Posts in category Events

Lighting Demo at Buena Park Camera Show

Apr29
2012 Leave a Comment Written by KerryG

If you are looking for good deals on photography equipment, you should check out Bargain Camera Shows which take place in Pasadena, Buena Park, and San Diego. Today we were in Buena Park with my Blackbelt Lighting Products and had models from VIP Model Events.

For these shots we had a super simple setup with just a 44″ softbox umbrella with a Blackbelt Lighting BB560 speedlite in it set to 1/2 power. With the camera set to 1/250th, ISO 100, f/5.6 we were able to pull really nice light. The softbox umbrella was mounted on a lightweight boom arm so that the umbrella was positioned about 2′ above the model and about a 45 degree angle up from their face.

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Impromptu Portrait Setup at MDA Christmas Party

Dec05
2011 Leave a Comment Written by KerryG

My wife is the patient liaison for the MDA so she often volunteers me to work different events as the photographer. At a recent Christmas party my wife had told me that she wanted me to come and “just take some event photos”. While this sounded like a good idea at the time, when I got there and saw all the families there I decided that I wanted to do a portrait setup for them. The problem was, most of my gear was back in the studio and I only had what was in my camera bag and the trunk of my car.

In the trunk I found an 8′ light stand, but no umbrella or softbox. In the camera bag I had a couple of flashes and a large and mediium ExpoImaging Rouge Flashbender. While not really an ideal portrait setup, I figured I would use a flash on the stand with the large FlashBender as the key light. While this would give some decent directional light, the shadows would be pretty harsh and without another good modifier I needed a way to soften the shadows. The simple solution was to use another flash on-camera with the medium Flashbender. By throwing the light from the flash on the camera, this would help soften shadows and fill in any dark spots.

Did I pull it off with an absolute minimum of equipment, you be the judge.

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Parkour/Free Running Photo Shoot

Jun09
2011 Leave a Comment Written by KerryG

Man am I behind in getting some of my own work posted but I wanted to share this recent photo shoot that I did with some local Parkour guys. The event was put together in conjunction with http://24-7mag.com and the OC Photo Club. I also put together some video from the event that you can watch below the image slideshow.

Slideshow:
Fullscreen:

Posted in Blog, Featured, People - Tagged , , ,

Veteran’s Benefit 2011

May01
2011 Leave a Comment Written by KerryG

One of my favorite charity events I do each year is the annual Veteran’s Benefit Banquet at Cal State University Fullerton. Last year they wanted the shots on a basic gray background but this year I decided to try to spruce it up a little. Using the same gray background I wanted to try to get some kind of theme going on the background. Since I was running with my minimal lighting kit, I only had three speedlites to work with and one was the key light and the other was the fill light, this left only one for the background. While I could have used a single color, I really wanted to try something different. I took the backlight and covered half of it with a red gel and the other half with a blue gel and took a test shot.

First Test Shot

This wasn’t too bad but the blue wasn’t showing up as much as I wanted. Back into the gel kit I found a darker blue and tried a second test shot.

Second Test Shot

Ok! Now we are getting somewhere. I wished I had taken the white background so I would get a red, white, and blue effect but since I only had the gray, this would have to work. Time to stick a live subject in.

Live Shot

Due to the height, the colors start to mix and become more of a purple. Ideally I would have liked to have mounted the background light on the top of the backdrop stand which would have made the blue and red stand out more. Actually, if I had enough lights I would have liked to have had blue on one light, red on another, and a bare third light to try to create red, white, and blue stripes.

Although it worked really well for one or two people, the test was was it would look like with a group, it didn’t take long before a small group (we actually shot groups up to 10 people with this same setup).

Group Shoot

Not too shabby for a 1 minute gel setup. This has really inspired me to try to get even more creative with gels so stay tuned and see if I can come up with something really interesting.

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SMUGMUG Riverside Meeting

Mar20
2011 Leave a Comment Written by KerryG

I was quite thrilled to be asked to be an instructor at today’s SMUGMUG Lighting & Posing Event. This was the second opportunity I have had recently to shoot at Shutter Stories Studio. We had a great set of models and photographers that all came together to haver a great time shooting and learning. I set up a really simple lighting setup to show people how to get started with basic lighting tools and still be able to get creative lighting. Here are a few of my favorites even though I didn’t really shoot much as I was making sure the photographers got to take as many as possible.

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Been on the road lately

Mar15
2011 Leave a Comment Written by KerryG

Hopefully things are going to start to return some some degree of normality around here soon. In the past three weeks I have spent more time on the road than I have at home. Don’t feel too sorry for me, as I have been having a great time traveling around teaching people how to improve their photography with off-camera lighting.

This past weekend myself and fellow photographer buddy Chris Diset joined forces with Nations Photo Lab to demo off-camera lighting techniques at the Pro Photo Expo in Pasadena. Over the three days, hundreds and hundreds of people came by to see what we were doing and even to take shots with our great models.

On Friday, we started off with Monique La Barr who was a great sport the entire day and really helped draw attention to the Nations Photo Lab booth. Here are a few of my favorite shots from Friday.

