Some of the shots are shots I’ve shown before, but I also want to share a few new ones we took just for the calendar, so here is a preview of the 2010 Kristen Calendar!

February

June

August

November

The rest were either too revealing or not as exciting as these. It took a long time to put this together, even with re-using some shots that we had done in the past. I think we did 3 or 4 separate shoots to get the missing months and then we tried different ideas for each month. Then there was all of the editing and post-production to be done. We spent a lot of time together working on this, so I hope her boyfriend appreciates it.

If you want to know more about how a shot was lit you can click the image to go to it’s Flickr page and read more about it. This is definitely something I’d like to offer to other people, but because of the amount of time and planning involved it wouldn’t be something cheap. If you conservatively plan for an hour per month for shooting, you’re at 12 hours already, plus a few hours for planning, and then probably at least another hour per month for post-production and you’re looking at about a 30 hour project, minimum. At commercial photographer rates you’re looking at about 3-4 days worth of creative fees, which could run anywhere from $500/day to $10,000/day, or if I were to just charge a very nice hourly rate of $20/hour you’re still looking at $600 minimum, or a more realistic hourly rate of $50 or more would push it up to $1,500 or more. I’d settle for a happy medium around $1000, depending on the shoots you would want.

So, it wouldn’t be a cheap project/present, but it would definitely be unique. A one-of-a-kind calendar for that special someone in your life. I’d definitely be willing to do it again, so if you’re interested in getting a calendar made and are willing to put in the time and effort and can afford it, shoot me an email and we can make it happen!

Sounds like an interesting album title.  And if it was, in fact, an album title, this shot above would be the album cover.  This is a quick shot I grabbed in between fountains when Kristen had a little time to dry off.  I love trying to overpower the sun with little speedlights.  I’ve been doing it more and more.  For this one I used both my Nikon SB-800 and SB-600 at full power through a white umbrella – and it was JUST out of the frame camera left, in fact, I think I had to crop this one because it was in the shot.  Trying to get f/18 out of flashes is asking a lot, but they performed admirably.

Before I go any further I need to tell a little back story about this shoot. The first shoot I did with Kristen ended at one of these fountains, but unfortunately for us we got there too late and it had already shut off for the night, so we both left empty handed.  Well, we got some great shots from the rest of the shoot, but we missed out on that fountain shot, so we decided to do a new shoot dedicated to ONLY fountains.

The first fountain we shot was at Founder’s Park here in Springfield.  Unfortunately for us, right before we got there some guy cut his foot open real bad and bled all over the place – they called an ambulance and everything.  So, we were pretty hesitant to do much in the fountain, but we managed to grab a few shots real quick without having to get into the water much – just staying at the edges and we ended up with one of my favorites from the shoot:

The sun was still pretty high and bright, so we were avoiding it like the plague and using one SB-800 to create our own main light.  I think it worked out pretty well.  I’m working on doing some stuff to this one in Photoshop, so once I get that done I’ll try and remember to share with you guys.

After we bailed from the dangers of this fountain we headed up to the square where they have this really cool fountain.  I’d seen some cool shots done here so I figured it was my turn to see what I could do.  Last time I was shooting with flash around water I almost lost my SB-800, so I was being extra careful this time.  Kristen’s friend Amanda came with us on the shoot so I had her standing in the fountain holding my light stand to make sure the wind didn’t blow it in. That would have been bad.

We tried all kinds of different poses in this fountain, but the one that really stood out to me is this one:

I’m not sure what it is – the pose? The look?  But something about this picture really draws me in.  It feels like it should be in a magazine (to me at least).  I have a few other shots that have her legs in them too, but even without them I feel this is a more powerful shot.

The last fountain for the day was in Jordan Valley Park, where the first shot of this post was taken.  The main fountain there runs on a timer, so while we were waiting I grabbed the shot above.  This is one of those fountains that shoots water way far up in the air, so I moved my flash back pretty far and zoomed it in so I could still light up Kristen and keep my flash from getting wet.  I was using it bare, no modifiers, but Kristen has the body and face to handle it, so I wasn’t worried.  Here’s what we got:

Pretty cool.  I really like how the water kind of wraps around her and brings your eyes right to the center of the picture.  I used a slow enough shutter speed to smooth out the water from the fountain but then that flick of light from the flash really sharpens Kristen to make a sweet picture.

That’s it for this shoot.  I think it was a lot of fun for the both of us, and I really enjoyed have a fairly solid concept to work with for this shoot.  I’d like to come up with a solid personal project for me to work on focusing around a good, solid concept, so if anyone has any ideas, please let me know!

