Working hard today!

For those that are just a casual shooter, doing the typical event coverage at a family event, a birthday party or BBQ you probably do not do much to prepare in the photog area to do your thing, do you?  Right?  You may or may not.  We each have our own way of going about the business of photography.  Serious or casual, there are many levels of performance.

But when you have an EVENT to cover, every photographer who has ever taken this photog stuff as a serious endeavor, knows that preparation and practice are paramount to success.  For you KNOW the day of the EVENT something will happen to throw you a curve.  So first thing, scout out your location.  Know where things will happen.  Know where the light sources are.  Then make a plan to control what you think you MIGHT be able to control.

And then hope for the best, but for sure, have fun and act like you know what you are doing.  This comes from years of doing such things over and over, and KNOWING your equipment inside and out.  What can it do, and what will you be able to do with it.

There is an EVENT coming to town on Monday for our local school, SCCC and our leader Kate has moved us emotionally and otherwise to put our skills to the test.

The Veterans day ceremony will be captured by the Digital 1 class led by Kate Sanker.  She is setting up a photo studio on location to provide free photos for any and  all veterans who want them.  They will be done in an artful and exciting manner. [in my opinion]

I was able to help her today in testing the location for set up and logistics and testing out the shooting conditions with the equipment.  My other contribution was that I owned a Westcott Apollo Orb modifier which was exactly what she wanted to use.  Her unit did not get delivered in time, so my studio came to the plate and loaned it for the shoot.

We met at the lab, packed things up with a lot of help from a DPII student [forgot his name, darn it, and I see him all the time, it's hell getting old ...sorry dud!  wait, is it Mike?  gosh I hope so]

And Brian of course, the ever present man about town.  So a combination of humans and resources got lots of equipment to the right building, we set it up and ....well you can see for your self.....

These are some shots I took, Kate took the main test shots, so you have to turn to her for those to be shared.

Here are a few of mine.

 

I was left alone for a while, so I set up the one strobe, and tested it on this pour soul, but it did not mind, other than being HUNG from the back ground stand.  Exposure gave us a nice starting point.

 

This person was the liaison for the Art Dept rep Kate and the Event.  He graciously posed for some test shots for Kate.  I snuck in my own pops with the strobe as I brought my own PW trigger.

 Here he is only half dressed, a WB tool, but he soon had the Color Checker as well.

 

After the Event contact left, Brian got elevated to ROCK STAR status. and he held down the WB/Color Checker role.   His distant look was part of his persona.  

 

The beauty of this ORB is that its light wraps around the subject matter very nicely.  

Putting a gentle glow on shapes, just by adjusting the angle or position, you can get an infinite number of results.  

I had moved to the far right stage and shot back across to get this profile.  

The light remained as Kate was popping away from her primary position.

 

You can see from me just zooming out to a wide angle the entire scene is presented.

I am still at the same spot as the shot above.

I just changed my 18 - 200mm lense from 200 to something nearer the 18 mark to frame the scene.

One light, a simple but glorious artistic set up.  

The master KS at work, and our Rock Star wannabe, Brian.  

Me just soaking up the fun of all things PHOTOG!

Keep in mind this is in the middle of the day.

The room is brightly lit from lots of sun and overhead lights.

Yet our ability to control these conditions give us the expected and desired results.  

Boy do we learn a lot in our class.

And now we get to use what we learned!