Rimelite Grand softbox test

I want a Broncolor Para 220, but I can’t shell out the 7 grand that B&H charges for that apartment filling monster light. Fortunately there is a very cheap alternative that kind of gives that special hip hop video lighting effect for a couple of hundred dollars. The Rimelite Grandbox 120 is a 120cm parabolic that does not focus like the Bron, but when used properly give a very large and very specular light. Since it cannot be focused, finding the sweet spot involves moving the subject towards and away from the light, and I found that the light wants to be very close to the subject. When set right, it really sings.

Typically when I test lighting I use myself as a model because the process is too tedious and unflattering for a model or a friend. I set up the light with a Broncolor pulso F head and the front diffuser off, put the camera on a tripod directly in the center of the Para, and shot myself with the self timer. I had another head behind me hitting the white wall behind me to brighten up the background.

It works. The quality of the light is very unique. It has that very unusual quality of being a very large light source, and being very high contrast at the same time. I really look forward to using it with a proper model in the near future.

Rimelite Grand softbox test 2

Gretsch 5120

Guitars are murder to shoot. As with all shiny objects, what you see in the image is not necessarily the object being photographed but the reflection from the surface of the object. Keeping this in mind, lighting can make or break a shot like this. On one hand, you want to have the metal parts of the guitar as nearly white, but you dont want to show a reflector on the mirror like finish of the guitar body. This image was lit with a single strip light to the left of the guitar, angled hard towards the camera to keep it from spilling on the background. To the right is a large gold reflector that excites the highlights on the guitar pickups and hardware. The background is a tungsten light with a bowl against a flat grey wall. The guitar was hung by a large light-stand, which was photoshopped out in post. The final image has minimal retouching and was a self test to see how fast this shot could be executed from concept to finished image. The whole process took about an hour and a half.

The beef from Nicaragua is truly sublime; grass fed and naturally lower in fat, it represents one of the great cuts of meat in the world.  Easily on par with Japan and Argentina, the simple methods used by the Nicaraguan ranchers are attracting the attention of international connoisseurs, chefs, and the meat eating public. Because the cattle eat natural grasses while roaming freely, are grown without the use of hormones, and because they are not feed-lotted to bulk up before slaughter, the meat retains a stronger and more natural flavor without the fatty marbling commonly found in premium beef. In essence, it is a throwback to a more simple time before the grind of industry and science found its way onto our dinner table.

Patricia Tomlinson, the chef and owner of Dragonfly Restaurant in Tamarindo Costa Rica, knows her beef. This filet cut, coupled with the classic Argentinian chimichurri makes for a summertime classic here in the land of the endless summer. Chimichurri is a rather simple sauce of olive oil, lemon juice, garlic, parsley, and fresh herbs is a staple of the Argentinian table and one of the most famous cultural exports from the country that brought us tango. The slight, biting, lemony edge, coupled with the richness of a fine olive oil and basil harmonizes beautifully with the slightly pungent Nicaraguan beef creating an instant classic of Latin American culinaire. A simple and fresh accompaniment of herb roasted potatoes and sauteed red pepper, carrot, and zucchini finish the dish.

For the food photography I wanted to create an image that matched the richness and colors of the dish. I generally strive for a Zen-like simplicity and avoid external props, but for this image I wanted a different feel than normal, an earthy, busy photograph where every element graphically draws the eye to the center of the frame.  This image took about 90 minutes of setup on location at Dragonfly, with endless tweaking of lights and reflectors, props, plate, and food; but the finished image is a successful. Tish was very patient and accomidating as I dominated a large portion of her restaurant with lights, tripods, and cables.

Here is the lighting diagram for the shoot. A high shutter speed canceled any ambient light left over from outside.

Wedding photography can be a grind, a working study of risk assessment in practice.  The mind of the photographer on a hectic wedding day is constantly weighing the probability of disaster in achieving a more creative image. “If I put that bride in the gnarly dead tree on the beach for that dramatic shot, what is the statistical likelihood of her falling out or tearing that Vera Wang dress to shreds or breaking an ankle”? “Will I lose 10 safer, sure shot images in the limited time that I have to put her in the tree and get her lit”. “Will she even want my peyote induced vision of matrimony in dramatic black and white, or will she prefer the safer shots with her comely aunt on the sand with that tried and true sunset”? As photographers, we walk a fine line between creative vision and commercial viability; the trick is to sell out just a little bit while maintaing your style.

All bets go out the window on a shoot where you trash the dress. More Gothic fashion photography than anything, the trash the dress trend allows a good photographer to stretch the legs a bit – to take that risk of failure and destruction – to allow a half hour to be allocated for that one specific shot – to damn to hell walking the line with those safe as milk images that we all regurgitate endlessly that come to define us stylistically. We can create an unbridled vision simply because any woman willing to disregard a fine silk and lace keepsake from her most cherished day by rolling in sand and wet leaves is exactly the woman that wants something different, something that defines her. She doesn’t care if her daughter wears her dress in 20 years because she is cool enough to understand that the daughter would prefer to see photos of Mom looking hot and stylish, like a Helmut Newton model, then to wear her dress.

