Passing the Baton

Jonathan Harper will be a great photographer! He stopped by for a visit today that turned into a training session. This brother is thirsty for knowledge and his future as a photographer is bright. At moments, I felt like the water foundation in the Jane Pittman Story kicking knowledge about lighting to an incredibly receptive student. It feels good to give back... to pass the baton!

He simply loves the work of Matthew Jordan Smith, one of the premiere fashion photographers & master lighting technicians. Hopefully this lesson will get Jonathan a step closer to his dream of becoming a fashion/beauty photographer.

This image was achieved with 3 SB 800 Nikon speedlights. The main light is a light stand mounted SB 800 with a ring flash adapter attached. I don't know the brand, but it is something that I picked up at Simon's Camera in Hollywood. The ring flash was big during the 60's in fashion photography. It has been making a comeback lately. It's not the type of light source that I would use every day. So dropping nearly two grand for a Profoto ring flash was out of the question. My model costs under $100 and attaches to a Canon or Nikon speedlight.

I attached a SB 800 with a LumiQuest Ultrasoft to a light stand for the background light. It was probably a foot from the background. I wanted to add a little kicker/rim light to Jonathan's left side. So I added a SB 800 with a Gary Fong Lightsphere attached and pointed it directly at his left ear. I bought the Lightsphere about a year ago and have struggled with finding a use for it in my bag. Many photographers are big fans of this product. I find that a rubber band & business card work pretty well most of the time and take up so much less space.

I normally try to place the main light at the ten O'clock position in the subject eyes. In this case, I placed it a little lower to compensate for the hat. I used 4 Pocket Wizards to trigger the flash units.

Nikon D300 105 2.8 Micro Nikkor f/11 1/250 sec. @ 400 ISO