Red Rock Federal Park hates Photoshoots…

Ask me how i know….

So today my friend Brenton and I set out for a photoshoot for two of his friends for a standard TFCD. It was more of a favor then anything, no biggy. Helping a friend is always aplus in my book, and if i get to shoot too, thats just gravy! Also I wanted to try out my Softlighter II outside anyway, so off we go.

The meeting time was set at 9am at the local Starbucks, seems easy enough right? Apparently not for this group… I ended up at a Starbucks a mile away, the girls ended up at different Starbucks, and Brenton made it to the correct Starbucks… It was bad, I was waiting at my location for atleast 15 min, before i decided to call and find out where the heck everyone was. Obviously after i spoke with Brent i felt like an idiot. But when do i not feel like an idiot atleast once a day.

So we meet, i figure i would go with a minimal lighting setup this time around. 1 b1600 and vagabond, and 2 580exs. 1 54″ softlighter and an umbrella. Yea you may say that still alot of light blah blah blah, but i was preparing the b1600 just in case we had to overpower the Sun, so there… there is a method to my madness.

We arrive at the Red Rock location that Brenton scouted the day before, “Lost Creek”, we park, and the girls then relaize the “Lost Creek” is a weee bit of a hike. But no worries the toughed it out. We get to teh location and are immediately greeted by what seemed to be an endless amount of children running around. It was quite the buzzkill. We wait a bit till the kids clear out, and try and setup, and yet another wave of rugrats come strolling through, however this time there is a very grumpy old woman with them.

After conducting some test shots, this woman decides to confront us and throw out the “Do you have a permit” line. And i of course fired back the “No, we are students on a photo project” line. Because obviously i dont have a permit. She muddles something and walks away. We continue. Not 30 min later, some official looking woman comes up, and say we have to pack up. We decide to oblige, when we are almost done packing up, another official looking man walks up and says, “This is a great spot for photos”, “Are you guys leaving already?” I explain that the previous officla told us to leave, he whispers to me, “Dont worry about it, just wait until we disappear” So we wait and sure enough we continue.

The shoot turned out nice. I learned the softlighter produces a very, very soft light that really cant be described. I believe its due to the nature of the design, It diffuses already reflected light. So its sort of like the same light you get with a beauty dish with a diffusion screen on but not as directional. Very good quality light. Almost too soft for some things. But for this particular type of shoot “Glamour-esque” it was perfect.

We tried many different concepts, though Brenton explained to the girls to bring multiple wardrobe changes, they failed to do so, so sadly we tried multiple concepts with the same clothing… eehhhh.

One of the girls was very natural in front of the camera, And for some reason this girls name escaped me all day. I only got it right once thorugh out the day. It was something fancy, and out of the norm. Naomisomethingoranother.  She was a natural beauty, very little make up and though it was her first time posing, was very natural in front of the camera.  Jenna on the other hand seemed very nervous, and took awhile longer for her to finally loosen up, but she finally got there. Just took a little more coercing then normal.

Here is one of the images from the shoot, about 5 min worth of post, just to update the good ol’ blog. I will post final edit later this week.  When im finally done with it.

5d with 50 1.4 USM. ISO 100, 1/100 @f10

Lighting setup for shot above

If you have any question abotu anything on this blog, feel free to email me at al@powersimagery.com , i am more than willing to help anyone that wants to learn.

Coming soon new tutorials.

As a part of many photography forums on the internet, most people always ask how i shoot my nightlife photos with such vibrance, and how i can use such a low shuttter speed and still get the images clear and sharp. So it sparked interest in me. So starting next week, i will make a new tutorial once a week. Hopefully i have enough knowledge to keep it going. If you have any suggestions or want to know somehting specific feel free to ask, and ill do my best to make that tutorial.