On Assignment: Monteverde Institute

One of my reasons for going to Costa Rica was to do some work for the Monteverde Institute. At MVI, visiting college students come to learn about the biodiversity and ecological sustainability for which Costa Rica is famous.

Much of the day was spent shooting students in various environments at the school. But we also went up into the forest behind the school to photograph a couple of the volunteers who come down to Central America to spend some time in an amazing environment and to help to keep things running at MVI.


Volunteer Dan Swift

One of those folks is Dan Swift, who is pictured above. He is from Buffalo NY, where he is almost certainly not missing winter this year. Dan is a Buffalo guy to the core, even having one of the beasts tattooed onto his right forearm. He decided to take some time off of college to come down to help out, and I thought an environmental portrait of Dan might inspire others to follow in his tracks.

We hiked up the hillside on the property behind the school to a large "strangling fig" tree. The fig actually starts growing in the top of the host tree, and keeps sending down vines until it completely takes over. The substrate tree dies, and the fig superstructure remains.

What is left is this cool, gnarly "Ent"-looking thing. Some are actually hollowed out enough so that you can climb up on the inside.

We decided to use the trunk as a backdrop for a portrait of Dan. I wanted to use additional light, but only to solve problems rather than to call attention to itself.

The ambient light was mottled and sunny, so that would be the first problem to solve. It was coming in from a high angle (we are in the tropics) so it would not work as a front light.

That's fixed easily enough -- we go to the shadow side of the tree and turn the high sun into our hair/separation light. This also gives really nice texture to the greenery surrounding the tree.

Only problem is that the tree trunk is now too dark. So our first SB-800 will be used to fix that. I connected the SB to a Justin Clamp, a wonderful little $54 piece of gear that mates a strong, two-way clamp to a small ball head and cold shoe. It's a match made in heaven for a speedlight, and eventually I will have one for each of my umpteen small flashes. You can put a light darn near anywhere with a Justin clamp.

First try was to rake the tree with a side light for texture. Looked like crap, no matter what angle we tried. So next I decided to just uplight the cavity in the tree to add some tone to it.


If you see the effect of the tree light in this photo. Click through for a bigger version to see how the Justin Clamp makes a light stand out of a tree root.

Now, we have sunlight working the top and edges, and an SB lighting up the tree. So all of our light is coming from back to front, which makes an easy environment in which to light Dan. And the detail in the trunk will frame him, too.

When you light on separate planes you have total control of the relative tones between your foreground and background. But that doesn't mean you have to wang them out and make them overly lit. As I said, I wanted to keep the light pretty natural looking, so that meant keeping the ratios between foreground and background pretty tight.

I used my one and only light stand for the key light on Dan, who would have otherwise been a couple of stops underexposed. I saved the stand for the key because that was the light for which the position was most important.

I used an SB-800 with a Lumiquest Soft Box III to soften it just a little, and brought it in just out of the frame at camera left. Not trying to nuke him -- just trying to bring him back from the underexposed backlit shadow area. (Working against the backlit foliage is what gives the photo all of it's shape and texture.)

Even with the lit tree behind him providing separation, Dan's camera-right face went a little dark in the shadow of the key. So I used one more SB-800 from back camera right, past the tree, as a subtle kicker.


We are out of stands, so it's Justin Clamp #2 for this separation light. If these clamps folded flat (or close to it) they would be perfect. But even with their gangly, hard-to-pack shapes I am not complaining.

I clamped onto a small sign near the tree just out of the frame at far camera right. Not a lot of light coming from this one -- just enough to shape Dan's face at camera right.


Shutter Speed Controls the Contrast

Given that your flashes are adjusted (and on manual power) to give you the appropriate amount of light at your chosen aperture, it is easy to work the contrast range of the photo with the shutter speed. This will alter the ambient component of the photo.

By cranking my shutter speed down I can drop the environment and make Dan the star. Remember, no matter how far I drop the ambient, Dan will both be both lit and separated by the flashes. I have him with a front light and kicker, and the part of the trunk right behind him is also lit by flash.

A couple of years ago, I would have cranked the ambient down further to call attention to the light. But I have been trending toward a more subtle balance lately -- using light to shape the environment rather that take over.

In the end, the flash/ambient balance does not call attention to itself and I like that. At face value, this is a portrait. But the real goal is to allow the viewers to imagine themselves in this environment.

And if they are looking for a way to spend a gap year, they could do far worse than to spend it working at MVI in Costa Rica.
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EDITOR'S NOTE: This article is one of a series of "On Assignment" features. You can see the entire list, with 75 more OA articles, here.

