Get the Job Done: Harriet and Peter's Engagement Session

My favorite shot from Kim and Michael's fall engagement session

This evening, during the Golden Hour before sunset, I will take engagement photos of one of my upcoming May wedding couples, Harriet and Peter. I'm excited about this session for a couple of reasons:

1) It will be the first one I've done for a client that will combine ambient light with off camera flash. I started charging my Alien Bee battery pack Tuesday night which will allow me to take one of my AB1600 strobes on location with me. Thanks to attending several sessions with the Colorado Strobist Flickr group, I've gotten tons of practice getting great results from a very simple, my pared down "travel lighting kit," which consists of a shoot through umbrella, a light stand, a single strobe, a reflector and two Pocket Wizards. My friend and fellow photographer Christine will be assisting me with the shoot.

Lately, I've been using my Canon 580 II used off camera with a Custom Bracket and a off-camera shoe cord. So I'm very excited to be taking my portrait photography to the next level. And I'm confident that I'm more than prepared.

2) Harriet and Peter are home bodies, so they have decided to have me shoot them near their apartment complex. One of the things they told me during their consultation is how much they love having home movie nights. I think it would be so much fun to have some outtakes while they are watching their favorite flick on their living room couch!

When I shot Kim and Michael's engagement session during the fall, I loved being able to do some storytelling images explaining how their romance began through a shared love of skiing and bicycling.



For inspiration, I spent the evening looking at great shots from the E-Sessions and Engagement Photography group pools on Flickr. I loved this series of shots from Ryan Richard:

Get the Job Done: Tips for first runway shoot

I wanted to wish my photo colleague Art Scott good luck on his first runway shoot. Scott is one of my buddies on the Digital Grin Photography Forum where we often chat about the business aspects of photography. In this forum thread another member posted a great video to help Scott answer some of his questions on how to light such a challenging session. I thought the information was so useful that I wanted to share it here too.

I think runway shows can be extremely difficult shoot. They are usually very dark, club-like settings with very little available ambient light. That means you will need to use powerful on or off-camera strobes to freeze motion in low light. That means you need to have a ton of batteries or a battery pack to keep recycling the flash as quickly as possible. I have the Canon battery pack recommended in the video and it has served me well in low-light environments including indoor weddings and runway shows. I can't wait to pull my strobes off camera and have them flash remotely with my Pocket Wizard in a setting like this. So far, I've only used my PWs in studio settings. I want to use them in a live event the way they are used in the video.

Also, get there early and stake your claim on the "sweet spot." You don't want to spend the evening pushing, fighting and vying for limited space near the stage if there are a pack of additional photographers shooting the event. One of the things that has served me well during this kind of event coverage is to gain rapport with as many of the models as possible before they hit the runway. That almost guarantees that they will lock eyes with you when they strut and pose, making for more intimate shots.

Breaking News: Canon Repaired My Flash! Part 3

I back got my 580EX II today from the Canon repair center, all fresh and fixed! Turns out the flash PCB (or flash printed circuit board) needed to be replaced, a service that cost me $150. I blogged a few weeks ago about how stressful it was to have my one and only flash die a few days before my first wedding assignment.

In spite of the expense, I think I still came out good considering how much a new flash cost would have cost me right before the wedding. Now I have two!

I had tried connecting a Quantum Turbo 2X2 battery pack to my flash to give it more and faster recycle times. But something happened when I connected to the two devices: the flash pilot light button flickered rapidly and then died out. I couldn't get the flash to work from that point on. I still don't know if the battery pack caused the malfunction or if that flash already had one foot in the grave. I'm starting to think the flash was faulty since my friends at Denver Pro Photo said Quantum gave the battery pack a clean bill of health and the store sold it a few days later.

Here's proof that getting those service warranty agreements are a good thing. I routinely get those things whenever I buy photo equipment now, but I didn't a year ago when I first started buying items. And I didn't get one for my flash. If I would have, the service would have been covered under the program for free! And to make matters worse, I have no idea where the receipt is for the flash, so I had no way of proving to Canon that the flash was still under warranty.

All kinds of cuss words! But I'm happy to have a new flash so I can start experimenting with triggering multiple strobes.

BREAKING NEWS: Artistic Nude Shoot

This morning I will be shooting my first artistic nude. I've still got some setting up to do, but I just wanted to write a quick post to commemorate the event. Last night my boyfriend helped me transform a room of my house into a makeshift studio complete with a backdrop, one of my new Alien Bee strobes and Westcott Spiderlites. I will add more light as I go and take pictures of the studio set-up so I can hopefully get some critique from readers to let me know what I did right and what I can improve upon. I've got about two hours to get ready before Teri and my burgeoning make-up artist Felisa Cardova arrive. This will be Felisa's first shoot using her own equipment as well, and I am hoping that if she enjoys it, she can work with me in the future. Wish us luck!

Get the Goods: New Lighting Gear

Some long awaited lighting equipment finally arrived this week and will be a big boon for my business, allowing me to capture more images like the one I took above of model AngelucaK. I took that photo during a Colorado Strobist meet-up earlier this month. I had to borrow other members' equipment, but the experience got me instantly hooked to strobes. Now I have my own! My new Alien Bees strobe kit and my Westcott Spiderlite TD5 continuous light source will give me more portability and make it easier for me to overcome the challenges that shooting outside a studio can pose. These new set-ups along with the Wescott constant light deluxe kit I bought last year and two new PocketWizards to trigger everything will give me plenty of options to illuminate any situation!

Sooner or later, every photographer has to leave the controlled setting of their own studio and head out into the unknown world that is "shooting on location." Being able to manipulate both natural and artificial lighting wherever an assignment takes you is crucial to making a living with a camera.

Buying kits are the most cost effective way to build a studio set because they usually include everything you need in one box. Both the Alien Bees and Westcott kits I purchased include two lights, softboxes, sturdy light stands and a carry case. Check out the March issue of "Popular Photography" for reviews of off-camera lighting systems. On Saturday I will be taking a "Crash Flash" course to learn some new off-camera lighting techniques. I'll share them with you next week.