I only got to spend about an hour in Point Lobos but will put it higher on the itinerary next trip. I’ve always leaned against visiting state parks with an entrance fee since I usually find lines of RVs and fire pits littered with beer cans. Point Lobos is different – way different, and well worth a visit if you’re in the area.

I’m terrible with tree and flower names even though David pointing out each and every one we encountered (quite impressive). What I do remember is the orange and white particles covering this tree accentuated with backlighting really caught my eye.

Backlighting can be a terrific way to get better images outside the “golden hour” timeframe.”

David was gracious enough to show me a couple “hidden gems” along Highway 1 on our way to Pfeiffer Beach. The light was bright and harsh so the images I took from my iPhone were intended to identify GPS coordinates so I could remember where to return next trip. Some people bolt on GPS devices to their camera.  I already feel like my bag is full of equipment I don’t need, so I simply use my iPhone for this purpose.

I turned around and felt like a groundhog when I saw my shadow.

Just before the entrance to Pfeiffer Beach was a nice pile of highway gravel one could climb up to get just above the trees lining the highway for a better glimpse of the coastal mountain range.

I’ve surfed (if you could call it that), swam, and drank my share of alcoholic beverages at beaches, but never photographed one before. David was instrumental in pushing me outside my normal creativity boundaries to capture the beauty of the beach sand and surf itself.

Then came sunset, a beautiful sunset.

After sunset we did some light painting around the arch rock.

Sunset on the Big Sur coast near Whale Peak (shown in background).

Sunset on the Big Sur Coast near Soberanes Point.

A small waterfall on Soberanes just before it flows into the Pacific Ocean.

Bixby Bridge at night.

Coming out of Carmel, CA I saw this sign which perfectly describes the wonderful drive through Big Sur.

Before leaving the Carmel area, I stopped by a general store and gas station in Carmel Highlands. Can’t remember the last time I saw a working pay phone, but here are two:

First up was Garrapata Park. I planned on shooting here for sunset and wanted to explore a bit to frame up some compositions. While doing so I grabbed some quick pictures to share.

When I got back to the car, I noticed this interesting display of erosion along highway 1:

Unfortunately I also noticed how lazy visitors and residents are with properly disposing of their trash, even when a trash can is 2 feet away. I couldn’t fit these buckets into my pack, but did pick up every other piece of litter I encountered along the trails. It nearly filled the outer pouch of my backpack! California could solve their budgetary problems by enforcing $1,000 littering fines. Hikers could ensure this beautiful place is available for their kids and grand kids by leaving no trace.

Next I headed up Old Coast Road to see some of the landscape from the backside (east), including Bixby Bridge. Wildflowers were rampant along this path, as seen in the foreground.

I also bumped into some fantastic Redwoods…

..including one that had fallen down and created a small waterfall – very cool!

Unlike the tourist laden Highway 1, Old Coast Road was very private and old fashioned – even the drainage structures:

Next was lunch – at the Rocky Point Restaurant. Food wasn’t great but the hiking trails around it where:

The sun was starting to set and I had chosen a rocky beach for my final shot. This location is described on the Internet as difficult to get down to (translation: private and serene). Earlier in the day I popped down with my Sunseeker app to check out predicted lighting conditions, as shown by the app screenshot below:

While waiting on the sun to set I found a cool waterfall back in the cove:

I then climbed back up the trail again to enjoy this view…

…and have a bite to eat (and drink a beer that I packed in):

And finally: sunset.

I knew the tide was rising (thanks to another useful iPhone app) and never sat down on the rocks. Instead I kneeled down to the level of my camera, which was in a ground level set position just a few inches above the rocks. This proved to be a very good decision, as I had to quickly grab the camera/tripod and run back several times when larger than average waves came crashing in. I took at least 100 images of the sea stacks to get a perfect combination of water running down the rocks, waves crashing, etc.  There are probably better ones on my computer, but this is the first one that caught my eye while downloading from the camera.

