I shot Justine back in March, while i was in Dubai. We were supposed to do a fashion shoot that day but the rising temperatures forced us indoors. We didn’t want to waste the day since everything was ready so we decided to do a beauty shoot instead. Justine was brilliant in every way. One of the most telented models i have ever had the pleasure of shooting.

I used F/7 cause i wanted most of the image in focus, but i wanted to blur the carpet on the background, and a little on the foreground.

The 47″ Octa with an AB800 is beautiful huge light source, that wraps around the subject.. but shooting with it in tight spaces is an absolute nightmare. I had to be extremely careful while i set up the lights as i was getting a lot of bouncing around the room. The obvious solution was to equip my Octa & Softbox with Grids (Also made by Paul C Buff), so i did. It didn’t help a whole lot so i tweaked the position and angle of the strobes (Thank God for modeling lamps!!)

I try to adjust the light ratios and position while i shoot the model so i have to spend less time photoshopping the images. I think it makes you a better photographer at the end of the day. The only post i did on this image was adjusting the contrast, and the obvious beauty touchups.

More to come later…..

I have recently started holding workshops for photographers who want to learn more about advanced multiple flash setups. As like any other workshop the main objective is to teach aspiring photographers how to light with one or multiple flashes.

Here are a few shots from the recent workshop along with the strobist info.

Here is Hassaan, being shot with two flashes. The pattern on the wall was achieved by shooting a bare flash through a french door as a gobo (Goes between objects). Pretty much any object can be used as a gobo if used properly to create patterns, that can be used on or off the subject. In this shot, we went for the background configuration so i had to move Hassaan out of the line of sight/light of the flash. If i had not, then he would be the gobo which would cause his shadow on the wall. The background flash was set to 1/2 power.

Since the only flash being used was lighting the background, and since this was pretty late at night, i had to light him separately with another Flash. So i took out my trusty Westcott Apollo 28″ softbox and hooked up my SB-800 with 1/4 power. The light stand with the softbox was held up by another photographer about 4 feet away from Hassaan, at face level. The exposure was 1/250th at F/6.3.

Here is another shot with the same settings. I just added another bare flash facing Hassaan, right behind him for some rim light and added separation. Flash was set to 1/2 Power.

Here is Saeed, with a single SB-800 mounted in a Westcott Apollo Softbox. About Three Feet away, on camera right, facing upwards towards the face. I wanted to get a lighter blue sky, so i decreased my sync speed to about 1/160 to separate Saeed from the background since he was wearing a dark shirt and the sky was a couple of stops darker than what you see here. Exposure was 1/160th, @ f/6.3

This is probably my favorite from the workshop. Lit completely by ambient. The Exposure was .6 seconds and Hassaan is being lit by a Flashlight. .6 Sec @ F/2.8. Cant’ really categorize this under multiple flashes, but until i do a post that relates to light painting, this is where its going to live

DVDs/Videos

Two of my favorite DVDs are the Strobist and One Light Workshop DVDs. Strobist by David Hobby is a 8 DVD pack, which takes you through a whole workshop with Mr. Strobist himself. Yes, its long, but those 8 DVDs are filled with stuff that would change the way you think about flash photography.
OneLight Workshop by Zack Arias focuses on mastering ONE flash and how you could create amazing photographs with just ONE light. To tell you the truth, if you could master one flash, you could master any number of flashes and be in control at the same time. Both these DVDs are awesome and a must have for anyone who is interested in small flash/studio strobe lighting. If you don’t have access to their DVDs or cant wait to get them and still want a massive dose of information visit their blogs right now.

Strobist

OneLight Workshop by Zack Arias

Books

Something thats ALWAYS there for inspiration and for providing many many moments of clarity during frustrating complex lighting scenarios….

The Moment it Clicks & The Hot Shoe Diaries by Joe McNally

If you’re gonna go and order/buy a couple of books tomorrow, these two should be on the top of you flash/lighting/photography reading list.

I have gone through a lot of other books as well, but these two have to be my favorites.

I have learnt so much from David, Zack and Joe over the years and I am sure you will be blown away with their knowledge & experience. If you ever do get a chance, i would strongly urge you to attend their workshops, if you are serious about flash photography.