First, as I mentioned in an earlier post, is that I ordered Joe McNally‘s new book, The Hot Shoe Diaries, which came in a few weeks ago.  This book rocks!  I read through all of it in a matter of days and I’m re-reading it now.  Joe is really a genius and I would give just about anything to be able to work with him, but since that is probably never going to happen, this book is the next best thing.  You get some great insight to how Joe thinks and works and his approach to taking great pictures.

I’ve also been enjoying Joe’s training videos over at Kelby Training.  He has some great videos that go along with some of the photos from The Hot Shoe Diaries, which is nice.  I signed up for a one-month membership and I’m trying to get through as much training as I can.  Lots of great stuff there.  Speaking of Kelby Training – Scott Kelby, along with Matt Kloskowski, have been doing a weekly web series for Nikon shooters called D-Town TV.  There are some great tips there and a good watch every week.

Ok, on to the shoots.

Back in the middle of March I headed to the park to do some nice casual portraits of my friend Mandy.  I was out shooting with my SB-800 and triggering via CLS (which is awesome).  I’m really trying to fully master a single light source, so this is my go-to light (until I can afford an SB-900).  I got several good shots from that shoot, but I wanted to share one of my favorites:

This was shot with the SB-800 through a white umbrella on camera right at 1/4 power at 1/200 at f/5.6.  Very nice, saturated background and a great exposure on Mandy.  The look and the wind really add some flavor.  Speaking of wind, that shit is dangerous (as you’ll find out later).  Knocked my stand over many times and messed up my umbrella and stand a little.  I really need to get me some sand bags.

Last weekend I drove down to Joplin, Missouri for a little photog/model group shoot which was pretty fun.  The day went pretty well – got some great shots, got some exercise climbing all over rocks and trees, got some sun (a little too much), met some new people.  Almost too good to be true.  The wind was pretty strong that day, so my lighting stuff took a few tumbles, but for the most part it did well, especially when I was shooting with no modifiers, just zoomed flash, like this shot:

That was just a single SB-800 zoomed to 105mm with a full CTO gel plus and extra 1/2 CTO gel.  The camera was set to Tungsten white balance to get the cool feel.  The sun was pretty bright most of the day so I was pretty much at max sync speed (or higher with Auto-FP) and smaller apertures.  This shot was done at 1/200 at f/8.  Working close these little flashes work great, even with the bright sun.

After everyone shot at the park for a few hours we headed over to The Falls in Joplin to do some bikini shoots with the weather being nice and all.  Unfortunately this is when things start to take a turn for the worse.  We got to the falls around 2:00 or 3:00pm, so the sun was straight overhead with no cloud coverage whatsoever, which means I’m shooting at 1/200 at f/16 on IS 100 (usually I shoot 200 since that’s what most Nikons are optimized for) to get anywhere close to a proper exposure.  Forget about Auto-FP sync at f/16 – it’s not going to happen with just one Speedlight (maybe if I had a tree of Speedlights like Joe McNally did in the desert (p.259 in Hot Shoe Diaries)).

So, I’ve got one of the models out on a rock in the water and I’m several feet back trying to shoot some full body shots, hoping my SB-800 at 105mm on full power can get out there and through a little fill into my subject.  Not happening.  And just to make sure it wasn’t going to happen, the wind picks up and pushes my light stand over – right into the water!  Granted it wasn’t very deep, but still, my SB-800 went face first right into the water…not good.  So, I run over and pull it out and immediately turn it off and take the batteries out.  While maintaining a calm exterior but screaming “Oh my god, my flash!” on the inside I went over and finished that series with the model.  The whole time I was being nice and calm on the outside and freaking out on the inside.

I take my flash up the car and let it start drying out, but I wasn’t done.  There were still models I wanted to work with and shots I wanted to try, so I had to keep going.  I pulled out the trusty old Nikon SB-24 and some Cactus triggers and went back down to the falls to finish up.  Glad I came back because I managed to get this shot:

This was done with the SB-24 zoomed to its max of 85mm at full power and my camera set to 1/200 at f/13.  I wish I could have gotten the background slightly underexposed, but with the sun like that I was happy to just get some decent pictures.  Always have a backup handy.

So, I got some good shots but I might have lost my SB-800, and I definitely wasn’t looking forward to shelling out $450 for an SB-900 (even though I really want one…that’s a lot of cash).  On Monday I went to the local camera shop and got like 50 silica gel packets and packed my SB-800 with them and through it in a ziploc bag hoping they would pull all of the moisture out.  I fired it up today and everything appears to be working fine.  I tried it on the hot shoe, as a remote, manual power, TTL, no hiccups.  Bullet dodged…for now.  Hopefully it doesn’t slowly deteriorate.

Long story short, flashes and water don’t mix!  Be careful with your equipment when working around water…