I’m running to Orange County and San Francisco for a few days, but will be back to Big Sur on Wednesday. More to come…

Despite a dry winter, you can see the start of some interesting wildflowers in the foreground of this picture taken near Bixby Bridge (featured on the left) along Pacific Coast Highway 1.

Why do Redwoods grow so thick and strong? If you’ve ever stood at Hurricane Point (just down the road from where this picture was taken), you’ll know why: to stand up to the Pacific trade winds!

McWay Falls spills into the Pacific Ocean just before sunset.

A marine layer of fog moves in as the light of a full moon rises over the horizon.

Around 1:30 in the video below shows the half-dome diffuser which will bounce your flash off the SpinLight 360′s white card and back to your subject. This isn’t as good as a wall or ceiling, but certainly a great option when neither of those are available. The video also shows how you can use the device for many other uses, like as a flag to prevent any direct light from reaching your subject when you do bounce off a wall or ceiling.

For more videos check out http://www.spinlight360.com/how.

* Note: using the half-dome diffuser and bouncing off the SpinLight 360′s white card won’t solve the problem of lighting multiple subjects (as discussed in my last post) without a wall, ceiling or other object equal distance from each subject, but it is quite useful for most other bounce flash situations.

It’s important that you recognize how all three women in the image above are evenly lit regardless of their distance from the camera. How was this achieved? Let’s start with how it wasn’t.

Direct Flash

Before learning how bounce flash works, it’s best to first understand direct flash. To demonstrate this technique, I threw a couple sand bags on the floor at varying distances from my camera and took the picture below with my speedlite pointed straight ahead.

Notice how the sandbag closest to my camera (far left) is brighter than the one furthest away (far right). You can actually see the light diminishing on the carpeted floor as it travels further from my flash.  The lighting diagram below shows an overhead view of this setup. The yellow shading is light coming from my flash and the numbered lines indicate the distance in meters each sandbag is from that flash.

Anyone who has driven at night and experienced oncoming headlights understands that the closer you are to a light source, the brighter it is. You might intuitively guess that the amount of light  reaching the furthest sandbag would be half that of the closest one since it’s twice the distance from my flash. That guess would be wrong. Instead it follows the inverse square law, which means that the power of the light will be inversely proportional to the square of the distance. If your flash is set to properly expose the closest sandbag, the furthest sandbag will receive only 1/4 as much light because the square of 2 is 4, and the inverse of that is 1/4.

Bounced Flash

So how can we make our flash power (and thus the lighting) even for all three sandbags? A lot of photographers will get close by bounce their flash off the ceiling. Below is an image where I did exactly that:

Here the sandbags are more evenly lit than the direct flash example, but the closest one is still brighter than the furthest and you can see the light diminish along the carpeted floor. What gives? The lighting diagram below shows a side view of this setup with me and the sandbags on the floor.The yellow shading is light coming from my flash and the darker shading is that which has been bounced back by the ceiling. The lines and arrows indicating the direction and distance of the light.

The bounced flash alone would have provided decently even light but there is still direct light spilling from my flash onto the sandbags, shown by the blue lines. This direct light has the same problem as when we didn’t bounce off the ceiling: the furthest sandbag receives 1/4 of the “spill” light as the closest one, thus resulting in uneven direct light which counterbalances the mostly even light provided by the ceiling bounce.

Bounced, Flagged Flash

The solution to direct light “spill” is to flag your flash so that no direct light reaches your subjects, as shown in the updated lighting diagram below. The red line represents the actual flag device, whose location on the bottom of the flash is very important.

Flagging your flash is quite easy. Most speedlites have a built-in, flip-up white “bounce card,” or better yet you can use the Spinlight360 for complete control. You’ve probably seen photographers with the flag on the top of the flash when bouncing off a ceiling. This helps conserve your flash’s battery power by not wasting light that would be bounced behind you instead of on the subjects in front of you. It also lets all that direct flash spill in front of you to your subjects. The same problem occurs with the Gary Fong LightSphere and other tupperware-like devices. Simply put: if you want even light, you have to flag it to prevent any direct light from spilling onto your subjects. The same goes for studio strobes.

