Beauty and the Soft

I started using studio lights bare, but quickly moved in to collapsable softboxes made my my light manufacturer, Alien Bees and White Lightning. But shortly after, I grabbed a beauty dish, and then a second. I religiously used the beauty dishes whenever possible, trying to understand how they affected my light. Softboxes are easy to understand. Giant light sources with lots of output, and a great, soft light that falls off beautifully when applied correctly.

But beauty dishes completely threw me. I couldn't understand how to make them work for me, despite understanding the basic tenant of lower output, supposedly more wrapping light. I tried them in every situation, even when it may not have been the best choice of a modifier solely for the fact I wanted them to work. I needed them to work.

Keep reading after the jump.

But not matter what I did, I was unable to wring out anything exceptional with the beauty dishes. They did work great at the AMP workshop when I used them all day long without even having to think about it. But when it came to indoor studio work, I was stymied. I went back to my giant softbox and realized, despite its aggravation (this thing is nearly as tall as I am, and I'm not exactly short), the softbox was exactly what I needed, indoors and out.

I got the softboxes after using umbrellas for a while, first with hot tungsten lights, and then with my first set of Alien Bees. Umbrellas are great modifiers, and I'm learning to appreciate them again, but its a little hard for me to shake the feeling of being a mall photographer with the two umbrellas in backwards lights. Seeing Annie Leibovitz and Jill Greenberg using them made me feel much better, so two or three giant silver umbrellas are on my list now.

The reason I left umbrellas in the first place was the light spill in studio, which softboxes have very little of. I learned how to control the softboxes easily, they're very directional and give great even lighting. However, outside on location photography, umbrellas will light a huge area without any distracting dramatic falloff, if one should choose to avoid that. Softboxes are great for outdoor closeup portraits, but for environmental pictures, lots of harsh shadows can be caused by having light thats too directional.

But those #(@* beauty dishes drove me crazy. Hot spots, never able to get the correct exposure no matter what I adjusted. I almost threw them away, which would have been very bad. At the least I would have turned them into giant salsa and chip bowls.

I haven't yet accepted beauty dishes into my life again. I'm not ready for that commitment until I have a studio with an infinity wall and a mannequin to practice on. No model has the inhuman patience I expect this to take.

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Workshop

The first AMP Workshop was, as is the norm for this group, another amazing meetup. It looks like everyone enjoyed the variety of classes we offered with the hands on learning that some of those other workshops are lacking. Despite being a little sunburned by the end of the day, I had a great time teaching about lighting on location. Once again, the models were great, and everyone walked away with some portfolio-worthy stuff.

The next step for both AMP and the Strobist Ann Arbor is another general meetup in mid June, so keep checking back for when a date and signup is announced. More details after the jump, along with some general info.

Because of our highly involved and generous members, we've been able to offer some incredible opportunities for photographers of all skill levels to come and shoot with us. We've brought in dozens of models, classic cars and props to an awesome location donated by Jeff. I keep telling these guys that all I'm good for here is booking the models and printing a sign in sheet. So far, these meetups just can't go wrong. I'm very pleased, and a little proud of myself for bringing together such an awesome group of people.

I'm especially pleased and proud of the AMP workshop since I had the opportunity to build it nearly from the ground up. Splitting them apart this early also gave me the chance to define how it was run and who helped me do it, instead of getting stuck in a strictly Strobist format. Of course, the element that will never change is how we share this experience so we can all practice the hobby (or profession) that we're all a little too obsessed with.

We're already in the early planning stages of a huge meetup for mid June, and we're really pulling out the stops for this one. If you've seen Chase Jarvis' Seattle Strobist Meetup, thats sort of what we're going for. We really want to put Michigan on the map for photography, and if this next one doesn't do it, nothing will.

There are now three pages for you to check up on. Aside from this blog, there's the new AMP Flickr Page here and if you haven't joined the original Strobist Ann Arbor Page, its over here. If you don't have flickr, be sure to sign up as those two pages will get updated more frequently with info on the next event.

Until then, keep shooting.


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Strobist Macro Pt. 1-Products

Macro photography opens entirely new worlds for us to view. And luckily, the best thing about macro is that any subject, when enlarged several hundred times, becomes infinitely more interesting to view. With an entry level macro lens costing only a few hundred dollars, more and more people venture into it.

However, one of the harder aspects of learning macro is how to light it. High apertures are typically used to get good sharpness and depth of field to show tiny details, and to combat the razor-thin DOF. Luckily, if you're into Strobist type photography, all you need is the most basic setup to get started. Keep reading after the jump.

While it helps to have a ringflash or real macro light for doing serious macro work, your off camera flash will do just fine as well. In this setup, a single 430ex flash attached to a (now broken and in service) magic arm for easy positioning. When shooting macro, your light source can be as close as just 4 or 5 inches away from the subject. A modifier is generally a good idea, but if your subject is small enough, its not entirely necessary.

The next thing that I've found to be necessary is bounce cards, whether a sheet of foam core or an empty white cardboard box, a reflective surface opposite your light effectively doubles your coverage. Positioning this carefully will also take care of catchlights in reflective surfaces. This is a basic setup-one flash, one bounce, camera centered in between. But as uncomplicated as it is, it produces very and controllable results that anyone can do in minimal space.

