I met Jimmy through some mutual friends recently, and she’s been nothing but awesome since.  She asked me to do some headshots for a project she’s working on, and of course I agreed.  She’s a pretty laid back person, not your typical girlygirl, and as a result is a blast to hang out with.

After we got the shots for her project, we just goofed off for another 20 minutes or so and snapped off some frames.  I like this girl, she has a really great sense of expression, and is just very fun to work with.

These shots were taken out at Ivan’s house (his garage).  Where it was extremely warm.  Key was the brand new LumoPro LP160 flash fired full blast through a Westcott 60″ shoot-through (both of which I’ve had for a month and hadn’t used until this day!).  Lit our backdrop from behind with my old Minolta flash firing through the sheet to help eliminate shadows to create the pure white background.  Camera was f/8, 1/200th @ISO100.

Once in a while, great ideas are had.  They change the way you think, the way you look at art, and maybe society.  When these ideas spring to life, they can enrich your existence in ways never before thought possible.

This is not that kind of idea.

This is pure unadulterated humor, sprung forth from the sick twisted minds of sick twisted people.  And therefore, it is awesome.  Travis, the duder behind the oh-so-magical Whiskey For Breakfast, has come up with a rather amusing premise for what I’d call a comedic photo essay.  He’s had part one of this series up for a while now, but I’m just now getting to blogging about it.

The shoot happened the weekend of the iPad launch, and instead of standing around with a bunch of geeks and nerds, we drove around town shooting ridiculous photos of Steve in a bodybag.  All in all, good times.

More will be surfacing through the cracks of Travis’ demented frontal lobe as it leaks out.

Check out Whiskey For Breakfast, or follow Travis on Twitter.  Have an idea for a bodybag shoot?  Contact Travis on Twitter with the hashtag #thingstodowithabodybag.

Ivan and I were killing some time in downtown, and I decided I wanted to shoot something.  We ended up in Old Sac, and he had the brilliant idea of trying to get access to the third deck of the Delta King, with the iconic Tower Bridge in the background.  The manager was nice enough to let us up there, and so we just put together a fun experimental shoot at night on Sacramento’s beloved Delta King riverboat hotel and restaurant.

I’m still working with my very less-than-adequate strobes, and it was pretty dark, so I was working with fairly long shutter speeds, between .5 and 4 seconds, depending on other settings.  Overall it was an interesting experience.  Basically, I learned to not wait until it’s actually dark to make a dark background.  A 30 minute jump on the shoot and I’m sure it would’ve come out better.  Either way, it was fun, we got some relaxing productive time, and basically had a good evening to end the weekend.  I’m just thankful that Ivan puts up with my crap while I’m trying to figure out crazy stuff like this, it’s much appreciated.

Anyways…  Technical details, summed up (it’s late, I’m tired):  The Minolta firing through the shoot-through camera right up close, the Phoenix firing bare about twice the distance as the Minolta, from camera left feathered behind him a bit.  Canon EF 50mm f/1.8, ISO 800, .5/sec @ f/11.

I’ve been a bit quiet here on the photoblog, but the camera hasn’t been coming out too terribly often recently.  Such a shame.

In fact, it almost didn’t come out last night, but Sarah managed to talk me into doing a group shot.  I can’t begin tell you how great it is to have someone who actually is excitedly supportive of it, it’s a nice change.

This is our group.  Well, most of it.  There are a few key people missing, but for the most part, this is the gang.  Most of them are the regulars, although a few are new, which I always welcome.  As crazy and retarded as we end up sometimes, it’s a good group, and we all have fun.

From left to right:  Ninja, Jeff, Tony, Luke, Heidi, Colby, Sarah, Ivan, Eliza, Ray (sitting), Bill is behind Alisa, and me.