Beyond Ceilings

Ceilings aren’t the only structures that can be used for bouncing. A good on-camera flash rotates 360 degrees and tilts to multiple angles for this very reason.  In this final sandbags image, I choose to bounce my flash off a wall to my right to produce soft shadows created from a side direction (instead of overhead) and the nice even light cast on the background wall.

Back to the original image – I wanted to light each of these ladies evenly. Bouncing off the ceiling wasn’t my preference because it was quite high and dark black and thus wouldn’t reflect light back without some decent power loss. There was a wall just to my right which served as a much better object to bounce light. While I made sure no direct spill light reached my human subjects, I did angle my speedlite just enough to get some spill onto the flower arrangement which frames in the right side of the photograph.

The Backdrop

I ran through several ideas in my head ranging from simple, seamless black paper to something like a movie premier where there’s a white background littered with sponsor logos. I was halfway down the later path and was just about to acquire several large (96″ x 48″) foam core panels to line up for my background when LIVESTRONG emailed me and said they had a backdrop we could borrow (since 50% of the Ski 4 Yellow proceeds benefit LIVESTRONG). I was excited, yet nervous.

The term “backdrop” can mean something totally different to a non-photographer. When I got the FedEx shipping confirmation, I was even more intrigued since the total package weight was around 30 lbs. Clearly this wasn’t just a piece of cloth – but what was it? I was pleasantly surprised when it arrived. It was a complete backdrop and frame combination. LIVESTRONG uses it behind a tables at conferences they attend, but this would also work perfect for a photo booth! If you’ve ever put up one of those canopy tents (like this one) then you’ll understand how this backdrop goes together. Basically you pull it apart and the frame gradually expands to a large square. The fabric is adhered through some very strong Velcro running the entire border of the frame.

Below is a picture from my iPhone of the frame as I was setting it up in my living room.

I now had a backdrop with the LIVESTRONG logo on it. However, people would be standing in front of and at least partially blocking that logo. I went back to my movie premier idea – littering the backdrop with logos, or in this case, Ski 4 Yellow stickers.The stickers aren’t perfectly aligned in the picture below, but pretty close…and thankfully they maintained their “stickiness” and didn’t fall off!

But there were two problems with the backdrop: (1) the frame was slightly bent on the bottom corner, allowing the entire backdrop to lean forward and easily fall over and (2) I had nothing to attach the backdrop frame to because the venue for our event was very particular about not touching the walls. I did get permission to use a wood beam on the side for stabilizing the backdrop. Thankfully I had my trusty spring clamp collection with me. These devices are invaluable to a photographer.

I’ve used them to attach reflectors, backdrops, and even flashes to other objects, and now to serve as a wedge between my LIVESTRONG backdrop frame and that wood beam. Several 2″ spring clamps protruded out from the side of the frame and rested behind the beam, making it nearly impossible for that backdrop to fall forward.

Total cost for my backdrop: $11.16 for four 2″ spring clamps. LIVESTRONG paid for the shipping of their backdrop and the “Ski 4 Yellow” stickers were free to me, left over from last year’s event.

Lighting

Now I concentrated on lighting. I knew space would be limited for my “photo booth” setup, which is another reason why a black backdrop was easier than a white one (since black doesn’t show shadows as well whereas a white backdrop would need it’s own lighting just on the background itself). I debated bringing in some big studio strobes and such, but in the end I felt like speedlights would do the trick! I own several Nikon SB-80DX’s and the things are tanks! No they don’t do TTL with my Canon gear, but I didn’t need that for a photo booth.