On Saturday I was thrilled to have two of my daughters with me. Andi Garrison was there to do makeup while Taylor Thorne rocked the house with her modeling. In the booth next to use was Backdrop Outlet who loaned us a cool purple background for the day. Some of my favorite shots from Saturday include these:

On Sunday, Monique was back along with a different background from Backdrop Outlet.

Of course, I have to throw in a couple shots of the team. The first pic below is Chris hamming it up for the camera and the second shot are my two girls.

Want to learn more about off-camera flash and help make your images better, be sure and check out all my tutorials at http://cameradojo.com and my lighting products at http://blackbeltlighting.com.

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Going to be a busy month!

Mar03
2011 Leave a Comment Written by KerryG

As much as I love shooting, I probably love teaching even more. The excitement that comes to a student’s face and the expression they get when they have nailed an image with creative lighting. I have been very fortunate to be able to have the opportunity lately to be hitting up venues across the country and share tips with different people.

Last week I was out in Las Vegas at WPPI doing lighting demos, then it was off to Minnesota where I hooked up with Jason Anderson where we teamed up to teach a Lightroom workshop at the Northern Light Convention.

This weekend it’s off to Hollywood for an LA Shoot This! event with a bunch of photographers and models on a double deck bus tour of great Hollywood landmarks. There are a few tickets left, be sure and check it out at:
http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=191226247564750

March 11th – 13th Chris Diset is joining up with me to do lighting demos at the ProPhoto Expo in Pasadena.

There are a lot of other great events coming up over the next couple of months and I really hope to meet more of you at some of these events.

Posted in Blog

The Misadventures of Captain Kerry

Feb26
2011 Leave a Comment Written by KerryG

I knew in advance it was going to be a rough week, after all it was a pretty rough schedule right from the beginning, but I really had no idea just had bad it would get. Sunday and Monday were fairly uneventful in Houston Texas. WPPI was next on Tuesday/Wednesday in Las Vegas (that will put the hurt on most anyone). Then it was off to Reston Virginia for Thursday and Friday. And then things went bad. Trying to leave Dulles airport to get to Minneapolis, weather delays meant missing my connecting flight in Chicago. I can either stay and fly out in the morning or get to Chicago and hope for the best. Staying wasn’t an option because by the time I went through Chicago and on to Minneapolis, I would then be late for my presentation at the Northern Light Convention, so off to Chicago it was.

Every hotel within driving distance was already booked due to hundreds of canceled flights so I had no choice but to hunker down in O’Hare for the night. The airport staff laid out seemingly child-sized cots for us around midnight.

image

You must be thinking “at least you had a cot for the night”. I am 6′ 2″ and there is simply no position on this thing that was even remotely comfortable. Add to that the overhead lights, even with half of them turned off, was very bright. On top of this, imagine when someone holds an inflated balloon tight and twists their hands on it making that horribly obnoxious squeaking sound…that is exactly what it sounded like anytime anyone moved on these Boy Scout Torture Tables.

The real kicker was security coming in, flipping the lights on, and telling everyone it was time to wake up. Oh I beg to differ Mr. Blue Jumpsuit with an iron-on badge…my alarm has not gone off yet, therefor it is NOT time for me to wake up. My unwillingness to snap out of unconsciousness was only meet with additional blue jumpsuited guys who were even more insistent that it was indeed time to wake up.

Oh well, my head is reeling and groggy from an apparent lack of sleep when I finally was able to focus on my phone and realized that it was 4:00am. Really? Really? Reeeeeeaaaallllly? The powers that be at O’Hare found it sufficient that putting cots out at midnight and kicking us out of them at 4am….4 hours….really?

It’s now coming up on 7am, I have about 90 minutes before my flight. The flight itself is only about 90 minutes so there won’t be a whole lot of sleeping there. Once we land, Jason Anderson from CanonBlogger is picking me up for the FOUR HOUR DRIVE to Brainard so we can do a Lightroom presentation. No doubt I will get more sleep in the back of the rental car than I got in the airport.

Over the years the travel Gods have blessed me, in all of my travels I have only had three multi-hour delays and nothing longer than an hour for the past 11 years…I guess when my number came up this time there needed to be some payback from all the good luck I have had over the years. Such is life.

If you are out there traveling, I wish you well, for me, I need some sleep.

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Leaving Las Vegas

Feb23
2011 Leave a Comment Written by KerryG

Unfortunately for me another WPPI is in the history books and I have to get back on a plane for two more stops this week. I always enjoy seeing all my old friends there and making new friends. Didn’t get to a lot of the platforms but really enjoyed http://www.jasongroupp.com talk about lighting and picked up his new DVD. I also really want to thank everyone for all the birthday wishes since I will be spending my birthday today in airports and on planes.

Las Vegas

View from Pool Area of MGM Signature

Studio 54

Photogs Rocking Out at Studio 54

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Off to WPPI and Northern Lights Conferences

Feb21
2011 Leave a Comment Written by KerryG

What a week this is going to be. I have some business out is Houston Texas on Sunday and Monday, then it’s off to WPPI in Las Vegas where I will be doing some one-on-one mentoring in the Nation’s Photo Lab booth on Tuesday. Wednesday is a travel day for some business in Reston Virginia on Thursday and Friday. Finally, its off to Minnesota where I am joining up with Jason Anderson to talk Lightroom at the Northern Lights Convention.

If you are going to be at any of these events, please stop by and say hi.

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