Man on the Street: May I?

Here is a series that i shot on the streets of Japan. A good mentor of mine suggested i do this. He sent me a link to a gentleman that would walk the streets and shoot portraits of the Japanese locals. The whole idea I got from him was to be comfortable enough to convince a random stranger to stand in front of the lens for one photo.

All that i did was set up a tripod for my camera, an SB900 camera left and a SB800 on a tripod directly behind the subject. All in all it took 5 minutes to set up, and an hour to shoot. So far I am happy with the results.


I will tell you however, that you should be careful setting up lighting like this in a public area. You always run the risk of equipment getting damaged, or lost.

Here are the photos i shot so far:

Technical aspects are as follows:
Nikon D300 on a SLIK 400 DX-LE
ISO 200/50mm 1.4 f/1.4 at 250th
SB900 against a 45" Calumet Umbrella
SB800 on a SLIK 400 DX-LE Behind Subject

It really took some convincing sometimes to get the people to pose for me. Once I was able to show them a semi-result on the digital back, they were more open minded about standing there.


When I said you need to be careful, you really do. I was actually asked to leave the area by Japanese police. Granted we had shot plenty of photos already though.. Just be careful!

Very happy with the results. Next step is to get a whole series done. Maybe a whole group of people at a time? hmmm....

What did you do UNCOMFORTABLE today?

Tackling the Darkness: Confidence

I was recently asked to shoot photos of my friend and his car. I know that my re-occuring theme in the last few blogs has been the thought of 'uncomfortable' feelings.

Having never shot photos of a car before, this was something I would be completely interested in.

When we approached the area we were going to shoot the subject and his car, it was COMPLETELY dark, with little to no ambient light.

One of my good friends and I had been talking about HDR images and the way they work. In a nutshell, you expose for highlights, darks, and mid-tones in three separate images. Then using Photoshop(or whatever platform of your choice) you essentially make one solid image, that captures all three elements at their fullest.

That's EXACTLY what I was able to do with this image.

To start I placed the car in a good position, along with the tripod. The key to this type of image is that the tripod should not move at all. It was also key that the car did not move at all either. Any slight movement would make merging the image in post production harder.

Step 1: Expose for the entire sky and all ambient light around.
- The exposure I set for this image is: f/5.6 at 30 sec.


Step 2: Expose for the anything around the car. For this shot I exposed for a vehicle driving by. The light off of the vehicle allowed for further exposure on the back side of the car, as well as adding a slight artistic feel to the photo with the stream of light in the background.

This exposure was set to: f/5.6 at 15 sec.


Step 3: expose for the Person in the photo. This is where your studio style lighting comes into play. I shot with an sb900 camera right through a white calumet 45" umbrella.

This exposure was set to: f/5.6 at 3 sec.


Step 4: Now that I have all three images, post production time. Here is the final result after some time spent at the computer merging the images carefully.

Its really that simple if you think about it. I suggest you try something like this! It was fun, and totally worth the time spent for one image.

Getting out of my comfort zone, and attacking a photo shoot with full confidence. Have fun with what you do, and NEVER let anyone tell you that you CANT do it. Cause you can.

Here in the future, what if i did this same photo with an entire Navy Warship? Hmmmmm....

What did you do Creative today?

If You Have Not Failed, You Have Not Lived...

Check out this video. Great inspiration to remember that failure, doesn't mean you should quit trying.



Ill be the first to admit that failure is not easy to handle for most.... As a matter of fact, I am still dealing with the battle on a regular basis. You know, the battle of being Humble, and knowing when you messed up.

I suggest you remember that even if you fail, you are gradually learning from the mistakes you made, or will make.

Come to find failure as an inspiration, not as an excuse to give up.

What did you fail at today?