And The Winners Are...

Cloverdale: Nothing remarkable this weekend. There was a competitive event in Cloverdale, and I was asked to make some quick photos of the winners for the club's blog page. I found this an easy thing to do if you do some basic planning before the winners start lining up.

I have one basic rule about lighting, and that is the position of the light is more important than quality. These photos were made with a single speedlight mounted on a light stand and triggered by a small radio controller. The height of the flash was about seven feet off of the ground, and the head was angled slightly downward. I verified this by placing a small toolbox where I wanted my subjects to stand, positioning myself beside it, and then staring directly at the speedlight. If I wasn't perfectly aligned with the flash head, I would adjust the head angle until it was. The flash-to-subject distance was a bit under ten feet.

This alignment technique ensures a constant subject-to-flash distance, and that the flash output will be centered on the face while fading slightly on the scorecard and the hands. The normal inclination is to aim the flash at the middle of the subject, which could have resulted in overexposure of the scorecard and underexposure of the face. A subtle difference to be sure, but one that would be noticed by a careful observer.

Expose For The Background: To prevent squinting and uneven exposure, I positioned my subjects so that they faced away from the sun. Exposure was set to 1/125 second, F 9.0, ISO 200. I started at 1/250 of a second, but dropped it a full stop when the background was too dark. The sky was a bit overexposed, but the hint of clouds was good enough. I could then adjust the flash output to get the proper exposure on the face.

Tipping Your Hat: I should have noticed that the shadow cast by the wide brim of this hat was a bit intrusive, but since both of the eyes were lit, I let it go.

Speaking Of Backgrounds...:I was using an APS sensor FujiT2 with a zoom lens set to 55mm. This provided a slight telephoto effect, giving me a nicely out-of-focus background. Granted, the cars in the background were a bit large (foreshortening effect), but sufficiently out of focus as to not draw attention away from the subject's face.

Where's The Sky? It had not occurred to me at the time, when photographing the Juniors, I was able to completely eliminate the sky while retaining the rim lighting provided by the sun. I just realized that because my subjects were now shorter, my camera was aimed slightly downward, thus removing the sky from the frame. I could have achieved the same effect by rotating the LCD viewfinder downward and raising my camera over my head in the classic "Hail Mary" position.

In the end, this fifteen-minute exercise taught me something important about the subject height and how it affects the background. I guess I learned a lot more than I realized.

Bee Good!

Say Hello To My Little Friend: The drone bee was an escapee from the hive "starter kits" that were being prepared for pickup at the Peninsula Feed Store in Redwood City. These kits were made available by the Beekeepers Guild of San Mateo Bee County, a group that helps bee keepers construct and care for hives of their own. These hives provide the environment with a natural pollination service, and their owner's friends and families with delicious honey. 

Members of the Beekeepers Guild were on hand to help with the distribution. The "kits" (the wood framed mesh enclosure containing one queen and a swarm of drones) were being unloaded in the back lot of the store. Each kit's exterior was then vacuumed to catch any drone bees that might have escaped. This fugitive drone was handed to me for inspection, along with assurances that drones had no stingers. I gently nudged him from my palm to the back of my hand, and he stayed there for several minutes while I photographed the tasks in progress.

Here you can see the kits being unloaded from the truck and stacked in a sheltered area in the back of the store. They are delivered in clusters of five kits, and must be separated into individual units with a power saw.

The kits are vacuumed to remove any drones who managed to escape the enclosures. While stingerless, drone bees would surely be a distraction if they started buzzing about once they were heading for home in an enclosed car. Most came prepared with mesh bags to keep the bees contained if they managed a bee breakout on the drive to their new home.

The distribution was scheduled for 11:00 am and would end in one hour. The new beekeepers came with paperwork in hand, ready to be verified by a Guild member and to receive their kits. As soon as all was deemed in order, they were free to take their bees.

Trying Something New: In an attempt to make the bees more recognizable, I operated my camera with my left hand and holding my flash in my right hand, aiming it directly at the bees in the lower right corner of the frame. You can see that the effect on the bees is minimal, but I managed to overexpose the tops of the frames. If called upon to make a similar shot in the future I will  grid or snoot the flash to get more light on the bees and less on the lids. I did not submit this image because I felt the skeptical man in the background might be a bit distracting.

This image was rejected because the beekeeper in the background was too small to help promote the bee pickup aspect of the event. It does highlight the preparation, but I wanted both aspects to be presented.

These caged queen bees were kept safe and warm in a belt pouch under the jacket of one of the Guild members. Up until now, I didn't think of my Fuji 10-24mm F 4.0 lens as capable of focusing this close, but this kind of foreground/background shot has lots of potential for establishing relevance in future photos.

The Guild Unmasked: I am grateful to the Beekeepers Guild of San Mateo County for working with me on this assignment. They were a lot of fun to work with. And if one of you reads this post, please turn a blind eye to any slight inaccuracies I may have unintentionally presented. 

The photo ran on Monday, April 15. See it here.