The off-camera lighting journey begins
A few weeks ago, I ordered one of the Strobist Starter Kits over at Midwest Photo Exchange to begin my journey into off-camera lighting. On the one hand, I’ve never been so excited about photography… On the other hand, it’s frustrating. I feel like I’m starting at square one all over again… “This part of the camera is the lens, this is called a flash…”, etc.
Anyway, my wonderful girlfriend agreed to let me abuse her and blind her this weekend with my new set of toys… I wanted to share a few of my favorites below.
The following shot was taken with a Vivitar 285HV flash fired through a simple homemade snoot made from the cardboard box in which the light stand was delivered. The flash is camera left and up. Interestingly enough, this shot was taken in the middle of the day with sunlight coming through the bedroom windows. I wanted to try and effectively kill the sunlight and darken the room by applying enough light to a small area to get what I wanted. Mission accomplished:
The next three shots were taken, again, with a single Vivitar 285HV camera left and above her. This time, though, the flash was reflected off a soft silver 43″ umbrella. Oh, and many thanks to Hunter for (not) sitting very still. 
The next two have a very similar set up but, for these, I added a Canon Speedlite 580EX II camera right and behind her. It was fired remotely by the Canon STE-2 IR transmitter. In both photos, it didn’t end up as dramatic as I had envisioned but it’s there.
Finally, my girlfriend let me take a few photos in the bathroom while she was taking a bubble bath… Thanks baby! Anyway, for these shots, I have the Vivitar reflected off an umbrella that is camera right and above her. I also placed the Canon Speedlite on the opposite corner, again fired remotely via the infrared trigger.
Oops… I can see the Speedlite in this one. Oh well…
I hope you enjoyed them… I’m having a blast with off-camera lighting and the Strobist lessons have been immensely helpful. More experimentation coming soon!
Also, for those of you looking for a beginning lighting kit, I’d highly recommend the Strobist Kits over at MPEX. They’re designed to give you everything you need to learn over at Strobist while being a somewhat easy on the wallet.
Tomorrow, I will be playing around with specular highlights and using them so that I can do a portrait with a single light source and make it look like two light sources.
July 28th, 2008 at 12:07 am
Nice work. Which of the MPEX kits did you get?
July 28th, 2008 at 5:22 am
Thanks Broderick. I bought the Pro Strobist Kit (PH1). I’m pretty happy with it. I think I’ll be getting some PocketWizards soon but, overall, it seems like a decent beginner’s kit.
July 28th, 2008 at 2:55 pm
Shawn, Nice shots and good to see you are drinking the purple kool aid - hey before you spend all that hard earned cash on pocket wizards, check out the elinchrome skyport universal - I use it for my set up and its smaller and cheaper http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/505381-REG/Elinchrom_EL_19360_EL_Skyport_Universal_Radio_Slave.html good luck.
July 28th, 2008 at 9:53 pm
those shots are awesome. i love the one of saule in the tub. you are so damned talented. i am jealous.
July 29th, 2008 at 5:05 am
Thanks Erin! I’m practicing for your wedding! Haha….
August 4th, 2008 at 10:16 am
@Mike: Thanks for the tip on the Skyports! I’ll definitely check them out and compare them to the PWs. I found myself wishing I had radio transmitters for the wedding… Definitely would have helped.