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Mount Quackatoa

Okay, so it is really the Arenal Volcano in La Fortuna, Costa Rica, not the Krakatoa volcano in Indonesia. But who can pass up a pun that bad?

Not me, that's who.

I'm back from Costa Rica and digging through the mountain of email. But I could not resist sticking a photo our trip mascot up. For those of you who have been living under a rock, it's from Aaron Johnson's What The Duck comic strip. (Plush version here.)

Lots to do to catch up, coupla posts to write from shoots in CR, and will be sticking trip pix in this Flickr set, if you are interested.

And the little Canon G9 came in handy to underexpose that backlit volcano and sync "What The" at 1/500th at f/5.6 at ISO 80 to bring him back up. Fortunately, the G9 will sync at any speed if you know the trick.

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Is That a Soft Box in Your Pocket or Are You Just Happy to See Me?

The LED lights that come built-in to our cell phone cameras are generally useless. But not so the lights built into the cell phone screens themselves.

I am pretty much married to my iPhone now. Well, maybe not technically, but we are sleeping together. I am a huge fan of the BBC podcasts: Global News, Business Daily, FOOC, etc., and listen as I fall asleep.

Something else I am digging on the iPhone: Using the free MyLite app, you can turn your iPhone into a little 2x3.5" light panel that is surprisingly close to daylight balance...
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Mrs. Right vs. Mrs. Right Now

Using a cell phone as a light source is kinda like the old CSN song, "Love the One You're With." Is it gonna light a group shot? No. Is it gonna nuke the sun? Hardly. But it is available.

And what it can do is to get a little kiss of light in there that can provide a nice accent in a low-light shot. In a pinch it can be a quickie, hand-held key light at close range if you are shooting in very poor ambient.

Think twilight, or night shot, handheld with some of these ISO-Wonder Cameras like the D3 and 5D Mk II. Shoot with your right hand, add a little close-up light in with your left. Especially when you a shooting something moody against waning sunset, or just want a kiss of normal color light on someone's face on a night street shot.

The phone is wireless, flat, can be taped anywhere -- lots of possibilities. As long as you recognize its limitations (low light only) the ideas just start to pop into your head.


A Tripod Makes it Brighter

Of course, since the light is continuous, time (and a tripod) is your friend in a darkened room. Additionally, you can move it around during the exposure, so you can make the light source do things that a static flash could not possibly do.

Reader Jann Lipka, of Stockholm, demonstrates by using his cell phone screen to "light paint" a photo which was shot with a PhaseOne back. (How's THAT for a budget mismatch!)


(Via Jann Lipka, on Vimeo.)

You may at first write this off as a gimmick, but just realizing you always have that little light source with you can spark you to find ways to use it.


Little Lights for the Big Boys

Hollywood has already latched onto the idea. If you happened to pick up a DVD of the movie "Collateral," with Tom Cruise and Jamie Fox, check out the extras on disc 2. There is a feature on how they filmed all of the car scenes at night without lighting the exteriors. They just cranked the gain (it was shot digitally) and let the exteriors light themselves.

This left the interior of the car far too dark -- but remember that exposure level was very low. Enter flat-panel lighting. Michael Mann used (if memory serves) flexible panels which were originally designed to be backlights for laptop screens. He simply covered the interior of the back of the car in black velcro (ceiling, backs of the seats, etc.) so he could position the flat-panel LEDs wherever he wanted for the different shots.

This is way cool, IMO, and brings a whole new ethic to lighting the scenes. You are letting the ambient do the heavy lifting, and shaping up your primary subject matter with small lights that do not need to be very powerful. Sound familiar?



You can see the results of this "shaped ambient" style of lighting throughout the whole movie. I like it, and hope to do some low-light shooting with this technique first chance I get.


If you wanna play like Mann but need a little more light than your cell phone, you'll want to pick up a Rosco LitePad HO, pictured at left.

These are far brighter than you cell phone, and can run on 110v, cig lighter, or AA's. It is essentially a matrix of LEDs in a stiff, flat panel that is about 1/4" thick. They start at about $100 US for a 3x6" panel which is rated at 6000K for color.

For still shooters, they would be pretty specialized. But for the PJ's out there who are looking to do multimedia with a 5D Mk II or a D90, the LitePad would certainly merit a little space in your Domke. They are small, thin and rugged -- and ready to go whenever you need an accent in a low-light situation.

Have you put a normal cell, an iPhone or a store-bought panel into service for a shot? If so, hit us in the comments with a URL to the results.

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Speedlinks: 01/22/2009

Greetings from Monteverde, Costa Rica, where we have learned the difference between hotels which have wifi, and hotels which have working wifi. (All of our hotels have been among the former.)

