Pixel Darkroom Photography

I got home and our good friends had stopped by, ready to go on a date. They asked me if I could snap a quick picture of them so I went inside and got a portrait lens. I had them for a few minutes and got a few great images. This is one of them, posted here with their permission.

This image is “colored” in a special way. For those of you not familiar with using gels and working with the white balance (WB) of the camera, this is an interesting exercise. Tungsten light looks very warm to the camera as well as to the naked eye. Our brain is used to adjusting the information to us but the camera doesn’t. So the camera needs to be told that the image is lit by tungsten light so that it “cools” it off.

However, if the image is not lit by tungsten light, the camera’s white balance cools it so much that it looks blue to our eyes. In order to create the effect below, I set the camera to the tungsten white balance and lit myself with a flash that had a 1/1 CTO (color temperature orange) gel AND a 1/8 CTO gel. The 1/1 CTO gel was to create the tungsten light that I mentioned below, which would have brought yours truly to a neutral light (sort of day light, or white, if you wish) and the other 1/8 CTO gel to warm up, yours truly, (who could have use the warmth) and give it a little bit of skin color. The flash was triggered with Pocket Wizards (radio triggers) and the light shape was modified with a coroplast snoot, which is something to direct the light straight at the subject and prevent it from “spilling” or contaminating anything else. Here’s Day 289.

I can’t explain this photograph. I just asked her to look at me. I guess that by now, posing takes a new meaning and we become more and more comfortable in front of the lens. I only took a couple of shots and after doing some hard post-production on one of them I decided to go with this one lightly “touched”. Here’s Day 242. Where we are in the project, I don’t know. I sort of dropped posting links on Facebook and Twitter. I’m kinda tired of shooting something every day. Thanks for looking. Sorry for the RSS images missing. I actually never got the images to work with Buzz anyway and I don’t know how to make it work on RSS like this. I’ve had images being downloaded from my site and picked them up in different places so I decided to switch from Flickr to Photoshelter. We’ll see how this works.

Up here you’re not allowed to use the mobile phone and drive at the same time anymore. I ended up getting this bluetooth headset. I would have gotten some wired headset because pairing and connecting these things is a pain ad posteriore but it works fine eventually. I have a (made with cell phone) picture from long time ago, when my son was probably only two years old, and he is wearing a headset like this. That was a cute one. This time it’s a cool one. It’s about time, he’s 5.

Strobist info: 580 EX at 64th zoomed to 105mm trough coroplast grid as rim, and 580 EX II at 128th CL both via Pocket Wizards. Tweaks in Lr.

My daughter is doing this funny quick shoulder shrug that means “I don’t know” whenever I ask her something and she is upset. Today I was scolding her for something and she was upset, of course. Then I had noticed something on her face and asked her what it was. When she quickly shrugged her shoulders again I started chuckling. She thought it was funny so I asked the question again but this time she wasn’t upset anymore and the shrug wasn’t so funny. I told her: “Be upset and then do it.” We then practiced her “being upset” faces. She is quite the 2.5 yeas old actress. This is one of her “on demand” upset faces.

Time for a family shot again. This one is also a reminder of the first little wiggly tooth in our family.

Strobist info: 580 EX into umbrella CR via PW.

The two girls I love most.

Strobist info: 580 EX II CL and CR via on camera 580 EX II. Another 580 EX II with snoot CL behind subjects as hair light.

It was about time to get them wizards out and shoot some more in a “controlled” environment. I’m talking about the lights, not the kids. They did fine. We had a wonderful day, so right before playing a few games of Uno and some memory game, I set up quickly (no setup shot, sorry) and had them come over and help me out with today’s shot. Those interested read below for geeky info. The rest of you, come back tomorrow.

Strobist info: 580 EX II into softbox and 580 EX II clamped (w/ Justin Clamp) onto chair with a few gels of some sorts of blue) via Pocket Wizards. BTW, my iPhone application that triggers flashes via Pocket Wizards is almost done. I’ll be doing some tests and I hope you’ll be able to play around with it soon. More to come.

Father & Son.

Strobist info: 580 EX II through snoots, CL and CR via on camera 580 EX II. Small tweaks in Lr.

I have a cold, and I read once in a Cigar Aficionado magazine, that Arthur Rubinstein once gave a kid by the name of Daniel Barenboim a cigar to smoke when he came down with a cold. I thought I’d try it,… sort of. Today’s post production on this photograph was inspired by Maciek Lesniak.

