I decided to break out the soft box tonight while playing ball with Mela.  I was fiddling around with all sorts of angles this evening, trying to get something a little bit different than I captured in the past with Mela and her ball.  I really like how this shot came out.  The catch light in Mela’s eye is perfect at making it look alive.  My mind likes to predict Mela’s facial expression which is hidden behind the ball.  Like the title of the photograph says, “Go on, I Dare Ya”!

Today I can say I had my first real gig as a photographer.  My friend asked if I could help him out by taking a corporate head shot for his boss’ web site.  Of course I told him it would not be a problem and that it was  perfect timing as I am heading to my company’s winter meeting to do head shots of all my coworkers later in the week.  The setup for this shot was three small strobes.  One in a soft box at camera right as the key, one in a reflective umbrella on camera left as the fill and a third gridded and pointed up at the background from behind the subject.  It turns out that the intended fill light became the key.  I guess I am still learning the ETTL and ratios functions in the Canon system.  However, even though they got switched on me, I like the overall picture.  The lighting is clean and there is good separation from the background.  Maybe next time I will leave just a bit more head room in the shot to allow for future clients to be able to frame their images.

I added a third flash to my arsenal in preparation for my company’s corporate head shots in February.  I ask Jaclyn, my fiancee, to be my model so that I could test out the setup with the third light. I also wanted to make sure I would be able to handle the handful of people in my company who wear glasses.  By placing the key and fill lights more towards the sides of the frame instead of closer to the lens, I was able to prevent the reflections of the lights in Jaclyn’s glasses.  The setup that I used tonight will most likely be the exact setup I use for the photo shoot in a couple of weeks.

My fiancee was given some flowers on her last day of work by one of her coworkers.  I decided to put the flowers in front of the portrait backdrop and snap some shots with the softbox and reflector.  I am really impressed with how the shots came out.  This photograph, in particular, has some great tones and sharp details.  The purple flowers and the yellow rose are my favorite parts of the photograph.  The gray background does appear in frame as it was off to camera right at this angle.

I am still trying to perfect the setup for my company’s corporate head shots that I will be taking in a couple of weeks.  For this trial shot, I used the softbox at camera left and a reflector on camera right.  The background was lit up with a second strobe with a gird placed on it.  I am thinking that I will need to order three more pieces of equipment.  One to get the exact look that my CEO is looking for and two others to make the setup flexible enough to use in even the most unprepared locations.

The first piece I think I will be buying is a third flash.  I have not been able to get the ratio of light on the dark side of the face using the reflector.  This may be because I do not know how to use it effectively yet.  A third flash will allow me to get the exact ratio I am looking for more easily.

The second piece will be a background light stand.  The stand will make for quick setup and adjustments of the background light flash.

The third piece is a posing stool.  I would love to get an adjustable one, but they seem a bit pricey.  I will have to do my research to see if I can get something effective, but cheap.

Today I wanted to put the new gear to the real test.  I decided to add a background and reflector to my gear so that I can use them to take corporate head shots for my company in February.  I left myself plenty of lead time to iron out any kinks in the setup or my technique.

I set up the background and paced off eight feet to where I would be standing for the portrait.  I placed one of my light stands on the spot to mark it for the time being.  I then paced off eight more feed and set up the tripod.  I used the light stand place holder as a focusing point.  Next, I placed the background light on a small table a foot behind where I would be standing.  The Apollo softbox was then placed at camera left and in close.  The last piece of the puzzle was setup up the new reflector and stand.  Once it was all hooked up and angled properly, the reflector was placed camera right and in close.  (I have included a setup shot at the end of the post.)

For the first few frames, I had the circular reflector with its white side exposed to the softbox.  The result from this setup was a heavy shadow on the subject’s left side.  Mid-shoot, I flipped the reflector over to expose its silver side and reflect more light back into the shadows.

I like the way the final images came out of the camera.  I did, however, open up the exposure a bit more in Lightroom during post processing.  The next time I practice these shots, I have to remember to open up the exposure more in camera.  What looked great on the back of the camera turned out to be a bit too dark on the computer screen.

I decided to try another self portrait today to see if I could apply some of the lessons I have learned since taking my last one.  Two of the things I wanted to exercise were the camera to subject and subject to background distances as well as some posing techniques.

The first thing I did was measure eight feet from the wall in our dining/living room.  I put one of my two light stands in this spot.  I then paced off eight more feet away from the wall and from the spot I just marked.  This is where I placed my camera.  I popped the 70-200mm lens on the 7D so that I could compress the background as much as possible and get a really sharp imagine with my best piece of glass.

The next step was to set up the background light.  I decided to go with a gridded flash.  I wanted the effect of a circle of light on the brown wall in the background.  I swapped in a pot holder with the light stand  currently in the middle of the room.  I lowered this stand as far as it would go and placed the gridded 430EX II strobe on it.  I moved it to just behind the pot holder mark and pointed it up at forty-five degrees to the wall. I took my best guess as to where it needed to be aimed.

At this point, I took a couple of test shots with just the background light.  I knew I wanted my aperture at f/4.0 and my ISO at 100, so I locked those in right away.  I do not remember why I chose a shutter speed of 1/125 sec.  Usually I shoot this type of shot at 1/250 to eliminate as much, if not all, of the ambient light as possible.  The setting that I cared most about during these few test shots was the background flash power.  Thanks to the 7D, I was able to adjust this setting very quickly in the flash menu on the camera.

Next, I set up the Apollo twenty-eight inch soft box on camera left.  I brought it as close to my marked spot as possible without letting it get into the frame.  I started with the soft box pointing at my mark and at a forty-five degree angle relative to the camera.  However, as I got into the shooting, I slowly changed this angle to more of a thirty-five or forty degree angle and feathered the light across my face.

The posing technique that I was playing with was where to have the subject stare while taking the pictures.  In this image, I was staring at the Canon emblem right above the lens of the camera.  This method is said to open up the subject’s eyes for a more compelling portrait.