Once again I needed to get out of the house to actually shoot some photos. If nothing else, it was for the sake of making pictures amidst my “daddy boot camp” lifestyle as of late. On Saturday night I called Brett and Rob, in which we hooked up with Alex Nelson who had white seamless set-up at his house. Rob grabbed his friend Joe as our model and we shot a for hour or so. Headshots were the name of the game..

Yes, it’s white seamless. I used a single 28″ Wescott softbox with a Quantum Q-Flash inside.

The next day it was some shots of Eden, our 9-month old. I needed to get some shots to match the black and white 20×30 canvas prints of Tobin and Zoee in our living room. These were shot with only available window light in our bedroom.

~dave

I’m excited to say I have won a 2008 WPJA International Award for Quarter 4. The shot comes from Jeff & Katie’s wedding on May 10th, 2008. The image placed 14th in the Kids (being Kids) category for the contest. Here is what the judges had to say:

“A really nice moment. I usually don’t like grab shots that are center weighted but in this case I didn’t mind at all. I kept coming back to this image because of it’s charm, and the impact of technology on the kids–and they don’t even realize it’s relatively new, to them it’s old hat. The boy-girl aspect of it is very cute as well.“

~dave

Interesting things happen when cabin fever sets in. It’s been a long, cold winter here in Wisconsin with way too much idle time on my hands. Since my wife has returned to teaching full-time, I have found myself with more and more responsibilities around the house aside from taking care of our three little ladies. Take for instance cooking and washing dishes. Although I am no stranger to these seemingly simple household tasks, the frequency of these duties come much more often as of late.

So as I was doing the dishes tonight, with my kids counteracting my attempts to maintain a clean house, I thought about the possibilities of using everyday kitchenware to function as off-camera light modifiers. Seeing as how I was headed to Trevor and Amy’s house to help move a couch (a mint condition black leather sofa from the 70′s nonetheless), I decided I could try out my simple yet dimwitted lighting scheme.

After finding the right lighting set-up for each cooking implement, I was actually surprised at the results. Seeing as how we pulled these right out of the cabinet, we were not afforded the luxury of light stands, booms and gobs of grip gear. It was Amy that filled in as my VAL (Voice-Activated Lightstand). It was definitely cool to see the whole thing unfold. Here’s the recipe..

Ingredients:

• 12-inch stainless steel mixing bowl
• 9.5-inch stainless steel colander
• 8-inch ceramic bowl
• stainless steel teapot
• 11×7 baking pan
• standard cheese metal grater
• white kitchen size trash can

Mix (gently) with:

• Sunpak 383 hotshoe flash
• PocketWizard Plus II’s
• Canon 1D Mark III
• Canon 16-35L f/2.8
• mint condition leather couch from the 70′s
• a Studio Manager (preferably with a beard)

First up is the 12-inch stainless steel mixing bowl. This was my first choice. It threw off some nicely shaped, focused light.

The 8-inch ceramic bowl. Not the best light.

Ahhhhh, yes…. the colander. This was pretty cool, but hard to predict where the shadows would land. I shot through it.

Next was the cheese grater. We actually had to break the handle off and use it as a snoot, but it worked fairly well.

The baking pan sucked. It threw light into the corners of the frame and was darker towards the center. Not to mention it threw my camera’s white balance to hell. That was, of course, after Amy scrapped the stale a$$ brownies out of the pan and gave it a quick wash.

The teapot was interesting. It was more like a grid spot. The flash head was put inside and the spout was aimed at Trevor.

And finally… the trash can. I could shoot on-location with this thing all day!

What a better thing to do with my Friday night than to play with pots and pans. I felt like my 2 year-old for a while. If you’re into saving money, by all means go for it! But just don’t forget to spend some money on actual light modifiers. It’ll make your life so much easier.

~dave

Trevor and I spent the better part of 10 hours today shooting video, along with two engagement shoots here in Appleton. I think I cleaned out nearly 5 empty cups of coffee from my car after it was all said and done. The weather was supreme and the comaraderie was fantastic! Here are some shots from the day…

STEPHANIE & ANDY

ALICIA & CHAD

Trevor and a 5D Mark II. More of this in the coming week…

Special thanks go out to Dan Wessel at Coldwell Real Estate.
~dave

I’m very happy to say that I have placed 13th in the Reception category in the Winter 2008 WEDCOMP international photo competition! Below is the shot from Jeff and Katie’s wedding.

~dave