I generally have a easy touch with lighting and Photoshop, like a chef that has a delicate fish and doesn’t want to overpower the subtle overtones with something strong. For this shoot, I had a very heavy handed approach to lighting, the opposite of my normal technique. I wanted a visual sledgehammer, big studio lights outside doing big studio light things. I wanted to overpower the sun, to send enough watt-seconds of flash power towards my subjects to ignite nearby insects. Natural be damned. For me, a successful trash the dress shoot is a balance of glamour and profanity, a high middle finger to convention. I think that this shoot succeeds in letting the personalities of the models and the photographer penetrate the viewer.

Lindsay was perfect for this shoot. Not many people are willing to endure 2 second exposures in a shifting tidal pool, unblinking, while some lunatic with a camera hammers out his artistic vision at the expense of her comfort, safety, and sanity. Thanks Lindsay, you were great.

So come to Costa Rica on your honeymoon, and bring your dress. You can pay me to destroy it for the sake of art. I will smash your cell phone on a rock and key your car for free.

]]> http://seandavisphotographic.com/blog/trash-the-dress/feed/ 2 http://seandavisphotographic.com/blog/cigar-rolling-montage/ http://seandavisphotographic.com/blog/cigar-rolling-montage/#comments Sat, 04 Dec 2010 22:34:48 +0000 admin http://seandavisphotographic.com/blog/?p=793 This is a quick demo montage that I shot for myself as a test for a lighting technique. This was shot at night using only artificial light. I wanted a really gritty feel to go with the texture of the hands and the tobacco so I raked a single softbox from behind the subject for maximum detail. This was shot with a 60mm micro nikkor lens, and processed in photoshop with a film emulator that is pretty damn accurate and organic looking. A little sepia tone adds to the mix for a successful image. The trick with this set of images is that I knew what the finished result would look like before I set the light or picked up the camera, there was really no improvisation in post production. I knew what I was going for in terms of tone and lighting, and I knew that it would be a high structure black and white triptych that would be sepia toned and tell a story of cigar production in a timeless way. Idea-plan-shoot-process, that is commercial photography. ]]> http://seandavisphotographic.com/blog/cigar-rolling-montage/feed/ 1 http://seandavisphotographic.com/blog/belize-aerial-photography-with-cavu/ http://seandavisphotographic.com/blog/belize-aerial-photography-with-cavu/#comments Fri, 17 Sep 2010 05:27:00 +0000 admin http://seandavisphotographic.com/blog/?p=763

Click on Image for High Resolution

At some point in their lives  most people dream of owning an island in the Carribean, and Belize seems the perfect location with her turquoise water and endless barrier reef. The above photograph shows the dream incarnate. You can almost imagine slipping into the  bathwater warm lagoon, sans clothing, and feel alone in the beauty of the world in your own tiny island while you sip a tropical drink far from the bustle of the main-land world. The trouble is, once you have your little island you might want to make a couple of changes. First, you just need to cut down all of those mangrove trees. You can’t really have a house in the prime spot of your island with these damn scrubby trees everywhere. Then you need to make the island a bit larger!  There are not many real estate opportunities where you can actually increase the size of your lot, but with an island and a dredger you can do a little digging and scrape away some reef to make room for your boat while using the material to make a powdery soft white beach for those days in the sun sipping mojitos. Your investment just grew a little, no harm, no foul, right?. The trouble is, this plan of yours is an ecological disaster. The Belize barrier reef is not designed to sustain your little dream. The mangrove that you cut and the reef that you scraped away is where the fish breed, and is the most important part of one of the most unique ecosystems in the world. The reef in Belize is the second largest barrier reef on earth after Australia, and it drives the culture and economy of this tiny nation. As with so many small countries that are developing, Belize lacks the financial ability to study and properly regulate improper and harmful development. If this continues the reef will die, and the economy and future of Belize will perish with it. Belize is the reef, period. Developers are literally killing the proverbial goose that lays those golden eggs. Click on the above photograph and see the dredging boat scraping away reef and pumping it with a hose to make a couple of more homesites and you can observe how that dream becomes a nightmarish exercise in selfish and pointless greed. Try to forget how pretty the photo is, and view it objectively.

