Lunch was at the delicious Pokéz and we proceeded to wander around looking for an optimal place to shoot. We settled on a fine spot right on the trolly tracks where we had no chance of a car creaming us and we could see for hundreds of yards on the trolly track so we figured we were safe.  We were just about done when this Transportation Authority comes flying up with his lights on and nearly screeches to a stop next to our gear.  He hops out of the car and meant business.  Little did he know that we were web developer geeks and didn’t even know we were up to no good  Seriously, if you look closely at the picture you can see some body roll in the car, this guy was really flying!

He inquired (to put it nicely) about our permit to shoot on the tracks and we informed him that we had no idea we were supposed to have one.  He snakily instructed us on the protocol to obtain one for next time.  Once he was done taking our licence info down he had loosened up a bit.  I handed him a card letting him know where to get his next family pictures.  It was almost too ridiculous to describe.

We walked back to the cars laughing about it to find a ticket on Nicks windshield.  So yeah, we live on the edge.  Web developers gone WILD!

The lighting was attained using a single Yongnuo YN460 with a shoot through umbrella on full power and the fabulous Sun as a hair light

Here were the three photos that finally got approved.  Funny that two of them are self portraits.  Anybody want to come model for me any time soon?

The shoot was fun, hanging out was great and the massive amounts of Tri Tip and Deer (that Tony shot) were fabulous!

Enjoy the Pictures, you can find the whole set here.

I wandered from Harbor over to Chicano Park under the Coronado Bridge.  Matt came down and met me about half way through and I got to take a few more pics with one of his wide angle lenses.  All I have is a 50mm (which is really more like a 70mm on my small frame rebel) so it’s limiting in what you can shoot.  I had a crap tripod so it was pretty difficult getting sharp images.  I’m getting a new one in the mail monday so I may have to go shoot some of the areas again soon!  I was shooting mostly long exposure, 15-30 sec,  with really small aperture 15-22, iso 100.  I messed with other settings but I was getting the effect I wanted with this.

One of the highlights of the night was eating at “El Carrito” Restaurant.  It was this funky little taco shop I found down near Chicano Park that was an old converted train car and it was delicious.

It was a fine time wandering alone and hanging out with Matt.  You can find all the pics on my Flickr.

Then I was inspired by a photo I saw on Flickr and messed with a couple long exposure shots triggering a flash in convient places.  Yes I could have done this with remote flashes on wireless systems and it would have come out cleaner but hey, all I have is a crappy speed light that takes 8 seconds to re charge, has one setting (full power), no wireless triggers and the thing doesn’t even have a shoe that would fit my camera even if I wanted to mount it on top.  We played with holding a reflector umbrella (silver lined) and set the exposure to 20 seconds.  We set off two flashes.  One camera left at about 20′ away and one directly behind the subject up into the umbrella.  They came out pretty cool  I’ll upload some of the mess ups as well so you can see what was going on.

I have been researching lighting lately and stumbled upon this blog.  My friend Matt told me about it a couple weeks ago but I forgot all about it until my searching exploits landed me there.  The Strobist movement is pretty simple, basically you use a camera mount style flash off the camera to create a dramatic lighting effect.  It’s quick, easy, light weigh and makes for some rockin photos.  You have to have a couple things like manually adjustable flashes and some talent to really make the whole thing work.

I ordered a dirt cheap manual flash from Ebay and figured I would just experiment with it.  I’m not doing this professionally, I just want to have some fun.  The flash arrived and I soon noticed that the shoe mount was different than the picture on Ebay.  The strobe seemed quality enough for the price and I decided that I was going to make it work!

Since I was just going to mount it on a light stand or clamp it to something I could rig my own mount with some epoxy and the right fitting.  I took it out to the shop and started unscrewing stuff.  It came apart pretty easy and the circuit looked simple enough.  It would be really easy to rig up a jack to trigger the flash so I had a hope that things would work until I dug a little further…

I noticed that there was a distinct lack of wires running behind the battery pack and it just so happens that the control switches for the flash are located directly behind the battery pack.  I checked the switches and confirmed that there were in fact no wires attached!  Apparently they are just there for show and all the flash really does is flash…  A flash that flashes technically is doing what it is designed to do.  However a flash that is non variable is near useless to a Strobist.

Despite the lack of capability and the disappointment that this little sunpak brought me not all was lost.  I fortunately was able to learn a new fun game during my experience.  It’s called the “Fun Fun Spring Game” and I recommend everyone try it at least once in their life.  It goes like this.

1. Remove the screws that hold the foot together.
2. Allow the 7 minature springs inside to shoot all over your shop.
3. Cuss.
4. Spend a really long time locating the springs because you’re going to try to put the unit back together and return it.
5. Attempt to put it back together only to have a couple more springs shoot out on to your floor that you never clean and is covered with all kinds of goodies that look a lot like miniature springs.
6. Cuss.
7. Locate Springs.
8. Re Assemble.
9. Vow to never do that again.

Just remember to have Fun Fun!

Cheers

I just recently bought a DSLR, a Canon 400D to be exact.  I never really intended to get into photography but I sort of just stumbled upon it.

I had a big model shoot coming up for Urban Sun Tanning and I was in charge.  I wasn’t taking pictures but the weight success or failure rested on my shoulders.  Since I had never done something like that before I figured I better know what the heck I was doing.  I jumped on Youtube and started learning as much as I could.  I learned about lighting, composition, gear etc.  Pretty soon I knew all the basics and didn’t even have a camera.  I realized that all the great photographers were doing was manipulating light and composing great images.  That’s easier said than done considering theres are about 5 million variables and you still have to have raw talent to bring the magic.  Anyway, I took it as a challenge.

The day before the shoot my friend started advertising a camera he had for sale.  I bought it.  Now I take pictures.  I wouldn’t consider myself a photographer, I just take pictures.