My Favorite Lens/ Camera / Bag ??

Well. really depends on what im shooting, so it keeps on changing. It took me a while to get the gear i wanted but eventually i got there and I’m at a point where im not thinking about buying a new lens, but thinking more about new concepts to shoot which is a great feeling.

Lets see. You have probably gone through my Gear List by now, and if i had to choose a lens that i could carry around with me at all times would be….. (DRUM ROLL)……. a Nikkor 14-24 f/2.8.

I recently got this lens, and it has truly changed the way i shoot. It just gives a completely new dimension to shoot with. The only regret i have about buying this lens is that i wish i had gotten it sooner. Its wide, its sharp, it beautiful. This lens is also great for DX users as it gives you a fairly wide view at 14mm, and a great general purpose lens at 24mm.. and what can i say… Its has a F/2.8 throughout the zoom range.. so its absolutely incredible.

I also tied a knot with my Nikon D700. Absolutely love the D3 chip inside the smaller D700. I upgraded from a D300 (DX) to a D700 (FX) a couple of months back, and i have never looked back and i don’t think i ever will.

As weird as this may sound… My other favorite piece of gear is something that actually holds my gear. Yes, ladies and gentleman… I’m talking about my bag. I use two bags. One for traveling, and one as a carry around bag after i have reached my destination.

Travel Bag – TENBA ROADIE ROLLING CASE

Satellite Bag – KATA Sling 3N1- Large

I have been getting questions in emails asking me how this shot was done in detail, so i figured i should do a full post on it.

I guess the easiest way i could explain the process is to provide you with a brief equipment list so the post is easy to explain and understand.

The Camera Mounting Rig (Will be posting a photo of the rig soon)

2 x Manfrotto 241-S Suction Mounts
3 x Manfrotto Super Clamps
1 x 2.5 Ft Aluminum Cross Bar
3 x Custom made 6 ” Steel Spigots
1 x Benro Tripod Head

Imaging Equipment

Nikon D700
Nikkor 14-24mm F/2.8

Flash & Modifiers
1 x SB 800
1 x Westcott Apollo Mini Softbox

Wireless Flash Triggers
Alien Bees Cyber Sync Transmitter & Receiver

Camera Triggers
RFN3 Wireless/Wired Remote Trigger

Human Enhancement Supplements
1 x Gatorade

Ok.. Now that thats out of the way, lets get to the details.

First things first. I wanted to make sure that my baby (Nikon D700) would be secure while the car was moving. It took me two months to acquire the necessary components to design and test out the rig. I was originally gonna use just a super clamp with a magic arm to do this shoot, but the higher the camera was, the more jitter i was experiencing plus i wanted a more secure solution. With the old setup, the movement seemed to be a little jaggy. I was a little paranoid about trusting my equipment with a single super clamp. I didnt care how “super” the clamp was, i just wanted a better solution. So i had to think of a way to increase the height of the camera while maintaining the stability, sturdiness and well a very low rate of jitter. The only way i could do it was with 3 customized 6 inch steel spigots. Individually attached to 3 x super clamps. I had already put a dent on my hood with a single super clamp so i wanted something else that could house the super clamps while protecting my cars paint job. Here is where the Manfrotto 241-S suction mounts come in. I got 2 of those to mount my super clamps on. To add a little height to the rig, 2 custom made steel spigots were mounted to both the Manfrotto suction units. I mounted the two super clamps on the spigots which gave me a tiny height boost. The clamps on the super clamps were then adjusted to hold a 2.5 Ft Alumnium bar, forming something like a bridge. I checked the bar by trying to pull it off the car. I couldnt. It was stable and secure. The third super clamp was positioned in the middle of the aluminum bar, along with the third spigot, giving me another 6 inches of height. I was getting there, but i needed to add few inches more to the gear. Thats where the tripod head came in. Mounted on the spigot was the Benro tripod ball head. A very Large ball head.
I mounted the camera and the lens on the ball head and took it for a spin in my car. Nothing too crazy. Just around the block. Seemed ok. At this point i was more concerned about someone stealing my camera while i was inside the car! Everything else seemed ok.

