoe around the fact that they absolutely hate something? Well, someone forgot to tell The Online Photographer about that rule.

• Well worth a listen: Audio from Platon's presentation at this year's Eddie Adams Workshop. (EAW '89 alum here, representin'.)

• Talk your way into the White House: Check. Get images for assignment with sneaked in amateur camera: Check. Destroy your SD card in an effed-up card reader afterwards: Check. (Now what?)

• Last but not least, Matt Mendelsohn, the photographer who made that wonderful election night photo at the Lincoln Memorial, has released it as a signed, limited edition print.

If you (or someone you know) is going to be particularly stoked on January 20th, this would be an extremely cool way to photographically mark the occasion. And if you are a picture editor putting together your preview coverage for Inauguration Day, it's a heckuva moment -- 45 years in the making.

November Winner Makes a Splash

Congrats to Haristobald, seen above at upper right, who despite all appearances did not do this photo shoot in the nude. There's a Speedo behind that 70-200.

He shot photos of his local triathlon club's calendar, did a video of the shoot and earned himself the last set of Pocketwizards left to be won in the Going Wireless contest.

This one jumped out at us the very first time we saw it, and it was a unanimous choice for the November winner. More info, including links to two more videos and Martin's site on the PW blog.

Thanks to all who entered, thereby raising the bar for all of the shooters who watched the 70-some-odd videos that were submitted. And if you missed any of the other four winning flicks, hit the jump for a quick recap.
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July Winner: Ryan Allan





August Winner: Jesse Rosten





September Winner: Danish Puthan Valiyandi





October Winner: Jerry Vo




Very cool stuff, all. You can also see all of the entries, here. Thanks to all who entered, and congrats again to the winners.

Definitely keep an eye out for more fun stuff like this stuff in the future.

Beers With: Rembrandt

EDITOR'S NOTE: With apologies to every single art history class ever taught, this post marks the first in an occasional series of bar conversations with some of the Old Masters. These guys were the first ones to seriously light their work, and always merit a second look from those of us who slept through our humanities classes in college.
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Netherlands-based Rembrandt is a tough guy to track down. He never returns phone calls, doesn't do email and refuses to carry a cell phone. We were lucky enough to catch up with him on a recent trip to Europe, where he took a few minutes out of his schedule to talk about light.

Keep reading for the Q&A.


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Rembrandt Q&A

STROBIST (in itals): First of all, thanks for taking the time for the interview. Photographers have been studying your light and composition for many years, and actually getting some Q&A with you is fantastic.

REMBRANDT (in bold): No need to brown nose -- I have seen the Flickr threads. Clearly, Dave Hill would have been your first choice.


Already talked to him, here. But you're doing some cool stuff, too. Besides, after Vermeer sees this post, maybe he'll return my calls.

Doubt it. But you can try.


Let's start with your self portrait. One of many, in fact, this one having been done in 1659. Can you talk a little about it?

I always tried to keep a current self-portrait. You'd be surprised how many people do not have a decent head shot of themselves, for instance. Cobbler's kids have no shoes, as they say.


Speaking of numbers, you have done a ton of work. Some years, it is a new piece every month. What's up with that?

It's either that or hanging out on the message boards. I'd just rather be making pictures. Seriously, how much of your life can you spend complaining about the state of the industry? It's depressing.


I hear ya. Okay, so on the head shot -- one light source, up high and slightly camera right. Beauty dish?

No, straight, 7" reflector on an AlienBees AB800. If you look at the shadow under my nose, you can see it is harder than a beauty dish.


Oh, yeah. What about the fill?

Very little -- just a large, white foamcore at camera left. Almost not even there.


Nice and simple. How'd you get the warmth?

Quarter CTO. I like warmth on the key, but not too much. A lot of what you see in my work is color shifts due to time. The inkjet guy said archival. Bullshit. I started getting shifts after just 175 years. Boy, I miss Kodachrome.


Don't we all. What about the background?

You're gonna laugh. Wallpaper. I order it up special for each project right off of the web. Forty bucks. I cut three or four 2-foot-wide strips and match the pattern. Then I roll it right up into a tube to take to the location. We stick it on the wall with Fun-Tack, and Photoshop out any obvious seams. Keep it in a tube, use it over and over.


No kidding? I never would have known. Light, portable, cheap -- I love it.

You aren't the only one with ghetto DIY tips.


Fair enough. Let's move on to another one -- "Doctor Nicolaes Tulp's Demonstration of the Anatomy of the Arm." That's a mouthful. You couldn't pare that title down any?

