Speedlinks: 'The Office' Edition

I'm still an old-school guy when it comes to developing projects. I like to keep my ideas on physical surfaces. And without whiteboards in The Cave, we revert to stickies. Like, everywhere.

Today's speedlinks are office-themed; one an actual shoot-in-a-boring-office solution and another to show what can be done with … a lot of stickies. Read more »

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Dean Bradshaw: Putting the Pieces Together

Photos © Dean Bradshaw

"Photography has taken me to some amazing places and allowed me to meet people I would never have had the opportunity to otherwise meet," says Aussie transplant Dean Bradshaw, who now works in Southern California. "For me it has been a lifestyle and a way of interacting with the world more than just something I do to pay the bills."

Bradshaw said that he likes to think of photography as the intersection between art and real life. But that intersection doesn't always happen spontaneously. Usually it takes perseverance, serendipity, bootstrapping and an ability to pre-visualize the pieces of a photo before they ever comes together.

Case in point, the process of creating the image of a San Diego breakdancer, above. Read more »

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Giving Back With Your Camera

It's Thanksgiving, a day when many people in the US will eat way too much food and then collapse on the couch to watch the Baltimore Ravens beat the San Francisco 49ers on the teevee. (Heh.)

But thoughts of giving thanks often prompt thoughts of giving back. And there is a lot of collective talent among the readers of this site. So today, a bit of an open thread on ideas for giving back with your camera.

I'll start off with a few specific suggestions from my own experience, but I would love to hear your thoughts in the comments. Read more »

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Parabolic Activity

Ever have a problem with onlookers nosey-ing around on a shoot?

Photographer Radu Dumitrescu (that's his voice on the tape) was shooting in an abandoned house in Bucharest, Romania when a couple of intrepid guys noticed flashing lights inside the house and decided to investigate. When they raised their cell phones to capture hard proof of the afterlife, Radu laid down on the remote trigger and gave them a show.

They only got one reaction on tape, but Radu said the guys repeatedly came back to the house only to be scared back off again by the flashes. Anyone who can have this much fun with a flash trigger is truly a man after my own heart.

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Learning to See Light

As photographers, we are pretty intuitive about recognizing interesting ambient light when we see it. But stick a flash and umbrella in our hands and we tend to default to much more standard styles of lighting -- especially at first.

In the real world, great light rarely comes from 45 degrees up and to the side. So if you want to be able to create more interesting light with your flashes, you should work to better recognize how ambient really works. This way, you can recreate those different looks when you are in control of the light. Read more »

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Sony Users Finally Get Some Remote Trigger Love

I don't do a lot of reviews or gear announcements on this site, but I think the Sony version of the Strato II is notable just for the frustrating gap it fills for Sony users.

Sony's deciding to go with perpetuate Minolta's nonstandard hot shoe after purchasing the company has always left me scratching my head a little. As a result, there has been precious little third party gear support for plug-and-play off-camera lighting.

That just changed with the release of the Sony-specific version of the Phottix Strato II Multi remotes. By all accounts the standard hot shoe version of the remote is a decent performer, which bodes well for these units.

If you are a Sony user, hit the jump for specs and links. Read more »

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Bucket List: A Visit to San Francisco and TWiT

This week I enjoyed my first-ever visit to the city of San Francisco, which is truly an amazing place. On the agenda was lots of hiking, plus trips to Google and Flickr. But I also traveled north to the picture-perfect small town of Petaluma, home of This Week in Tech.

I drove up there on Tuesday to appear on the TWiT Photo show. For those who missed it live (sadly, also missing the chance to heckle via the live chat room, heh) the archived video is after the jump. Read more »

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Christian Colberg's Orchestrated Coworker Portraits

If you get the chance to visit Meyerhoff Symphony Hall in Baltimore, take a moment to view the collection of portraits of BSO musicians on the wall. (Pictured above is violinist Yasouki Tanaka.)

The photos were done by one of their own, violist Christian Colberg. Shot with minimalist gear over the course of a summer, the project is a template for any amateur photographer with a day job doing something else. In other words, this is what can what can happen when you allow your vocation and your avocation to cross-pollinate. Read more »

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Nick Fancher: Run-and-Gun with Hard Lights

Columbus, Ohio-based photographer Nick Fancher shoots for JackThreads, which means manic spurts of product, apparel and shoe photos. To that end he shoots guerilla-style, scrounging multiple locations and setups on the quick.

Which is no problem, as he travels light with RadioPoppers and speedlights, preferring to work without modifiers. This means he can light at modest ranges and easily match or overpower the sun as needed.

Check out the vid above, in which we follow Nick through a typical multi-product day of shooting. Neat stuff -- I like the multi hard-light look. He tends to crank the flashes to 105mm for extra punch, which also restricts the beam for a cool fall-off.

And if the name sounds familiar, Nick was featured a little ways back for his Mad Men-themed engagement shoot. If you haven't seen that, it's worth a look.

(Thanks, Mark!)

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A Flash of Inspiration: The Accidental Backlight

Strobist reader Philip Rasmusson, from Göteborg, Sweden sent me the above photo, along with a tweet asking:

"This totally happened by accident, with someone else's flash going off in the back. What do you think?"

Well, I can tell what you think, Philip. I think you like it, 'cause you were happy to claim it and stick a logo up on it. (Smart man.)

And any time a happy accident like this happens, bells should go off in your head. In particular, I can think of at least 5 bells going off right now… Read more »

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Heinz Maier's Insanely Beautiful Water Droplets

For those of you who like to tinker around with the art of water droplet photography, the bar has just been raised. Significantly.

Using the hydraulic setup you see above, German photographer Heinz Maier captures the tiny slices of time in which multiple drops of falling water interact with each other.

The lighting tools, which are not shown here, are very simple: a small DIY cardboard softbox with two flashes (cutting the already fast t.1 times in half) some sample gels (complete with spindle holes, no less) and a lot of creative thinking.

The results look like complex glass sculptures… Read more »

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