West Boulevard Car Wash, Columbia, Mo.

I made this image last Friday while scouting for locations for a group “painting with light” project.  I had just gotten off of I-70 and was headed back home when I noticed the way that the “Chevy’s Fresh Mex” sign was framed by one of the car wash stalls.  I turned around and pulled over to make a couple of frames.  The weather cooperated to to give this an eerie feel.

Photographed with a Canon 5D Mark II and 70-200mm f/4 IS, exposed 1/40 sec. @ f/5.6, ISO 200.

Tags: car wash, photography, photojournalism, pictorial
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Romantic ghosts of prom past on the MKT Trail, Columbia, Mo.

For a group project for Advanced Techniques, Vivian Esparza, Charles Ludeke, Lesley Freeman, and I met up at the Martin Luther King, Jr. memorial along the MKT Trail in Columbia, Mo. to make a long time exposure with added light–also called “painting with light” for its surreal effect.

Charles friend, Michelle, agreed to be a model for us on the bridge. After thinking on it for a bit, we decided that we should include a male figure in the photo, and Charles volunteered that he had a yellow tux (rental) in his car from a social gathering a on Friday night.

The background trees were lit with a Nikon SB-900 gelled green. I fired it off at 1/4 power for the nearer trees, and worked my way up to 1:1 for the background trees (knowing that they would be far too dark otherwise). Vivian did a great job of painting the bridge blue (an SB-900 with a blue gel), and Lesley walked along the bridge once with a flashlight aimed downward (on the ground, along the railing). Lesley then used a different flashlight, gelled red, to paint the post and upper railing of the bridge.

Finally, Charles and Michelle would pose on the bridge, and I used my Canon 550EX with the Panera straw-grid, dialed at 1/2 power, to “freeze” our ghosts in the frame.

All told, the exposure came to 5.7 minutes @ f/8, ISO 200 using a Canon 5D Mark II and 70-200mm f/4 IS lens @ 81mm…and a couple hours of experimentation. It was a great collaboration….and I think we might go back in a week to do something a little bit different ( but not in time for class).

Tags: Advanced Techniques, light, lighting, lit, painting with light, photography, strobe
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Everyone in Advanced Techniques was asked to create a photojournalistic image using second curtain (or “rear curtain”) snyc with their strobes. I actually haven’t used the technique much in the past, largely because it’s inordinately difficult to do so with the Canon flash system. Comparatively, the Nikon system of switching the flash mode from “normal,” skipping over “red eye reduction,” and landing on “rear” is all that has to be done. It’s stupid simple. More stupid for Canon…..c’est la vie. (But cameras that start with the letter “N” do seem to have strange white balance………)

Click on the diagram for a larger version.

For the simple reason that second curtain sync is easy to achieve with Nikon, I borrowed a D700 and an SB-900 from the photo department. I only took out the 24-70mm, knowing that 90% of what I had planned could be done with that one lens. First, I went to the Hulett House mixed martial-arts gym, the subject of a longer-term group project, to practice with the technique. I set up one light on a stand, gelled CTO, and bounced if off of the ceiling.

After only a few frames, I captured this image, which is one of my favorites from the evening:

Kevin Croom tries to place Kristin Rambo into a headlock during a sparring match at the Hulett House Gym on April 22, 2009, in Columbia, Mo. Croom, who is yet undefeated in his mixed-martial arts career, is helping to get Rambo ready for her first Midwest Fight League contest on May 25.

Two more images after the jump…
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Tags: Advanced Techniques, light, lighting, lit, photography, photojournalism, rear curtain, second curtain sync
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Just an outtake from a class experiment with light painting at Rock Bridge State Park in Columbia, Mo.  This was likely the most successful image of the evening.  There’s also an assignment to pursue this line of work in smaller groups, so look for something different in the coming days.

Canon 5D Mk II, 93 seconds @ f/7.1, ISO 800. White balance and curves adjusted in Lightroom.

Tags: Advanced Techniques, light, lighting, lit, painting with light, strobe
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Recently I’ve been trying to make photographs of the fighters at the Hulett House, a mixed martial arts training gym run by Rob Hulett and part of the Midwest Fight League, while sparring with each other using at least two flash heads for cross lighting. One of the greatest challenges is to ensure that the light stand (I’m triggering wirelessly either with Canon ST-E2 transmitters of with eBay “poverty wizards”).

Lighting setup for the photo of Croom and Ward. (Click for larger version)

In this case, I’ve lit the scene with two 550EX Speedlites aimed right at one another. I was using daylight white balance because I was letting the flash heads overpower the ambient light, but now I regret that decision and wish I had gone with a CTO gel and tungsten white balance to make the overhead lights appear white. C’est la vie.

Also, the shadow cast by the strobe on the right is a bit distracting. But what made this, to my mind, the strongest of the images was Croom’s expression paired with the position of the bright red boxing glove in the lower right-hand corner.

Without that glove as an anchor for the composition, this wouldn’t be a successful image at all.

Kevin Croom (right) takes a swing at Eric Ward during an evening practice at the Hulett House Gym in Columbia, Mo. on April 7, 2009, three days before their Midwest Fight League contests at the Blue Note. Croom said that in a week before a big event, he “…just wants to hit people.”

More photos after the jump.
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Tags: Advanced Techniques, Hulett House Gym, light, lighting, lit, Midwest Fight League, mixed martial arts, photojournalism
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Mosque and Power Plant, Columbia, Mo.

It’s been on-and-off pouring rain today, so I’ve been going through some of my photos in Lightroom.  I found a few that I made just for me–they’re not photojournalistic and they’re not for any of my classes.  What’s funny about the ones that I found is that all of them were made on my Lumix G1.  It definitely pays to carry that camera around.  I am still just using the kit lens (equivalent to 28-90mm), but plan to pick up the 90-400mm equivalent lens soon…and either the new wide-angle zoom (no price yet) or the fixed focal length f/1.7 lens that has been rumored for some time if/when that ever comes out.  Micro four-thirds has turned out to be a great system that delivers on the original promise of Olympus’ four-thirds.  Funny that Panasonic would be the ones to show them how to make that format useful!

Two more photos after the jump…
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Tags: Lumix G1, mosque, photography, power plant, smoke stacks
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