MERRY CHRISTMAS!

I wanted to put up a small taste of flava over the holidays, seeing that I only update FF every week or so. We just got back from the Dominican Republic, 4 days of adventure with some cool clients! Today, we are with my family for some needed time off and I found an image to share with FF readers!

I pulled and old trick out of my bag a few weeks ago (dec 8, 2 days after my wedding)! I will occasionally put a flash or two under the table to light the reception table settings in a unique way, so that my clients will get to visualize their hard work and table setup, in a TOTALLY different way than brightly lit!

At this wedding, I was swimming in ambiance, the stuff was just everywhere. The wedding designer put special attention to lighting elements that would give the entire setting a mood to give the place the feeling as if it were in an outdoor ballroom, especially with the overhead lights. These were pretty powerful lights too, at 40 watts or so. I decided after several combinations that I wanted to turn them down, so I underexposed the background and added a single speedlight under the head table.

I could have exposed the background more, which i did in trial and error, but the moodiest image I could come away with had the pool’s reflection only showcasing the table and the overhead lights, along with the rope lighting on the trees…

slave speedlight set to 1/4 power

My point with this post is to showcase the many ways to change a setup with an added speedlight. Next time, I’ll use 4 speedlights in this situation, who knows…maybe add a little color!

And here is my straight ambient shot…I took this image within seconds of the above example.

Any thoughts or other examples on under table lighting? If you have one, please share it in the Flash Flavor Flickr image pool. Or drop us a comment here and show us por favor!

Cheers & merry Christmas,

mateo

I’ve been keeping an eye on this week’s featured photographer, Ed Pingol from San Francisco. I noticed Ed’s photos in the Flash Flavor Flickr image pool and immediately went to look for more of his work. His lighting style is pretty impressive. He manages to shoot some of the sexiest formals (future FF post) I’ve ever seen, all with the power of of his ambient light deleter flash stick.

Ed Pingol writes about “deleting the ambient”

Monica (my wife) and I were presented a huge problem with busy cluttered backgrounds of freeways, street post with wires and people walking to and fro. we needed to “delete” everything and try to manage a decent picture on the process.

This technique can be applied anywhere and can easily be done as long as you have the capability of off camera flash. a definite “must-add” for your bags of tricks if you don’t have it yet already.
My off camera flash “light stick” consist of 2 sb-28 flashes mounted on a flat bracket triggered by a pocket wizard (also mounted on the same flat bracket). you can easily get one from ebay for $7! make sure you search for “multipurpose flash bracket”. This little setup is then mounted on a “Bogen 3232 Swivel Tilt Monopod Head” which allows me to… well, tilt my flash heads to any direction i want, which gives me a lot more creative freedom when compared to simply attaching the flat bracket straight onto a monopod.

****UPDATE****
I found this forum post that showcases Ed’s how to’s on the strobe setup… Thanks for putting this together ED!

Here is Ed’s post on deleting the ambient:

I placed Monica who is holding the “light stick” 5 feet behind the couple. the flashes were both set at 1/1 (full power) with a beam spread of 24mm (the widest setting). when your f-stop is adjusted to compensate for the light stick’s bright flashes we automatically delete most of the ambient light and are left with what is pictured above.

A question that is brought up often is “why 2 flashes”? well, a cool thing about shooting with 2 instead of one is you can double your light output. but the main reason why i shoot with 2 is because of those times when i don’t need to shoot at full power. i double the speed of recycling time because shooting @ 1/2 power with 2 strobes is equal to shooting @ 1/1 with a single strobe.

Kewl! I must admit, I haven’t once used 2 flashes on one rig but now that I think about it, I think there are definitely some situations where 2 heads are for sure the way to go! Especially outside in bright bright daylight! I look forward to seeing Ed’s stuff on formals, you are really going to enjoy the time he puts into making his portraits!

Anyone get inspired by this or have a photo examples? Please give Ed your thoughts!

Cheers!
Matt

I just wanted to say thank you David Hobby at Strobist for your kind words and recognition. David has helped both Sol & I achieve publication in 3 magazines, around the world… all in the last 2 months!

David Hobby is one of the super heros of internet marketing. If you sell anything marketed to photographers, you should be advertising on his site. He has zillions of readers and the come back again and again for a reason! He continues to keep the photo world informed and now he is offering a contest for folks who enter images into the strobist flickr pool!. I think that pool needs some HOT wedding photography representation! So if you are a wedding shooter, please submit your images there so we can represent!

Many Thank YOUS to all the people who called, wrote and commented on our blogs with congrats to us on our special day… The love is very appreciated.

Here are a few images that were shot by some of my photographer friends who were guests at my Dec 6 2007 wedding. Be sure to check links to their site to see a few more images from the sneak peek

***Disclaimer*** Sergio Photographer was the official commissioned photographer for this event, his mack daddy images coming soon! Sergio was digging on the FF at my wedding, so maybe we can see his techniques here

****UPDATE**** Checkalo Sergio’s photos: Sergio Photographer Slideshow
and his blog: Sergio BLOG

Here are a few of his images…

This one is ALL of my photographer buddies after a few BIG glasses of Don Julio…

Guest photographer friends:
These few images from previous FF poster, Mark Adams, from LaCour.

Ok, so I liked the Mayan Warrior thing!

And these from my amigo, Chris Savas. Chris works as a commercial photographer shooting events all over the world. He showed up to my wedding with a Mark III and a Canon 300 2.8 with a 1.4 extender… sheesh, that combo is heaver than me!

And here are a few from my amgio, Ben Chrisman. Ben Chrisman is a compositional FREAK! I am blown away by his stuff, just amazing work. He likely won’t be featured on FF because he doesnt slave flashes, nada! I’ve been thinking of doing and “Anti-Flash Flavor” post though… Ben would make a perfect candidate! Hit his blog to see several more of my wedding, including me SLAMMING tequila! Viva Don Julio Reposado

This one of Sergio in action

And these from my friend, Matt McGraw.

I took 15 dance lessons!

Here are a few from my bud, Patrick Williams

this is the group photographer shot….

THANK YOU to all my photog buddies who snapped a few frames, I’m sure I’ll be seeing some more here soon

Cheers,
mateo y sol

I love shooting silhouettes! To me, they are one of the easiest and safest ways to make a beautiful portrait. Usually, I’m shooting these images with very little residual light left in the sky so my exposure settings are reaching the limit of hand holding the camera. In this case, I just wanted to show what a simple kiss of light can do for a simple silhouette.

Nothing more and nothing less. 1 speedlight, l1 KISS.

Try this one, you will make wonderful images!

Can you guess where my flash power setting was?

Cheers!
matt

PS. December 6 is MY wedding!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Sol & I covered a wedding on Dec 1. We also had our associate shoot a wedding yesterday and a TTD today… We have 2 weddings on Saturday, are we freeks?

Anyway, I’m taking today and tomorrow OFF. Cheers!
matt

PSS. Wanna see some totally NOT related to Flashflavor? I thought this was INSANE!!!!!