One of the things I really like about the SB-80′s is the build-in optical slave (something Canon’s $600 speedlite doesn’t even offer). This means that whenever they see another flash fire, they too will fire, similair to how studio strobes can be configured. The optical slave feature on the Nikon flashes can always be counted on to fire whenever another flash does. I’ve even heard stories of them being triggered by flashing police lights driving by. However, I turned this feature OFF and went with wireless radio triggering for one reason: I didn’t want other camera flashes falsely triggering my flashes. Good thing I did, as there was at least one other professional photographer there who was using flash, and plenty of other point and shoots firing their built-in flash.

Another reason I like the SB-80′s is they have a built-in PC sync port. I used Yongnuo RF-602RX wireless receivers, which can attach directly to the hotshoe on the flash. However, that configuration doesn’t feel sturdy to me, so I always use the PC sync cord as shown below.

This venue had tungsten lighting (~2,800K) whereas my speedlights output 5,500K. This gave me two choices – gel my speedlights to match the tungsten or kill the ambient light. What I mean by kill the ambient light is to use an exposure setting that without flash doesn’t allow any (or enough to matter) of that ambient tungsten lighting into the photo. Instead, the subjects are lighted purely from my speedlight flash. I chose that approach (to kill the ambient) because as I was setting up, they were rehearsing the lighting for the keynote speech and other various milestones in the program and the lighting changed drastically.

Whenever possible, I like to shoot (and flash) in full time manual because I can “set it and forget it.” I initially set my camera to the aperture I wanted for depth of field (f/7.1) and an exposure of 1/100 (slow enough to not require a high ISO or high flash output but fast enough to account for slight movement by my subjects, who for the most part would be standing still). ISO was at 100 to start. This also accomplished my goal of killing the ambient. I then added in the speedlights and noticed that I needed just under half power for them to properly expose my subjects (which was me standing in front of the backdrop, tripping my shutter with a wireless remote).

I wanted to see if I could get the necessary flash output down to 1/3 or even 1/4 power. My reason for wanting to do this was twofold. Just like with studio strobes, speedlights must “recharge” after they’ve exerted all of their power. A strobe firing at 1/2 power can fire twice very quickly before needing to recharge, a process that takes a couple seconds on my speedlights. A strobe firing at 1/4 power can fire four times very quickly before needing to recharge. I wasn’t planning on capturing action shots in my photo booth, but if someone said “wait, take another one, I just blinked” (which happened many, many times), I wanted to be able to take another one quickly without waiting for the speedlight to recharge.

The second reason is that speedlights run on batteries, and batteries don’t last forever. If I could get by with 1/4 power instead of 1/2 power, I’d be changing batteries only half as much. I found that I could get down to around 1/3 power by simply lowering my aperture to f/6.3 and increasing my ISO to 160 – both perfectly acceptable for my needs.

We took over 300 images that night in the photo booth and I didn’t have to change the batteries once.

That said, after a 30 minute break for the keynote speaker, I had a couple come up for “one last picture.” I immediately noticed on both my camera LCD and laptop screen that the image was slightly underexposed. My batteries were about out! Instead of lowering the light stand down and changing the batteries, I simply bumped my ISO up a stop and the resulting image was perfect. My camera could compensate for my “tired” batteries!

Throw in a couple light stands with umbrella brackets and a shoot-through umbrella mounted to each and you’ve got onsite strobes! One important aspect to never overlook – weighing down your light stands to avoid someone bumping into them and tipping them over. I use bags from ePhoto that ship empty but can be filled with whatever material you prefer.  I have plenty of rock fill under my deck and simply fill these bags up with that for free.

Total cost for lighting: $357. That’s two Nikon SB-80DX’s at $80 used, two Yongnuo RF-602RX’s at $20 (includes PC sync cord), one Yongnuo transmitter at $15, two light stands at $30, two umbrella brackets at $18, two shoot through umbrellas at $9, $28 for empty sand bags, and free gravel (instead of sand) from underneath my deck) – all of which is laying on my office floor in the picture below.