Think metadata. It's done great stock sales for the last 378 years. But I have a sneaking suspicion my agency has shorted me, too.




Who is your agency?

I was originally with a great little European boutique agency -- mom and pop job. Great contract. But then they got bought and everything went straight to hell.


Who bought them?

Who buys everybody?


Oh, yeah. Right. So let's talk about the light. What can you tell us about it?

You tell me. What do you see?


Hmm... small-but-softish source. Beauty dish? Lotta watt-seconds to give you a good enough aperture to carry focus all the way through. Very high camera left, far enough away to reach across the frame pretty evenly.

Right so far, go on...


Fill... lessee... small strobe behind the guy second from right?

No, there would be secondary shadows. Those are hard to explain, visually. Try again.


Reflected fill off the collars? Really?

Yep. You get a lot of fill reflection when a white surface is in that close. Filled the patient's forehead nicely. Keep going.


Background lit by the main light?

Okay, now you're just not thinking. The key light is up high -- the top edge of the alcove would be lit, too.


Oh, yeah. Another light source, something soft down low. Softbox on the floor?

Yep. On an AB400 - just a smidge. Key was an AB1600 in a dish. Just two lights total, with a sheet on the ground infront out of the frame for minimal fill. Much more than that and you start to get unexplainable shadows too easily. Motivated light, motivated light.


What about that grody arm -- Photoshop?

Oh, no -- dead guy. It's done all of the time. You ever seen Joel Peter Witkin's stuff?


Please, I just had dinner.

Sorry. That dude is whack.


You're telling me. Can we talk about The Night Watch?

Sure. Everyone always goes for my production group stuff. Tell you one thing -- I get pissed every time I see one of those three-panel Annie Leibovitz Hollywood photos in Vanity Fair. Homage, my ass. And Neal Slavin? Don't even get me started.



You're an Old Master. People are going to go back to your themes over and over. They have a classic familiarity that stands the test of time. Why do you think we even go to art school? Because we want to learn to rip off the very best class of artist.

Yeah, well. Royalties would be nice. Maybe a little credit once in a while?


Alright, alright. So, who are your influences?

For this kind of stuff? I'm digging Drew Gardner lately. Have you seen his death of Admiral Nelson? Kickass.


Totally. He told me he wouldn't even drop the POV to lose the buildings in the background in the final shot. Retoucher's nightmare. Dude can stage a scene. He had a special "Nelson light" he sneaked in there, too.

That's what I'm sayin'. You have to tell a story with it, guide the eye with composition and light.


Okay, let's talk about that light. Your top light is eluding me. More than one?

Not so fast. Start with the fill, build from there. We hung a king-sized sheet behind camera and stuck two AB800's behind that for a huge, soft frontal light that would not call attention to itself.


Right. So how far did you drop the exposure on the fill?

Almost three stops. It was Night Watch, after all.


Okay then, how about the top light, which I still can't figure out. Where is it coming from? Way up high camera left?

Yep. But we cut it with a cookie -- think of a gobo with holes in it. Lets the light come through, but in a splotchy way. You get direction and hot spots.

So, you get a certain level overall. And since the holes in the cookie are "out of focus," if you will, you get a couple of brighter areas. Brings your eye exactly where I want it to go. Just one big AB1600 clamped into the rafters. That was our key.


So, the guy on the front right -- why can I see under his hat so well?

The fill light is stronger when you are closer to the camera. It's a great little cheat.


Of course! You decide how far the fill reaches in by how close you put it to the scene. All about the lighting distance, even for fill light. The closer you move it in, the faster it falls off as you work your way back into the scene.

Now you're thinking.
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Very cool. Thanks for hanging -- the beers are on us.

Yes, they are. Catch you later. And if you happen to see Annie, give her my best.

RadioPopper Introduces Gen 2 Products

Lots of announcements hitting the blog over at RadioPopper tonight -- new designs, 1500-foot TTL range, remote control of AlienBees and WL, the debut of the long awaited "juniors," etc. Way too much to quickly digest into one post.

Prices start at $59/$69 for the JrX receiver and transmitter, respectively, and go to $249 for the full-blown PX units.

RadioPopper has put a lot of the info into a video, embedded above. Full-line brochure is here with more photos and specs. Lotsa yakking about it going on here.

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Back From The Twilight Zone

I think that even if I were Joey L, I probably would have OD'd on seeing my own Twilight movie photos everywhere in London last week.

Okay, maybe that is just sour grapes on my part. The Boy Wonder's work was plastered on pretty much every flat vertical surface in the entire city.

