A bit of behind the scenes information about my PAD for September 16th 2009. The initial concept for the picture was to have a hand come out of a suitcase, and to add some visual drama by putting a lightsource inside the suitcase too.
I placed one of my flashes inside the suitcase. Because I wanted the light to spread as evenly as possible, I placed the flash inside a clear plastic tube (the ones you get when you buy 100 DVD-Rs together… I burn every RAW file I might ever need to get back to on DVD. Twice.) Since the lid would be closed, Canon’s ETTL triggerism functionality wouldn’t work here – it needs line of sight. A perfect opportunity for my new PocketWizard set then. The flash and the FlexTT5 fitted inside the tube easily. A stofen omnibounce-type diffuser spread the light out a bit more. The settings on this flash were 32mm at 1/2 power.
The flash on the Manfrotto Nano 005B lightstand, which provides the light outside the suitcase is still triggered via Canon’s ETTL. It’s zoomed in to 100mm, at 1/2 +0,7 power. A full CTB (Color Temperature Blue) gives the light a blue cast that contrasts with the neutral light from the suitcase. To limit the area lit by this flash to a small surface, I added a DIY straw snoot to it. That way the beam behaves more like a spotlight.
I took one picture with just the suitcase, and another with the same settings (Canon 5DMkII, ISO100, f/9, 1/200) where my sister put her arm in from one side and out at the front again.
In Photoshop I layered the two photos over each other. Now all I had to do was mask Carmen out of the photo so that only her hand would remain visible.
Category: People
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Zombies at an Airport
The sequel to Snakes on a Plane -
Happy New Year!
Happy 2010 guys, and thanks for stopping by the blog. I’ll post a collection of my favourite photos of 2009 soon.
Joe, Tom, Philippe and Alain on New Year's Eve -
Wedding: Stéphanie & Alain
On May 16th this year my friends Stéphanie Valenti and Alain Engelmann got married in Pétange. I met Alain in the scouts when we were about 10 years old. Sté joined the scouts a bit later; that’s where they met as well.
I’m glad that I could actually make it to their wedding; it was during the exam period at uni. The wedding was on Saturday, I traveled back to England on Sunday and wrote an exam on Monday. Alison had come down to Luxembourg with me. We were their photographers for the afternoon and their guests during the evening … although when I saw an opportunity too good to be missed I got the camera out again for a couple of photographs after the dinner.
You’ll notice that I’m on some of the photos from the evening, Alison took those after setting up the lights with me.