Image Display

I wasn’t printing onsite but wanted people to have instant gratification from their image so they would remember to visit the Ski 4 Yellow website that next day to download their image or order a print. I shot tethered in Lightroom, meaning the image went to both my camera’s compact flash card and my laptop’s hard drive. Displaying the most recently shot image was easy – I setup a second monitor (which was actually a TV from my bedroom connected to my laptop via HDMI) and enabled Lightroom’s second display in Loupe mode. This is all standard Lightroom configuration.

In addition to showing people their photo, I wanted those passing by to be intrigued and drawn into the photo booth – and to do that, I wanted to randomly rotate images from throughout the night on my second display if the booth was empty. Lightroom can do a slideshow on the second display, but this would complicate my process, requiring me to switch configurations back and forth on my laptop. I wanted an easier setup.

The first idea that popped in my mind was to let a screensaver take over after a few minutes that would rotate through images randomly. I always shoot RAW on my camera, but for this event could shoot RAW + JPEG to generate the JPEGs that screensaver could understand (since it doesn’t read RAW). To conserve space, I even set my camera to small JPEG. The problem I ran into is that Windows 7 only wanted to show the screensaver on my primary monitor (my laptop) and not the secondary monitor (the TV everyone would see). Thankfully I came across UltraMon, which among other things, allows you to independently configure a screen saver for each monitor. Problem solved! Lightroom would display the most recently taken image and then a screensaver would take over after 2 minutes of inactivity and randomly rotate through all images taken that evening. Cost of that software? Zero!

For only $368.16, I built a complete photo booth solution.

Granted that assumes that I already had a camera, laptop, a USB cord to connect my camera to the laptop, and a TV, but what photographer doesn’t already have those things? Even if you don’t have Lightroom for tethered shooting, you can download a free trial that will get you well beyond the one night needed for your photo booth. I also had the benefit of a nice, free backdrop, but you can pin some cheap black fabric to a wall for next to nothing and dress it up with stickers the same as I did. I had my camera permanently resting on a tripod and used a shutter release cable on my camera. This made things more convenient for me but certainly wasn’t required.

A pullback shot of my setup just before the party started is below. My workflow was simple: ask people into the photo booth, line them up how I wanted them in relation to the backdrop, hit the button on my shutter release cable, and then ask them to step around and take a look at their image on the TV. Business card size flyers littered throughout a table by the TV directed them to the Ski 4 Yellow website to download or print their image that next day.

Below is an image from when my much better looking wife and I stepped into the photo booth. You’ll notice me and many others sporting a Yellow Bow Tie from bowtiecause.org. If you’ve never heard about the Bow Tie Cause, you should check their organization out. If you don’t know how to tie a bow tie, come to next year’s Yellow Tie cocktail party and I’ll show you how!

You can see the rest of the photo booth images at http://photos.4yellowfoundation.org/2012yellowtiebooth/.

Ideas for Next Time…

Some improvement ideas I’m tossing around for the Ride 4 Yellow photo booth in a few months:

• Using my cell hotspot to automatically post the images to Facebook – and then encourage participants to go in and tag themselves immediately. This would help get the word out about the event and The 4 Yellow Foundation.
• Post the images to Zenfolio.com,  a service I use to allow people to download their images and order prints. 4 Yellow offers the prints at cost and this would catch people at an opportune time to encourage them to get the picture off their iPhone or hard drive and onto their wall or desk at work – also helping spread the word.

Stay tuned…the Ride event photography is going to be awesome! If you’re interested in volunteering – send me a note using the “Contact” page.

Special Thanks

Last but certainly not least, I’d like to thank fellow Photographer Danielle Heit for helping me pull off the wildly popular photo booth. Whenever I was roaming the crowd taking party pics or covering the keynote speaker, she was operating the booth – and did a great job at it!