This is where CAVU comes into the picture. CAVU is a non-profit environmental organization that creates compelling documentaries and aerial photographs that persuade government regulators to change policy, and educates the people about the value of their natural resources and how to protect them for future generations. It is a big job, a thankless and daunting task. Creating an aerial photograph is complicated. Obtaining all of the permits to pilot a modified Cessna across several countries with a camera bolted underneath, wired with GPS’s and laptops to fly to a known and plotted location over open ocean with pilot and photographer wearing life vests to shoot ACTUAL environmental destruction as it happens in perfect light is a hell of a task, and the above photo was literally months of planning and research. There was no reading material available on how to pull this off, and we literally wrote the book on this type of photography. We created the “First-ever Comprehensive, Geo-Referenced Aerial Photographs of Belize Reef”. We planted a flag on the moon, and we will effect change and protect this reef. The  team at CAVU is driven, talented and competent, and I am honored to be working with such like-minded people. Anyone that knows me well knows that I have a passion for flying, photography, and exposing bad development practices, so working on the Belize Reef Project is like a dream come true.

It almost looks microscopic

I want a square island

A 7 photo montage of the Monkey River

Another multiframe montage showing every kind of bad development practice possible. Note the dredging, cut mangroves, burning, dividing and general eco-horror. Impressive...You can clearly see where they plan to expand their investment by the sea walls on the top island.

The office. We spent about 30 hours here working. The view was phenomenal.

Pilot Alex Caveletti and I flew from Costa Rica to Belize direct in his Cessna 172, barely missing controlled airspace over Honduras, putting a wingtip into Mexico, and logging many hours of precision flying and photography, shooting over 3000 images that catalogue the threatened areas of Belize. The landing strip in Belize municipal was surrounded by water on 3 sides, tiny, and had a vicious crosswind that made am aircraft carrier landing seem simple by comparison. It was a blast.

Abstract Natural Art. The Barrier Reef, Belize.

Some things are best left unmolested- paintings by Hieronymus Bosch, a perfect ripe fig, Ennio Morricone scores, and mojitos. These days everything is remixed, mashed with something else, fused culturally , dumbed down and f-ed up to accommodate our ever diminishing attention spans and need to consume newness for the sake of new. Movies are remade, and lounge versions of ’90 death metal circulate at restaurants like elevator music for hip adults . Just try to find a Mojito recipe that isn’t spoiled with white chocolate, peach, cloudberries, or basil to accommodate the creators sense of  creative self worth. It is simple, sometimes things that are good and perfect must be left alone. I don’t want an E-Type Jaguar with those huge and stupid chrome rims, and I don’t want Valrhona chocolate in my summer drink .

THE BEST MOJITO HAS SIX INGREDIENTS.

Here they are:

Cuban Rum, preferably Havana Club dark.

Fresh, washed mint.

White Sugar.

Soda Water. Not San Pellegrino or Perrier, but Soda Water.

Ice, in cubes.

Limes   (thanks Jules)

Add a Tablespoon of sugar to the glass with many sprigs of fresh mint. Use more mint than you think that you need. Smash the hell out of the mint and the sugar with a mortar, or as I like to use a stalk of sugar cane until it is seriously bruised.

Add rum and mix with mint. Use a lot of rum, why screw around with the active ingredient?

Add the ice in cubes. (crushed ice dilutes everything too quickly and is for tourists and dilettantes)

Add soda water to fill, and mix well by pouring in another cup and back again.

It is best to drink Mojitos in Havana while chain-smoking Russian cigarettes, but anywhere hot and humid will do. Do not drink Mojitos in Michigan during the winter, that is like drinking Sake at Thanksgiving – It is pointless, lacks context, and shows the world that you are a Philistine and a poor host.

For the photograph I used a backlit shooting table and a silver reflector to the left, Broncolor strobes, a D3 Nikon and a 100mm Zeiss Makro Planar ZF.2 lens. The photo has real ice cubes, not fake acrylic, and the mojitos were enjoyed after the photoshoot.

farc-ing in Costa Rica

When the Discovery Channel decided to create a documentary about Tom Hargrove’s epic flight from the hands of the FARC militia in Colombia, they made the smart call and filmed the episode in peaceful Costa Rica. The FARC is a bit of a painful and recent memory for the people of Colombia, and parading a film crew and actors dressed as FARC paramilitary in the jungle would be something like dressing up like Klan members for a shoot in Alabama, simply imprudent and possibly hazardous. The production company Cineflix recreated this epic saga of kidnapping and escape, and brought all of the appropriate props, from the AK-47′s to the militant armbands and  enlisted the director Roger Pike for his brilliant eye with the camera and sense of tension. They also hired me to shoot production stills during the filming.

Roger Pike, Director

Tom’s story is pretty well known. The film “Proof of Life” was loosely based on his saga, and Cineflix was to do it justice with an accurate description of what went down during a year in captivity and his eventual escape.