I am dropping this week's speedlinks in via the mooched wifi from the Pensione Santa Elena, which is a very cool hub for young travelers (I used to be one of those) in an amazing cloud forest community. So far, we have had extremely close contact with a five-foot iguana, toucans, white-faced monkeys and a scorpion (he was in our hotel room.)

Among the topics in today's speedlinks, after the jump:

Mooning people, stretching your TTL budget, cutting things in half and a portrait worthy of Hannibal Lechter...
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• Strobist reader Bjorn Holland has been on an epic, multi-continent motorcycle trip for months now, and you can follow his exploits at Panomoto.com. Of particular interest is his series of beautiful panoramas from some very rugged landscapes.


• DIYPhotography.net shows you how to extend your TTL cord with Cat5 wire.


• Two, from the very RSS-worthy Toxel.com: A collection of light graffiti shots and a series of photographers mooning people. (Thanks, DavidOnABus)


• Special this week: Nikon D3 and 14-24mm f/2.8 lens -- 50 percent off. (Thanks, Robert!)


• Best enjoyed with a nice Chianti and some fava beans: The skinned stitched panorama portrait which is the third photo down in this F-Stop Mag story about a photo illustrator.

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Annie and Sean Connery for Louis Vuitton: The Light Touch

Reading the section about lighting in Annie Leibovitz's At Work book, I was intrigued by the idea of running a big source off camera essentially as off-camera fill in a neutral ambient-based exposure. (This is compared to dropping the ambient a stop or two and overpowering it with a big light.)

It looks like this is what she is doing for this fashion shot of Sean Connery. In fact, I thought the whole setup was pretty light touch, especially considering the photographer.



I wasn't sure I would like this look when I first read about it, but I really do now that I see the result.

My guess is that assistant thought the lighting gear was plenty heavy, thankyouverymuch, given the angle at which he had to hold that whole boom/light rig. Which might be the reason she chose a lightweight brolly-box thingie over an Octa to begin with. Who knows.

But I found both the lighting gear and the soft touch on the balance to be a neat change of pace.

Not so surprising: The "Bond boat," which speeds away on cue for every shot on the verticals. Oh, and they faked the entire dock. It is a prop. Gotta like that.

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Packing Light for Central America

I am headed to the Arenal volcano area of Costa Rica, for a shoot at an ecological institute and for some fun with the family. I have been before, and am looking forward to dodging sticks thrown at us by the howler monkeys.

It is easy to pack when going on a trip just for fun -- a good point-and-shoot and maybe a slaved speedlight. Ditto packing for a straight shooting trip -- bring everything you think you might need.

But this trip is a hybrid of sorts, so I tried to get as much versatility as possible into a single small bag and shoulder sling. For my one-bag eco shoot I'll have five light sources, a stand/umbrella kit, a boom, and all of the light modifiers and grip gear I think I'll need -- plus backups on the critical items.

So, how much crap can you fit into a small bag? . . .
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My Limit: One Domke F2 Bag

The Domke F2, seen above, is the standard news photographer bag. I have five of them, most of which are threadbare from many years of hard use. They are not huge, but will swallow up a decent amount of gear. My goal was to get everything into one Domke bag with the standard, 4-square divider -- except the stand kit which will go over the other shoulder. That was a bit of a challenge, as the gear would also include a laptop and storage for photos.

I'm no Chase Jarvis (holy crap!) so the only pack donkey I have to consider is myself. As always, the idea is not choosing what to bring but rather choosing what to leave at home.



So, here it is, unpacked. You can see a bigger version here.

Starting with the body and glass, I am bringing one D300 body (bottom left) which gets me 12 megapixels in a small package. Ditto the glass -- one lens. On the D300, a 24-70 gets me from moderately wide to portrait length. And the Nikon 24-70 f/2.8 is scary sharp and far and away my favorite lens.

As a backup for the body and glass, I'll have a Canon G9 (bottom center). Not ideal, but it is only a backup. It also serves as an (extreme) macro and video in a pinch if I need it plus a voice recorder. The SC-17 TTL cord (upper left) can tie the G9 into a multi-light, off-camera setup very easily. If needed, it'll give me ultra high-speed synch, too.

At bottom left are three SB-800's, one of which is always used as a key light and keeps a 1/4 CTO warming gel permanently attached. You'll remember I said five lights -- that's three speedlights, the pop-up on the D300 (which make a great on-axis fill in a pinch) and whatever ambient is available for my photo. Always consider the ambient as a additional light source.