The photo booth I had setup at the Friday night “Yellow Tie” cocktail party was quite a hit. Shown above are two speedlites on wireless triggers pointed toward a backdrop lent to us by LIVESTRONG and littered with “Ski 4 Yellow” stickers. Half of the funds raised by 4 Yellow events benefit LIVESTRONG globally, while the remaining half benefit local cancer initiatives. I shot tethered so images could be immediately viewed by attendees on the TV monitor.

Chad Fleischer, ten year veteran of the US Ski Team and member of the 1994 and 1998 Winter Olympic Teams, steps into the photo booth with a fellow Ski 4 Yellow teammate.

Denver Broncos alumni Reggie Rivers delivers the “Yellow Tie” cocktail party keynote speech.

Ski 4 Yellow participant Valerie Ruth proudly displays who she “Skis 4″ today and thanks all her sponsors.

Three-time Silver Medalist and World Champion Johnny Spillane (right) rides the Morningstar lift with his teammates for the 2012 Ski 4 Yellow.

The American 300 team poses next to Michael Lane, Public Relations Director at Steamboat Ski & Resort Corporation.

A night in a heated room and decently comfortable bed was much appreciated, but I had to leave early to get to my intended spot for sunrise. As I drove back up Co Rd 5, I quickly realized that my decision to leave the night before was a blessing. The campsite had been at the end of the road, which this morning was impassible about 2/3 of the way in. I snowshoed in later that afternoon and furthered my appreciation for getting the car out while I could. Below is a picture of me and my “assistant” Maverick at the campsite post-snowstorm.

I didn’t get the shot I had planned that morning, but one even better! Country Road 7 follows the Dallas Creek into one of the most beautiful valleys in the state at the end of the foot of Mt. Sneffels. It was a tad bit past official sunrise, but some extra elevation on the pitch to the left of me created for dramatic shadows across the valley. Best of all, it was just me, my dog, and one other photographer that morning. Rather than trying to find a combination snowcat/tow truck to pull my car out, I was in awe of God’s amazing beauty in the San Juans.

Since incorporating this umbrella silhouette image into the cover photo of my Facebook Page, I’ve been getting a lot of questions about how it was shot. I was in Denver for a week on a business trip and brought my landscape camera equipment with the intent of shooting at Roxborough State Park. For reasons I can’t even remember, that idea didn’t work out, but I did find a flash and shoot through umbrella in my hiking pack from an on-location portrait session I completed the week before. I decided to search for a model at the last minute and try a personal project in portraiture instead.

Photographers often get so busy with commercial (translation: paid) work that they stop doing personal projects. Photography is an avocation for me and thus I try to dedicate about half my time to personal projects – and love doing so! Ironically, a lot of my personal projects accidentally turn into commercial offerings, like my Cityscapes of Kansas City collection.

Back to the silhouette image: my model (Jaylene) and I both wanted something “out of the box.” Neither of us could start shooting until around dinner time. It was mid August so we had a little sunlight left, but not much. I had talked with Jaylene via email about doing something creative with the umbrella I had left in my pack. When we arrived at Cheesman Park in downtown Denver, the sun was starting to set and made for a great underexposed image. I grabbed some gaffer’s tape (a photographer’s best friend), a speedlite, and two wireless radio transceivers out of my bag, taped the flash to the pole of the umbrella and asked Jaylene to rest the umbrella on her shoulder and twirl it around. The flash was pointed straight at the umbrella. I also flagged it on all sides to prevent any spill from lighting up Jaylene, as shown below:

The first few images were surprisingly impressive – other than some selective exposure darkening to the grass lawn of the park, the image below is almost straight out of the camera. I really like Jaylene’s hair silhouetted against the umbrella and the curves of her body against the clouds and sunset.

A special thanks to Jaylene and her friend Tracy who not only assisted with the shot above, but also modeled in some nighttime outdoor shots we did later that evening, like the one below: