Washington Test Shoot

One more post today. I had a lot to catch up on.

While out in Washington I wanted to work on more of my running, lifestyle and backpacking/hiking portfolio in an environment that I don't really see in Colorado (or Indiana for that matter).

Alicia met me near Deception pass, one of my favorite spots in the area. We climbed up Goose Rock Trail on the Whidbey side of the pass, and found some great locations to shoot. I love the dense forests of Western Washington as well as the foggy weather.

The forests were quite dark, and the sun was not helping much, so I used my to supplement. Not having an assistant made working with the strobes difficult, but we made due.

Many More Photos Inside --->

Mt Erie, Washington

When I was in 8th grade I came out to stay with my uncle on Whidbey island in Washington State. While I was visiting I connected with a childhood friend from Indiana that had moved out to the island a couple of years before. He wanted to climb the south face of Mt. Erie. At that point I really didn't have much climbing experience other than trees. But I had a blast. 

I decided I wanted to climb it again while out for the Penn Cove Water Festival. 

The photo below shows my approximate route up the south face of the 1,200 ft mountain. The route I took was at most 5.6, but it was raining on me the whole time. Fun.

Photo taken from wikipedia.

At the top I met a Russian couple that offered to give me a ride back to my car. I've been on Mt. Erie multiple times, but never really stopped to look at the beautiful rain forest on the slopes of the mountain. I had a bit of time before a test shoot with a model on the island, so I drove back up and stopped to appreciate it.  

I love fog. And mossy rain forests. 

Penn Cove Water Festival

Last weekend I shot the Tribal Canoe Races for the Penn Cove Water Festival on Whidbey Island in Washington. I always love getting to visit my family on Whidbey Island, it's such a beautiful place. More from Washington next.

Cinco de Mustache

A little catching up. This last month has been a bit different. I've been working some moving jobs: moving students out of CU and moving families into large houses. Last week I traveled to Whidbey Island in the Puget Sound in Washington State to photograph a Native American canoe race. While there I was able to connect with a model on Whidbey and did a test shoot.

But before all this was Cinco De Mustache, an annual tradition among my friends  here in Boulder.

Watches - impromptu product photography

Sometimes I get it in my head that I need to take a photo of something, but even if I only NEED a simple photo of it I tend to go all out. 

I have had this Wenger watch and had yet to take a photo of it. I also bought a new watch from Flud recently and wanted to showcase it. 

I don't do a lot of product photography, but I like to keep myself practiced in a lot of different genres. This was a perfect opportunity to do a lot with a little. I set up a quick studio on my bed using black posterboard, my neoprene laptop case, and the black pillow the Wenger watch came with. 

For my light I went as simple as possible: one light source. I used my new (and loved) LumiQuest Softbox LTp on my Canon 580exII. It gives me the softbox look for my speedlite and enlarges the light source by over 40x. But one light source wasn't giving me quite the effect I wanted. So with my camera on a tripod and my flash connected to my camera by a cable (easiest set up) I made multiple exposures, moving the flash all around the watch.

The above image includes about 7 different exposures, all combined in Photoshop to create the look that I was after.

In this image of the Flud watch I got away with about 3 exposures.

And this one I used 6.

It's been a while since I've done product photography, but I'm glad it's something I can do relatively easily with not a lot of gadgets. Again, I did all of these shots with one flash.

I highly recommend this addition your lighting equipment. It gives you much higher quality of light for only about $50. And it folds down flat and fits into the laptop portion of your camera bag (I can carry this and my 5in1 reflector kit inside the laptop compartment).

Running in Doudy Draw

When I moved to Boulder I knew very few people in the area, but I knew my friends, Lee and Emily from my trip to Patagonia, lived in nearby Golden. I've only been able to meet up with the a couple of times, but I'd mentioned to Lee about doing a trail running shoot soon. We finally found a date that worked. 

A few miles outside of Boulder a system of trails run between highway 93 and the first range of mountains. They are great for running and mountain biking, and to just get out of the city for a few. 

One of these areas is called Doudy Draw, and Lee picked it for our location. With Lee, Emily, and my assistant Scott we head up into the draw. I decided to pull out all of my tricks for this shoot. I brought out my studio strobes (Scott is a beast and carried them to all the locations) just in case I might use them. Glad I did. 

I had been envisioning this shot for a while, a small runner running down the apex of a hill with a small tree against the horizon. 

The sun kept playing peekaboo with us, but we were able to get the shots I was looking for.

And with the pop of the shutter, before I'd even looked at the screen I knew this shot was exactly what I wanted from the shoot. The studio strobe lit his face, the sun peaking from behind his back, Lee in full stride. And I figured out how to trick my studio strobe into firing faster than the 1/200th sync speed using my Pixel King ETTL wireless radio slaves. Again, I hope to do a full review on those soon.

 The sun went behind some clouds but gave off some great diffused light, providing this photo with beautiful ambient lighting.

I love playing with flash and slash lighting whenever I can.

I'll have some more updates soon. Take care. 

Practice Shoot

Once again it has been a while. A lot has been happening this past month, which has been great. I had been talking with a company about doing a shoot soon. The creative directors really wanted me for the shoot, but since I had not worked for the company before and did not have many big name clients the marketing director was not yet sold. They gave me the brief for the shoot and asked me to do a practice round. I asked my friend, Leigh, to find a friend and a dog, and we did a quick shoot around downtown Boulder. The company wanted lifestyle images, so I wanted to work without any lighting. My friend and assistant Scott (we work well as a team, as well, we are easier to call. "Hey Scotts!") helped me out with the shoot operating the reflector.

Clouds came and covered the usually sunny Boulder, but gave us a really nice diffused and directional light. I really prefer to shoot into the light, especially for lifestyle shots. It took my models a bit to get comfortable, but they did a great job.

The photos were good enough to prove to the marketing director that I would be able to do the shoot. 

I did the shoot last weekend and it went fantastic. I will post photos when they allow me to.