The last major item is a netbook -- a neat little Acer Aspire One which I picked up for $325 on Amazon. It has a (tiny) solid state hard drive, runs a very stable Linux, and has proven to be quite reliable.

I won't be using this for image processing. It is just for email, website upkeep and Skyping with the house sitter, etc. Speaking of that, I will only have limited net access on the road, so please hold off on all but the absolute most urgent messages until I return. I hope to moderate comments at least once a day, but we'll see how the net access goes.

Next to the netbook is a small 250GB hard drive, a card reader and about 40Gb worth of compact flash cards. I will use the netbook to move the complete shoots onto the portable HD, and keep a second copy of only the loose edit of the best stuff on the cards, erasing all of the crap as I go after offloading to the HD. There is no better way to conserve space than to erase crap as you go.

This gives me one copy of everything -- utter crap and loose edits -- and two copies of anything that has any potential at all. And the second copy of the edits (on the CF cards) is more stable than a second HD.

Starting at left and working right are various power and connector cords, and a set of earbuds for my iPhone and Skyping. My backup for net access is the iPhone, but let's hope it doesn't come to that. Hard to work down a pile of emails quickly with an iPhone. On the two AC cords (netbook and D300 charger) I used Honl speed straps as cable ties, getting me a little double duty there, too.

In the center up top is a Honl shorty and two spaghetti snoots. Dead center are Pocketwizards -- just two, as I can sync the other SB's with their built-in slaves.

Next door is a charger (and extra batt) for the G9, and a small barn door for the SB's. The G9 will take up zero space, as Susan will be carrying that as her camera. (Heh.) Tucked next to the PWs is a dual-point Sharpie, with 2 feet of gaffer's tape wrapped around it. I have no idea what I will use this for at this point, but experience tells me I will almost certainly use it.

The (strapped) stand kit includes a single shoot-thru umbrella, and is held together by two ball bungees, which I am sure will find several more uses during the trip. The stand will work on it's own, but I also expect to use it as a voice-activated boom. The whole thing is light, so all I need is a scrounged helper to save the weight and space of a real boom.

At top right are two more light mods -- a Ray Flash (because it is the smallest of the ring flash adapters) and a LumiQuest SB-III. Having second thoughts on the ring -- might leave that here. Between the snoots, umbrella and the SB-III, I can get a variety of looks while taking up very little space.

Last but not least are two Justin Clamps, which don't pack so well. But they are very useful, so hard not to include. I saved the space in the bag by clamping them onto the strap on the outside.


Advice From a Real Travel Photographer

... which would not be me.

I love to travel and shoot, but Bob Krist is the real deal. His first travel assignment for National Geographic was documenting the separation of Pangea into the five continents that we all recognize today.

Bob has shot travel professionally for the last 30 years, and wrote the book(s) on the subject. His latest is Travel Photography: Documenting the World's People & Places. If it were a college course would best be described as a Survey of Travel Photography.

It is a cover-the-bases book which takes a systematic look at travel photography, from what gear to pack to shooting advice to digital asset management on the road. It is aimed at amateurs, and not so technical when it comes to photographic technique. There is a chapter on light, and some material on off-camera flash, but its strength is that it allows you to be sure you are considering everything.

We sometimes bore down so far into our specific areas of interest that we miss the forest for the trees. The thrust of this book is that it will keep you from completely screwing up the photos from a big trip because of some dumb little thing you would fail to consider.

If you travel a lot and want a look into a long-time pro's approach to travel shooting, it is well worth a read. But I also have been using it as the answer to friends and family members who have asked me for photo advice before a big trip. Those are exactly the guys who are likely to miss something critical (like on-the-road image backups, for example) and Bob covers all of the bases.

If you are already a digital photography stud you might find this book a little basic. For those folks, I would steer them to an earlier book, Spirit of Place, which can be hard to find now. But even then, if you have a friend who is heading out on a big trip I can't think of a nicer thing to do for them than to point them to Bob.

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I'm at Scott's House Today

You know how when you were a kid, sometimes you'd head over to a friend's house to play -- and their place would be way nicer than yours?

You know, like maybe they had a pool and a trampoline and indoor plumbing and everything?

Today, I got invited to do a guest post on Scott Kelby's blog. You know, that Scott Kelby. Mr. Entire Photoshop Industry.

So, Scott's house would have, say, a helicopter pad. And maybe a gift shop on the lower level. The guy could buy and sell me ten times over.

(Okay maybe you could buy me, Kelby. But you'd have a tough time selling me, pal.)

Anyway, you don't turn down an invite like that. And he said I could write about anything I wanted. So I wrote about sports photography, and a game called "First Frame." If you're up for it, you can see it here.

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