I was going to shoot tethered with the Nikon Camera Control pro software on my Mac, but the Nikon supplied cable was too short so i had to go with wireless shutter release and stay out of the car.

Now, the fun part. How do i expose and freeze my friend Shandana who was driving the car?? With a Flash, of course. So i mounted a Mini Westcott Apollo softbox on a single SB 800 and asked my friend to hold it while she was driving. I set the Flash mode on the camera to rear curtain. Flash was set to 1/4. I set the exposure to about 5 Seconds, F/16.

I asked my friend to start driving and we ended up close to a busy traffic area. I got out of the car and asked her to drive the car around 5-10 Km/Hr. Since i had the wireless trigger attached to the camera, i started triggering the shutter.. and yes i was actually running next to the car. Through the whole shoot, my friend was on the phone with me, and i kept directing her where to go.

In post-processing, contrast and vibrance was increased, curves were adjusted.

I know I still havent posted pictures from the camera rig that i put together for the car shoot. I promise I will post that very soon. Look for an update!

Well, Its time for some strobist info. I absolutely love the lighting on this one. The lighting on the face and the body comes from two different sources. Of course there is an area that overlaps, which adds to the creamy lighting affect an a smooth fall off.

This was shot taken around 1:00 am in the morning. We had just gotten back from the car shoot and were pretty tired. I had been running next to the car with a wireless trigger, so i was completely out of it.

Since it was late night/early morning, I was not exactly trying to over power the sun on this one. I shot this at 1/250th to get rid of any ambient lights that i thought would contribute to the exposure. There were few dimly lit light bulbs in the background which were taken care of by the 1/250th shutter speed.

Like I mentioned before, I was using two lights for this, both SB-800s for the shot. The first one was mounted on a 43″ Westcott convertible shoot through umbrella (half of the black umbrella skirt was taken off to control the spill); positioned just above and very slightly in front of my friends head. You’ll get a pretty good idea about the position if you look at the shadows under the knees. Since this was a shoot through umbrella, and my friend was sitting on the floor; i didn’t need a bigger light source as i was trying to light a pretty small area with the flash. My friends husband Miguel agreed to be my VAB (Voice Activated Boom). Even with his banged up knee from the rugby game, he was incredibly willing to help. Thanks Miguel! Really appreciate it!.

The second was attached with an Orbis Ring Light (about 5-6 feet away), which was acting as the on-axis fill for the body and overlapping on the face. Orbis does a great job as a fill light, rather than a primary light source. Of course if you are looking for a pure ring light effect, then you can always use the Orbis for that. To tell you the truth , I have been using the Orbis as a key light for a while, but it wasn’t until I sat down with David Hobby (strobist.blogspot.com) at the Gulf Photo Plus (www.gulfphotoplus.com) in Dubai that i truly understood the potential of Orbis as an on-axis camera fill light. We were going through his falcon shots from his trip to the desert and he was kind enough to explain how he managed to get such a creamy lighting effect. So thank you David.

I shot this using my Nikon D700 with a Nikkor 24-70mm f/2.8. The flashes were triggered using the on camera flash’s commander mode. I had been getting some blurry shots in the beginning of the shoot and i just wanted to make sure i got everything in focus. It was late, we were both tired (It was 1:00 am remember? ) and i wanted to make a few good exposures so i decided to really up my F Stop and go with F/13, Flash power on both flashes was 1/1. Then I just played with the Orbis Flash – Subject distance to get the effect i wanted to achieve. The green grass was also lit up by both the flashes.

I use Adobe Lightoom 2.3 for my post-processing (PP). Since i shoot in RAW, every single image that comes out of my camera requires PP. I pushed up the contrast, and increased the vibrance on the image. The contrast helped darken the already dark areas, which gave the image a pretty cool light fall off, and the vibrance really brought out the color in the grass.

I would love to hear your thoughts on this setup/photo, so feel free to leave a comment.

Slow shutter can give you immediate dramatic results depending on what you’re shooting and the speeds you use. Of course some knowledge of light and camera operation is required, it’s not something that is very hard to understand. If you have any questions, please leave me a comment and ill respond to your questions.

