Right tools for the job.

This spring I started shooting with the Elinchrom Ranger Quadra system kind of moving away from my smaller Nikon flashes. I have gained more power and access to a larger range of light modifiers my favorite for location work is a 27" square softbox.

The C-Stand is a beast to haul around on location but it makes getting the softbox in position so much easier and the weight makes the whole setup more stable in the breeze, had it been windier or if I were using a larger softbox I would have wanted to sandbag the stand.

This image was shot with a Nikon 50mm 1.4 on my D300 with the above lighting setup and processed in Adobe Lightroom.

Walking with a camera

I love to just go for a walk with a camera and see what I can come up for images and I have been doing this even more now that I have have gotten my little Nikon P7000 which goes with me just about everywhere. These images were all shot around the downtown Bemidji area. Everything processed in Lightroom.

Channeling my inner Helmut Newton

Helmut Newton was an amazing fashion photographer and he continued to shoot for Vogue into his 80's. He was one of the shooters I wanted to emulate along with Herb Ritts, Walter Iooss Jr and Mark Seliger. If you don't know any of those names as soon as you are done here you need to Google them.

I thought this would be a great follow up to the pin up type shot I did with Alice yesterday, this is NOT Alice though. 

I shot this with natural light and a borrowed 50mm 1.8 Nikon lens on my D300. Processed in Lightroom.

Alice

Today I got to work with my friend Alice on a photo we had been talking about for a while. But this was not the photo that we were originally planning on shooting, I love how a photo shoot can start one place and end up with the best shot being inspired by the person getting ready for the shot.

Here is a production shot, I don't think I could go back to a time before I had C-Stands they make the work so much easier and their weight made made me feel safe while working in the wind today. If I had been working with a bigger softbox I would have sandbagged everything. 

I shot the top shot with a Nikon D300 and a 50mm 1.4, lit with an Elinchrom Quadra  and a 27" square softbox and a Lastolite trigrip reflector for a beauty light combo. Processed in Lightroom.