“In September 1994, I was kidnapped on my way to work when I drove into a roadblock manned by FARC–the Armed Revolutionary Forces of Colombia, or the “narco-guerrillas.” FARC initially demanded a $6 million ransom, and kept me in isolated camps high in the northern Andes Mountains.I spent days locked in a dark cell where I could stand, barely, but couldn`t move around. I spent 2.5 months in chains, and endless days, then months, hoarding scraps of food, building campfires to keep warm, and trying to stay sane. I always harbored an empty hope: that another hostage would be brought in, so I`d have a friend (I learned, after my release, that three other hostages were being held in other parts two of the camps). During 334 days of captivity, I never saw a road, a wheel, a window with glass. I never spoke English, and knew nothing of world events outside the FARC camps.”

-Tom Hargrove

Working as a stills photographer on a set is equal parts boring and amazing.  The crew brought into the Costa Rican jungle a silent generator, enough lighting to ignite a house, a full kitchen, trucks of cameras and gear, a reflector that must have been 5×5 meters, and all of the actors and support crew. The director taught me the best trick for shooting in the jungle- use a polarizer. It cuts the glare off the leaves and makes everything look more lush.

You really have no idea when you watch something on television, how much manpower goes into an hour long program. Watching a kidnapping, even a staged one is eerie, and the actor (the one with the gun on the top of the page) was a brilliant and chill Tico guy that morphed into a raging psychopath as soon as the scene began.

Having hiked in the Colombian jungle for a week a couple of years ago ( another story ) I can understand completely the impossibility of survival there. It is a harsh and formidable place where creation seems unfinished and barbaric. For Tom to manage a year of the deep Colombian jungle in hostile captivity is a testament to human survival through pure will.

The shoot was a blast and I gained a lot of respect for the men and women of the film industry, they really work hard and theirs is a labor of love.

The above video shows a shutter cycle at 1/4000th of a second. As you can see, the shutter never fully opens, just a slit of the front and rear curtains scans the sensor during exposure. Now if you can imagine a flash burst that was faster than this shutter cycle, you can see why you would only see a thin slit in your image. What we are doing with the Broncolor is using a flash duration that is longer than the shutter cycle so that the flash is on during the whole 1/8000 of a second sweep of the shutter.

Color balance is of key concern when taking only a portion of a flash curve. The first part of the curve is quite blue in color temperature, with the temperature gradually getting warmer as the flash burst fades. I used a gray card and took a custom white balance with the settings as follows.

Nikon D3 ISO 1000 F22 @ 1/8000 second.

Sb-800 speedlight on manual 1/16 connected to camera with a duct-taped peanut slave on the front. Pocketwizard sender connected to peanut slave.

Broncolor Mobil at full power 1200 joules, pocketwizard receiver.

Pulso head with gridded beauty dish and bounce reflector.

The above water drops from the top of the page are shot at exactly these settings.

The holy grail of beverage photography is the ability to sync a flash at a high enough speed to stop the liquid, and beverage photographers have been using exotic and expensive lighting to achieve these results. Beverage photographers have traditionally used very high power strobes, dialed to the minimum power settings to create the shortest flash durations. With the advent of the fast flash duration, Profoto and the Broncolor studio packs boast the ability to achive durations as fast as 1/8000 (Broncolor Scoro) of a second, but let’s face it, a Scoro pack is ten grand! Using affordable power packs like a Mobil (any older design budget flash unit with a slow duration should work) the ability to freeze liquid in mid air can be applied by the average photographer with more modest equipment.

The real difficulty in shooting a “pour” is not the flash sync. I found that once the technical part of my flash duration was under control the real problem was getting the liquid to behave in a way that is visually pleasing. Liquids tend to froth and foam, and to counteract that I added a bit of salt to the water above.

For this test of a wine pour, I used a frosted shooting table and a bowl pressed against the back side of the plex to create a pleasing gradient. The procedure of testing this pour trashed my kitchen- wine EVERYWHERE, paper towels on the floor, wine spatter on my lens and camera, clothing- a disaster. The result is still beyond sloppy, and nowhere near what I want, but this is testing right? The key, as in all food photography, is styling. Everything must be perfectly clean and spotless. This is time consuming when you shoot a pour,  the glass and shooting table must be cleaned, the set must be be refreshed, camera refocused, and another pour is attempted. This process repeats many, many times and you wind up with a kitchen soaked with lightly salted red wine. I believe the key is to mount a hose in a place to give a consistent angle of pour and create a system that can be tweeked a little at a time to create the desired result more accurately.

I am in no way finished with my high speed sync testing with beverage pours, there is a long way to go. The beauty of the technique is the ability to see the world in frozen time. Liquids look like they are carved from glass at 1/8000 of a second, it is surreal. I will update this post with finished images of the next test as soon as possible. Let me know if you have any questions, and I will do my best to answer them.

-Sean Davis