This picture of my watch shows how you can simply light even highly reflective objects easily. You can see the direction of the light coming from the top right. The metal bezel is hardly lit, but the face is evenly lit, with a bit of shadow at the top creating a very dramatic product shot. Moving in more bounce cards would have more evenly lit the entire watch, or even better, a second light directly opposite the main light would have created symmetry from side to side. Such a small setup is easy to manipulate one light at a time.


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AMP Lighting Workshop-Beginners

After the Strobist Ann Arbor Meetup, Jeff asked me run a lighting workshop so we could do smaller groups, more in-depth discussion, and really work on some techniques that are common in the Strobist world. We're still in the early planning stages, but with me being short on time due to a possible internship and graduation coming up, we have to move right along to squeeze in as much as we possibly can. Keep reading after the jump.

Right off the bat, we picked out some subjects to cover at the first AMP lighting workshop. Tabletop and product photography, on location lighting, small flash lighting, studio portraits, wedding photography, and big objects. We're also bringing in some of the advanced members that attended the meetups to teach their area of expertise.

An overall smaller group size broken into several classes that rotate will let us really answer everyone's questions and give everyone plenty of time to practice the techniques. It will also be shorter than the regular Strobist meetup, but we'll cover more material.

The best available date is looking like April 4th, a little short notice, but we'll make it work. Keep checking back for updates here and on the Ann Arbor page.

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Meetup Success!

Strobist Ann Arbor Meetup Redux went off with hardly a hitch at all, and the turnout was amazing. Over 40 people attended, and the pool is starting to flood with some awesome samples of the work that went on there. Keep reading after the jump

First of all, I want to thank everyone for coming, because obviously without all of you, it's just me in a warehouse. And of course a huge thanks to Jeff who donated the warehouse for us to use right when we were on the verge of scrapping the whole project. Without him, this never would have happened.

I've been poking through everyones flickr streams, and compared to the first meetup pictures, I'm very impressed. I saw huge improvements in a lot of people, whether they got new equipment or had been practicing, the results are great.

Everything went nearly as we had planned, though it fell apart a little towards the end as people had to leave. It was definitely a long meetup, and with as much cool stuff as there was to shoot, I'm just glad I had enough energy to drive home after. The guys in the back won the 'Last Strobist Standing' award, still shooting when I had to pack up and leave.

Keep checking back here, the main site, and the Ann Arbor page for details on the next workshop and meetups. As most of you have probably heard, I'll be moving to Massachusetts for a year at the end of the summer, but rest assured, I'll make sure everyone is well taken care of, and we'll see if we can't schedule a meetup to coincide with a weekend that I'll be home. A few of you have generously offered to help in the planning, and I'll be counting on you and others to make sure it goes great, whether I'm here or not.

I know it's not quite as cool as being posted on the main strobist page, but I'll be checking with people to use their pictures on the blog and for future promotional material. For now, you're stuck with just looking at my awesome models-Shira, Ryan, Darrin, Danielle and Dana.

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How to run a strobist meetup

Step 1: Get a bunch of photographers to sign up, promising gorgeous models, free food, and an awesome location
Step 2: Convince models ranging from beginners to pros to sign up. charge for food. lose location, find another.
Step 3: ????
Step 4: Profit! But not really, I'm running this thing at a loss just so I can hang out with some really talented people and develop a few ideas I had wanted to do.

I've learned a lot while organizing these two meetups. While our first one was pretty successful, it was a little slap-hazardish, in a 'that's good enough for college students' kind of way. Which really wasn't bad, considering it was put together by a couple college seniors with no experience in event planning. We might have missed a few details, but we had such a great turnout of people that gave us all sorts of help and advice, we dove straight into planning this one without a second thought. More after the jump.


It took a while because of location issues (they can't get our transcript audits right, why should they know who's scheduled to use the gym?) but we did have a member jump in and save us with an offering to use his warehouse (thanks again, Jeff), and it just exploded from there. I'm not sure what the actual date was that we opened up for RSVP's, but it sure went by fast.

This meetup exemplifies everything the Strobist movement is about-interaction. Not gear, but getting together a group of like-minded people and turning them loose. The effort put forth by almost everyone to bring together everything necessary to make a meetup of this size work has been incredible, to say the least. We might not have gotten front page on the Strobist blog yet, but I think we're pretty close to getting a nod from Mr. Hobby himself.

I'm looking forward to seeing everyone again (and meeting all the new people) at what is definitely the biggest free photographic event in Michigan.

until then, keep shooting

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Strobist Meetup

It was suggested by one of our Strobist Ann Arbor members that I should start blogging about our group, the meetups we arrange, and other info relating to Strobist and my photography in general. I think that this time, I might actually have the site traffic to warrant the effort of typing this stuff up. More after the jump.


Our second meetup is this weekend (March 14th) and to say I'm excited is an understatement. It took a bit more effort to get this one off the ground than our first one, but the results look much more promising. Bigger, better, and with more models than you could shake a stick at, it's going to be incredible.

Some highlights of this meetup include a kickass warehouse to work in, full of industrial equipment, a couple cars, and a bunch of toys to play with. I'll be bringing a bunch of props for everyone to use, and doing workshops on lighting people, action, and big objects.

If you didn't make the sign-up for this meetup, fear not. We'll be having more in the future, and if I ever get an airplane hangar, space won't be restricted at all.

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