Undeterred by teenage photographers with mega-movie photo assignments, we made some photos of our own, too...


Don't Make Me Take This Hat Off...

First up was from Saturday's session, wherein we photographed Sean McCormack who travelled through the night only to arrive with a near-fatal case of bedhead. He kept it in check with an industrial strength hat, and thus were we all safe.

Just to be ornery in an all-white room, we used the white walls as backdrops and tamed them to make a low-key photo.

We shot him with a Lumiquest SB-III as key light, hand-held riiiight in front of his head and pointed straight down. As you might imagine, this makes for some pretty gnarly eye-socket shadows. (Hey, at least it detracts from the bedhead!)

Not to worry, as we filled with a new Orbis ring flash adapter, which allowed us to fill those shadows exactly as much as we wanted without ruining the character of the downlight key. This is a very cool combo, as it creates a little drama that you can control to any exact degree.

The background light was courtesy Masood the VAL, and I thought it fitting to leave the flash in the frame, all things considered.

(Setup shot here, courtesy Huy, who also won a CSB Micro Mini on Saturday...)

The Orbis handled our various test drives with flying colors, creating a really nice quality of light. It is not quite as efficient as the Ray Flash, so use as an outdoor key light is best left to shady situations. (As opposed to shady subjects, as seen above...)

Having seen about a thousand too many shots with ring flash as the only light source, I'd personally rather eat a whole box of Chocolate Kimberlies (don't ask) without any milk to drink than use the Orbis that way. But it shines as a fill -- and with it brings infinite possibilities of hard-light-taming goodness.


Lust at The Brunswick Centre

Next was Richard, who posed reading an Elinchrom brochure outside of The Flash Centre.

We had an ad-hoc Monday meetup of sorts, pulling off a quick couple of outdoor portraits in the winter chill. (I chose not to wear shorts on Monday out of respect for Londoners everywhere. Plus, all of my shorts were dirty by then.)

"Could you just stand here and look at the flash brochure for a few minutes?" we said. Nice work if you can get it.

There were three lights on this one, two of which were subtle enough to make them not so easily seen. Ambient is down a stop and a half, maybe two stops. Main light is a VAL'd SB-800 in a Honl shorty from camera right aimed at Richard's face.

Second is another VAL'd SB-800, zoomed to 105mm and aimed at the TFC sign to pop it a little in the dropped ambient. And the third is an on-camera flash for a little frontal fill on Richard.


I Could Buy and Sell You Ten Times Over

We moved over to a second floor terrace for the second photo at TFC, just because we could not feel the full effect of the wind at street level. There we stuck Nick in front of a vine-covered wall to do a quick, three-speedlight portrait.

We dropped the ambient down a couple stops before bringing Nick back with a Lumiquest SB-III as a key light. From this working distance, the effect is not hard or soft, really -- sort of "direct flash with the edge sanded off." We warmed that light up with a 1/4 CTO gel to offset the winter chill in Nick's face.

About half way through I thought, what the heck, let's go ahead and make this a decent CV portrait. So, Nick, what do you do for a living?

Turns out Nick is the head of art at a large, internationally known advertising agency.

Oh.

At that point, I needed about a full-cut CTO to put the color back in my face. No pressure, no pressure...

So we filled Nick with a speedlight in an Orbis (about two stops off of the key light) and raked a flash across that back wall to bring up the area behind Nick and give it some texture in the overcast light. Setup shot here, courtesy background VAL RC Hill.


A Little Light Fare

Having lost part of my trip to a bug which had driving the porcelain bus for two days, I lucked out by feeling well enough to join Neil Turner, of DG28, for dinner on Monday night.

Don't know what it was that helped me to get better so fast. Could've been the unpasteurized IPA's they had me drinking after Sunday's session. (Can't hurt, right?)

Neil, (who himself will be teaching in the UK in March) told me several of the funniest PJ-related stories I have ever heard, including the absolute funniest photo tale I have ever listened to in my life.

The poor chap in the story has forever become etched into my mind as "Officer Hans Blix," and I will not ruin it by trying to retell it here. Suffice to say that Neil has promised to post it one day. And when he does I will cancel whatever I have scheduled and link to that instead.

There is nothing off color about it at all, but it will have to be labeled "NSFW" merely because you might get fired for laughing your butt off uncontrollably at work for the rest of the day.

I thought I was gonna get us kicked out of the restaurant when I heard it. Which would have been a bad thing, because there were vampires friggin' everywhere out there.