The Wandering Photographer: Project Portrait

The past six weeks have been incredibly busy with much travel and even more photos. I currently have a backlog of over 2000 images waiting for me to sort through and pull out the best. I certainly have plenty of material for future blog posts sitting in my "inbox". When I finally completed the month of travel, my primary focus had to be replacing the aging server in my home office. Unbelievably, this consumer-grade PC has been running continuously for over 10 years with no hiccups and no failures of any kind. Unfortunately, the version of software it is running is so old that there is no longer any support for it and no good way to upgrade or update it. I ordered new server hardware and built up a new server installation from scratch, using current software, and moving bits and pieces over as I went. I'm pleased to say that the new server, though not fully configured, is now live. It also provides the basis for my new photography web site that is under construction. I hope to have that site live in the next 2 to 3 weeks. Now back to work on the photos...

One thing that was on my photographic "to do" list after my recent travels and training was to try a couple of new lighting configurations for shooting portraits. I also wanted a new self-portrait with a lighter background. I set up the backdrop and 3 lights and started shooting. The key light was an SB-900 in a 24" softbox, camera right at 1/8 power. The fill light was an SB-900 in a 1'x3' strip box at camera left. Even at 1/64 power and with the light feathered in front of me, it was still too intense so I added the egg crate grid to bring it down. The background was a bare SB-600 with the dome diffuser sitting on a light stand, just below shoulder level, about 3 feet directly behind me and running at 1/32 power. All of the flashes were controlled by PocketWizard FlexTT5 receivers with a MiniTT1 + AC3 combo on the camera.

To tie it all together, I used OnOne Software's new DSLR Remote HD on the iPad to speed things along and control the camera. It's amazing how much more quickly I was able to make the setup and the inevitable adjustments using LiveView to frame the shots, then fire the camera and instantly see the result without moving from my position in front of the lens. In less than half an hour, I was able to get several shots to add to my portraiture portfolio.

Moving on to a new, and much better, model, I started with the same light set up and was generally pleased with the results. I wanted to try for a slightly softer fill light and switched that light to a shoot-through umbrella down a floor level and much closer to the camera, though still slightly to camera left. The result was much more pleasing!