The Need For Ballast

The assignment was to submit a pre-event photograph to publicize a gardening workshop presented by the UC Master Gardeners of San Mateo and San Francisco Counties. The free event would emphasize "crops" that could be easily grown in a home garden. Strawberry seedlings were being prepared for sale during the upcoming workshop and sale which the Journal wanted to publicize.

The shot itself was pretty simple. I found a location where my seedlings and my subject would be lit from behind to prevent squinting. Next, I needed to include a tray full of seedlings to emphasize the quantity available for sale. The tables used to arrange the seedlings were somewhat narrow, so I had the gardeners position a bench alongside the table and fill it with more seedlings. Unfortunately, the bench was a few inches lower than the original table, so there is a visible gap which is visible if you know to look for it. 

Lighting: When working outdoors, I usually employ a shoot-through umbrella instead of a softbox. I find that the umbrella, when used with a 200 watt-second Godox AD200 gave me both the power and the portability to make the shot. It is a very portable setup, as the collapsed umbrella and the necessary umbrella hold take up very little space in my supplementary lighting bag. 

Timber! Unfortunately, there is one major drawback that pops up when shooting outdoors. It seems that the open umbrella is an effective sail, and on this day, a gust of wind sent my umbrella and flash crashing to the ground shortly after the initial portrait was made. This is not the first time this has happened, and consistent with past episodes, there were two outcomes. First, the umbrella acted as a parachute and softened the landing, sparing the flash a fate worse than death. Second, the umbrella's fragile framework would be damaged and subsequently unusable. Unfortunately for me, said victim was a Manfrotto tri-fold collapsible that when collapsed, was more compact than my favorite Zumbrella. Sad to say, I knew better, and had, In fact, a simple solution which I wrote about in this older post. This oversight cost me a rather cool umbrella, one which has been discontinued by the manufacturer.

Next came the group shot, which was achieved with a sly bit redirection on my part. One of the participants, perhaps one of the members felt s/he should be included in the photo. In a rare bit of diplomacy on my part, I said I would photograph my original subject and then make a shot of the entire group, which I would have done anyway. S/he was thus placated, so I set about getting the shot ready. Since the umbrella had already been damaged, the group shot was made with direct, unmodified flash. The flash was moved farther from the group, so I would have removed the umbrella anyway, since it reduces the light output considerably.

When photographing outdoors, it is important to remind one's subjects that the visors on the ballcaps might cast unwelcomed shadows. I always tell them that if they can  see the flash on the top of the light stand, their eyes will  be in shadow. Other than that, shots like this can be a piece of cake, or more fittingly, a bowl of strawberries.

Mirang Wonne

First The Good News: This photo of Bay Area artist Mirang Wonne was made at the opening of a showing of her work at a Burlingame studio. The photo required a fair bit of lighting on my part, but I am extremely pleased with the final product. 

Key Light: The photo employed a 33" softbox as the key light. The flash was a Godox AD200 unit with the bare bulb fixture installed, which is my go-to light whenever time and space are available to accommodate its bulk and length setup time. The soft box was held aloft by a 8' light stand, and approximately 6' from the painting. I managed to reduce the glare spot  in the upper left hand corner with some gentle burning followed by some "sponging" to increase the saturation slightly.

Fill Light: You probably would have missed the presence of a fill light in this photo. I mounted a speedlight using a Justin Clamp on the key light stand, and pointed it straight down towards the floor. This bounced some honey-colored light up into the subject, which would have gone unnoticed unless you looked for the second catchlights in my subject's eyes.

Rim Light: I mounted a third flash on a light stand and pointed it at the out-of-frame white wall at the right of the frame. This provided a very subtle edge light that helped to separate my subject's jacket from the dark background. I could have boosted the output further, but I didn't want to make this additional separation light too obvious. I am sure that nobody would have noticed it had I not brought it up.

Now The Bad News: I sometimes get excited when I see that a photo is beginning to take shape. Unfortunately for me, there is one thing that I sometimes overlook - Overexposure. You can see the highlights on my subject's right cheek and forehead. These areas, when analyzed in Elements, show that the value for the red component of the highlight is off the chart, and therefore unrecoverable using the Levels Adjustment tool. 

Gamma Blowout: One important feature that I miss from my Nikon DSLR days is the View Mode that allows one to see where the highlights lose one of the three color channels (red, green, blue). On the LCD, these blown highlights appear as blinking red regions in the photo. This is a quick indication that the exposure needs to be reduced a bit, which is easier to do than attempting to recover some color from those overexposed regions.

Team Photo: Whenever I make the effort of setting up a flash shot, I always offer to make a "team photo", especially when the facility has given some extra effort to the cause. People appreciate this gesture more than you might think, and keeps me in the "good guy" column in their contacts lists. Let me offer a few suggestions about posing. First, you can see that I try to get everybody positioned so that nobody is facing the camera directly. Notice that the women in the back row overlap slightly, which I describe as "shingling". Also, try to keep all of the people wearing glasses on the same side, and position them on the same side as the light; You can see by the shadows that the light is coming from camera left, and that my one bespectacled subject is completely reflection free. Lastly, when you have kneeling subjects, be sure that the leg closest to the camera is "up". This "hides the fly", a subtle gesture that neatly removes a potential distraction.