For some reason, I really like the cheap coffee at Cyclops. It’s not the best coffee on the planet, and they serve you so little at a time that it gets cold quickly, but I seem to have no problems drinking a lot of it whenever I go there for brunch. Maybe it’s because there are free refills. Maybe it’s because I’m usually still waking up when I go there on Sunday morning/afternoon. Or, maybe it’s because cheap coffee is the best way to wash down a big, hearty breakfast consisting of a 2-ton omelette, a loaf of toast, and a sack of potatoes. Yeah, that’s probably it.
Let it be known that I love Labor Day weekend. Every year something fun happens. It could be as simple as a Labor Day BBQ or an entire weekend of fun and craziness. There were no BBQs this year, but there was some crazy-fun and more than my fair share of R&R.
The majority of the weekend was taken up the Penny Arcade Expo. I, along with over 50k geeks and nerds, descended up the Washington State Convention Center to over-saturate ourselves with video games, toys, and all sorts of geek culture. I only attended the first two days of the three-day event, but I still feel like I got my fill. I tried out some neat game demos (Afro Samurai was my fave from the weekend). I met up with a few old co-workers from Garage Games. And — my favorite part by far — I got to see Rock Band 2 in action (I didn’t actually play, because I didn’t feel like standing in line for 30+ minutes).
As usual, I had my camera with me, but I only focused it on my friends and our immediate activities. I figured there would enough photos of PAX floating around the interwebs, so I didn’t bother shooting the show itself. Here’s a fun photo of Jason, Montine, John, and Scott playing Rock Band 2 on the Harmonix main stage:
And here’s a shot of Rachel and her hand of cards in Zombies!!!:
And then here’s a stupid photo of an inappropriate zombie:
As with previous years, I had a blast at PAX. It was even better this year, since I knew more people going and could hang out with them rather than wandering around by myself. However, after two days of non-stop geekery, I needed to get away from all of the smelly nerds and bright flashing lights and just chill. The rest of the long weekend was spent enjoying the gorgeous weather, taking photos, editing photos, and playing a ton of Rock Band. I wish I could have long weekends every week.
When I’m shooting portraits, I like to keep my lighting setup simple. It’s not that I don’t like fancy lighting setups with modifiers and gels and all that jazz. I’m just too lazy to set everything up. Also, I don’t own a lot of lighting gear, so I try to make do with what I have.
This portrait of Margaret that I shot the other night is a good example of keeping things simple. All I used here was two speedlights. The main light is a Nikon SB-600 at 1/4 power in a shoot-through umbrella just above head level and to camera left. I also had a bare Nikon SB-600 at 1/2 power directly behind her blasting at the wall. I set the zoom on the backlight to 14mm so that I could get pretty wide coverage. Exposure on the camera was 1/125th second at f/8 at ISO 200.
Here’s a look at how everything was set up:
The camera on the tripod is approximately where I was standing (Margaret used the same lighting setup for a self-portrait). The SB-600 that I used for the backlight is on the pile of books on the coffee table behind Margaret. I angled the flash head up towards the wall, so I could get a nice gradual falloff towards the ceiling. Nothing fancy here.
Looking at the final image, you’d never know that it was shot in the middle of a living room using a blank wall as a backdrop. I love that I can use two relatively cheap speedlights and an umbrella and get a nice-looking studio-like portrait just about anywhere I want.
Here’s a fun head-shot of Margaret that I took during an introductory off-camera lighting lesson. Margaret’s going to be doing head-shots at work soon, and she asked me to show her some basic portrait lighting techniques. I was more than happy to oblige.
The lighting setup for this is pretty straightforward. The main light is a Nikon SB-600 at 1/4 power in a shoot-through umbrella up high and at camera right. The fill light is a second Nikon SB-600 at 1/16 power in a shoot-through umbrella down low and at camera left. If you look at the catchlights in her left eye, you can figure out exactly where the lights were positioned. The background is an empty wall in Margaret’s apartment.
I shot the image on my Nikon D300 with a Sigma 30mm f/1.4 lens. The exposure was 1/125th second at f/8. Only minor post-processing was done in Lightroom (drop the exposure a tiny bit, add a bit of fill, boost contrast a little). For the most part, the final image is only slightly changed from the in-camera version.
I’m really happy with how this photo turned out. I was actually doing some lighting and exposure tests, and Margaret made faces the entire time. I just happened to snap this one at the right moment. It’s fun, spontaneous, and a fairly accurate representation of Margaret’s goofy and quirky side. What was originally a test shot is now the keeper of the session. I love it when that happens.
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