Some of the images seen here have been shot using slow shutter speeds. I will be taking each photograph and explain how the shots were done, so you can try to replicate these results. These images have not been photoshopped in any way, but they have been processed through Adobe Lightroom for any Exposure/Color/Contrast changes, but that’s it. No Filters or any other special effects were used.

Equipment you’ll need…

A DSLR camera with a Manual mode or Shutter priority

A Tripod

Some Concepts to Understand

Flash Freezes

The first thing that I would like to shed some light on (lame pun intended) is the ability of the flash to freeze the subject. Most people just use the flash to light the subject, which is the most basic feature of the flash, but when used with a slow shutter speed and movement it is used to freeze the subject in the photograph. When you use a slow shutter speed without the flash, you’ll end up getting a blurred photograph, but if you want to freeze some elements in the photograph, you will have to use a flash to light the subject. When the flash fires, the area where the light hits gets frozen and the rest gets blurred. This lets you decide which areas in the photograph gets blurred and which one stays sharp and in focus. Pretty neat trick! There are different types of flash modes available in the camera, and they give you different kinds of effects, but I’ll just discuss two of them. Front curtain, and Rear Curtain. I’ll discuss them briefly in the next section.

Front Curtain Sync & Rear Curtain Sync

Front curtain is probably the most widely used flash mode in cameras. All point and shoot cameras use this mode. Some understanding of the shutter is required, so I’m going to try to explain how a photograph gets taken. There are two curtains in the camera. Front Curtain, and Rear Curtain. When you press the shutter release, the front curtain opens and lets the camera see whatever is in front of the camera. Immediately after the first curtain has completely opened, the flash is fired, which freezes the subject. Then the second (rear) curtain closes, and so does the shutter. This process is usually pretty fast and although you don’t get to hear both curtains opening and closing, its what makes the camera take a photograph.

One drawback of this type of sync is that if the shutter speed is relatively low to record any type of motion blur; the blur shows up against the movement of the motion. For instance, if you photograph a moving ball at a relatively slow shutter speed, the trail of the ball will show up ahead of the ball, and not behind it.

To overcome this issue, we use the Rear Curtain Sync.

Rear Curtain Sync

In Rear Curtain mode, the flash is fired right before the rear curtain starts to close. For instance, if you set your shutter speed to 1 second, the front curtain would immediately open, and stay open for 1 second before the rear curtain closes. In this scenario, the flash is fired just before the rear curtain starts to close, thus recording the blur first, and then the subject; giving you accurate and realistic motion blur.

Here are some shots taken with slow shutter speeds.

Circular Motion

This is my good friend/fellow photographer Adam Swords (www.adamswords.com), It took this shot with his Canon 40D, with a Sigma 10-20mm Wide Angle Lens. All I did was use a slow shutter speed of 1/30 on shutter priority mode, and used the onboard flash to freeze him, while I rotated the camera a little while the shutter went off. Pretty cool isn’t it? Of course you dont have to stick to circular motion, you could do whatever you like.

Daytime Slow Shutter

Have you ever tried taking a photograph with a long exposure during the day? Ever noticed how everything gets blown out? And everything is just white. That is what you call an extremely over exposed photograph. In this scenario, the camera sensor gets so much light that the final photograph is nothing but an over exposed photograph.

If you want to use a longer exposure during the day, you’ll have to use something called a Neutral Density Filter. Don’t let the big words scare you. It’s just like putting sunglasses on your camera. That’s it. All it does is reduce the amount of light entering into the camera. With the ND filter, you’re able to use longer shutter speeds without over exposing the photograph. The photograph below was taken with a Neutral Density filter. If you notice, i have blurred some elements so much in the photograph that they are almost invisible.

Slow Shutter at Night

These shots were taken on 30 second exposures. I used manual mode to program the shutter. Used the aperture to control the starburts effect from the lights. The wider the aperture is, the less the starburst effect will be, and of course the more closed down the aperture is, the more starburst effect will be visible in the photographs. No Flash was used to freeze any elements.

3 Sec @ F/16

30 Sec @ F/22

30 Sec @ F/22