Strobist info: 580 EX II (mis)firing through a snoot from CL, courtesy amazing PC connection from the Pocket Wizard. Ps postproduction with some Falln-Stock smoke brushes and a special BW conversion.

Note: I hope you like the new design of the website. Only small tweaks so far but I hope to bring some improvements.

You may think this is another posed portrait of my son where we were looking for a deep look, dramatic lighting and a great expression. I was actually playing with getting a dramatic lighting but had a different image in mind while he was just finishing his chocolate chip cookies and milk. I snapped a few frames and he got bored. This is just as he was getting bored and you don’t want to see the other ones. I then gave up as I didn’t want to upset him too much, yet again, and focused on something else. You might have ended up with something totally different tonight but when I uploaded the images, I found this, I loved it and here it goes. My son getting bored because of the somewhat repetitive task that Daddy has been doing for 108 Days, now.

Strobist info: 580 EX on a handheld lightstand/boom above CL, triggered via Pocket Wizards. Small tweaks in Lr.

Day One Hundred was a team effort. As were a lot of the set’s images so far. We had done this kind of shot before, when our little girl was only a few months old and I liked the idea. I thought we should put it into practice for this project as well, so we all jumped on the couch. You can imagine that she is not the one supporting all of our weights, although the illusion worked out fine. Here is to one hundred days of daily photography!

Strobist info: 580 EX II into softbox, CR, 580 EX II into white umbrella, CL almost on axis fill, both around 1/2 or 1/1 power and a 580 EX at 1/32 zoomed to 70 CR as hair light/rim light. All triggered via Pocket Wizards.

In your face! is what this feels like to me, even though I was smiling somewhat kindly. It feels weird to be photographed so closely. Imagine the huge banners in the malls where you can almost see the amino-acids from the cells of the models faces. Brrr… I can promise you this is about as close of a shot you’ll get from me. I’ll back off now.

Strobist info: 580 EX II x2 at 1/4 zoomed wide via PW CL and CR through white umbrellas. Oh, I also held some sort of white foam bouncer to through some light under the cap.

Surprise, surprise!… I found this guy some place right before he was heading to… any guesses? No, not to the North Pole. To storage! I shot a portrait before so here he goes. I just gave him a big bear hug and moved him in the process in the spot where the lights were setup. Here goes day 91.
Christmas +.

Strobist info: 580 EX II into softbox CL (at 1/1 or 1/2) and 580 EX II CR for rim light, not that you can see it since he has such a white beard. Triggered via PW. Setup shot here.

Today I went out and about with my wonderful little daughter. I was going to just go out and take some nature shots, but then she woke up and I decided to do some old strobist type of stuff; flashes, umbrellas, whatever would be needed. It started raining (again!) so we found a spot by the stadium that was covered where I could have her stay/sit/play/giggle or whatever she does when I take her photos. On our way there, I took this shot. I decided to post this so we can see her head to toes.

Strobist info: clouded day. Post in Lr for contrast, saturation for the bricks, color temperature, etc

“But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, goodness, kindness, faithfulness, gentleness and self control.” Boy was I low on patience, goodness, kindness, gentleness and self control on getting this shot. We worked hard on this… especially the kids. It must be really hard to stare at a dark round glass and expect to be entertained, or have fun, or even expect great results. Especially when you are anywhere between 2.5 to 5.5 years old. You would think that after “the moment it clicks” you should be done, but no, no, no… there’s more.
It’s alright, there were plenty of rewards (before and after). Have a great night everyone. Here goes day 84.

Strobist info: 580 EX II via Pocket Wizard into softbox at 1/2 with 3/4 CTO Camera Left. Minimal post production in Lr.

…when asked about what comes in 2010…

Strobist info: 2×580 EX (II) via Pocket Wizards. One pointed at the background at 1/2 and the other into white reflective umbrella around 1/8, 1/4. No setup shot. Happy New Year.

Strobist info: 580 EX II via PW half snooted at 1/32, CL (obviously).

Strobist info: 580 EX CR at 32 or so via PW. Small tweaks in Lr.

Strobist info: 2×580 EX II CR shoot through white umbrella, CL, slightly behind subject with full CTO both via Pocket Wizards, shot at ISO 100, f2.8. No postproduction. Setup shot right here. Thanks for stopping by. Don’t hesitate to grab the RSS feed to have these images delivered to your e-mail or reader of your choice. Go down to the right hand side and look for “Actions”. Enjoy.