Notes from the Field

I always enjoying with working with models that I have had previous experience with. There is no ice breaking or tension that needs to be dealt with. Also, a model is used to some of my crazier ideas and there is a bit of trust that has been earned by both the models and myself.

More than a year ago was my first experience working with Anna. That day was a very interesting shoot, because I worked with over 6 different models at the Pipers Opera House in Virginia City, Nevada. All of the models came had period costumes and we shot group and individuals pictures. Anna was the first model that I worked with that day and she immediately demonstrated that she was going to be great to work with. I had only about an hour to work with Anna, but we ran with her intensity in her individual shots and then used that same energy to make her look like she was in charge of this cast of characters.

Anna at Piper's Opera House

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It should be public knowledge by now that Syl Arena and I have started a great adventure in shooting a DVD series about Canon Speedlites. It has been a great experience with Syl in front of the camera, creating great content and scenarios for Canon shooters to learn from, and myself behind the camera directing and editing all of this information. We are both very excited to be doing this project together and our goal is to make the definitive source for Canon shooters to find information about using their Speedlites in all sorts of situations, ETTL, manual, and mixed lighting.

Syl will be blogging about what is going on in front of the camera, while I will be documenting what is going on behind the camera. And the biggest news that I can break about this project is the we are using the Canon 5D Mark II exclusively to shoot all of the video for this project. To my knowledge, we are cutting some new trail in using this camera to shoot a project of this scope.

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Over a year ago, I started playing with High Speed Sync on my Canon cameras and Speedlites. I was trying my own hand at what I had seen Joe McNally and David Hobby out to the dessert of Dubai with multiple Speedlights on something that I can only describe as Satan’s light stand.

My first attempt at high speed sync. Shutter is at 1/8000 of a second and I am using two 430EX Speedlites just to camera left.

In the year since, I have worked with Syl Arena, in Radio Popper/High Speed Sync shoot, as well as crawling on the ground with Joe McNally, holding his Nikon Speedlights during a shoot. There is something about the quality of light when you shoot at 1/2000 of a second or higher.

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Going to try and start a regular post here on the blog that reviews what happened in the blog world as well as my world for the week. This was as good of a week as any to start this tradition, so here we go.

This time last week I was working with 7 hours total sleep over three days and waiting for my plane to take me from Vegas to my home in Reno. Because I was out of town for the week, I missed posting a few images of the Reno River Festival from the previous weekend. I can’t give enough praise to the people of Downtown Reno and the events they host. 10 years ago, you wouldn’t really imagine hosting an event like this, but now it brings in thousands of people and it is a good time had by all. With events like Artown and the Tour de Nez coming up, downtown Reno is going to be a busy place.

Reno River Festival

Many of your know from a previous blog post about my girlfriend getting into a car accident on Monday. Many comments have come back on that post, which is the most I have had for the blog so far. Crazy that insurance on your house or car is getting so much feedback.

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Hello and greetings from Las Vegas, Nevada. I have been in the lovely town for the last three days, working for the day job.

We are down here doing both photo and video for our company, at a local property, the M resort. The M is very nice, maybe the nicest hotel I have been in a Vegas, and I have been to a few. It is a ways off of the strip, but man, worth the drive.

Since we are shooting in a casino, the hours are a bit rough, with a start time of 9pm till 3am, when the models leave. We still have an hour or so to tear down gear and move it off of the floor, which put me in bed at 5am this morning.

On last night of this and then I am on a plane back to Reno, which probably means no sleep till I hit the house.

So what does this have to do with rain or Le Mans?

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