And yet again, photography while drinking equals mistakes–notice how I ghosted myself with the lights off in the background?  Yeah.  I was fully aware of it being a 4 second exposure, but I took off early on all shots.  Why?  Because I had a restless gang of drunkards who were giving me grief! Just kidding hehe.  But I did end up ghosting myself in all of the shots, which I guess I would say was the only real issue I have with these, other than the fact that not all the back row are lit.  Still, for doing this super rushed, I’m pleased with it.

Strobist info: 4 second exposure @ f/5.6, ISO 200, 50mm f/1.8 lens.  Minolta Auto 118x flash triggered by Cactus v4 triggers, with my Phoenix flash slaved with a hotshoe slave (even though the phoenix has a built-in slave.  wtf was I thinking? haha!)

So, I don’t normally go for the crazy post-processed artificial look, but because of the MASSIVE flare coming from the VAL’d light back camera right, I thought I’d go for it instead of attempting to fix it.

Dragged Ivan, Krissy, and Luke up to the top of the 27th Street Parking Garage on Saturday and made them brave the crazy cold winds so I can take silly pictures of them being, well, silly.  Good times though.

The more I look at this photo, the more I like it, but I know it’s definitely not my M.O., so to speak.  Either way, as long as I enjoy it for what it is, and Luke likes it, I guess that’s what matters.

I may put up more from that night later, but for now, I’m doing exactly what I said I wouldn’t do tonight and am up WAY too late.  Night!

Yes, that’s the name she goes by.  Krissy is definitely a very colorful person, and I came to met her thanks to Ivan and Jeff.  We’ve only hung out a handful of times, but she’s becoming one of my closest friends, and is always a riot to be around.

This shot was taken just after New Years Eve had come and passed, and while this isn’t the first picture that came out of my camera once the new year hit, I think this is a good choice for my very first post of my Project 365.  We’ll see how well this process goes, and hopefully I’ll manage to actually pull this off.

Strobist info:  Umbrella’d Minolta Auto 118x up fairly close at a 45/45 camera left, Phoenix D92-BZS down low hitting her lower half a little camera left, Canon 70-210 f/4 shooting at f/5.6 @ ISO 100

New Years Eve this year was pretty fun.  Unlike the last few years, I spent it out, spent it drunk, and spent it with plenty of friends, both new and old.  Also brought my gear.  Unlike the last time I brought my gear down to Ivan’s, I didn’t break anything this time.  Thank god.  So I while to go before midnight, I brought out the gear, set up a light, and started taking some pics.

I think this is the most appropriate photo as a NYE photo, as me, Ivan (left), Krissy (center), and Luke (right) were in it together the whole night.  The party literally started and ended with the four of us.  And they’re some of my best friends.  I’ve known Ivan for many years now, however only met Krissy several months ago, and Luke within the last month or so.  That being said, it was great to spend New Years Eve with them and the other menagerie of people we had out in midtown.

Strobist info: a single Minolta Auto 118x at a 45/45 angle camera left, with the Canon 70-210mm f/4 shot wide-open, triggered by Cactus v4 triggers.

Just a quick post, but here’s a shot of Heidi, same night as the last shot of Ivan.  Just using on-camera bounced flash off of a low ceiling, and an optical slave camera left at a 45.  Nothing special, but I like this one, so here’s my last update before Christmas.

I just recently picked up the pretty wicked awesome Vivitar 285 oldschool full manual flash.  I played with it a few times just goofing off at the home, but on Monday night, I went out to Midtown to hang out with my good buddy Ivan, the ever sweet-yet-scary-yet-sweet Krissy, and some other awesome people.  The goal was a Christmas photoshoot for Ivan and his amazingly awesome girl, Eliza.  That didn’t happen.

What DID happen was the rest of us getting drunk, and I broke out the camera gear for a shoot with the others.  Krissy got all dolled up, Ivan was being my test dummy…  I took three shots in front of Jeff’s house, and it started raining.  So we got the gear back inside.

Decided to move the party to a covered parking area between Jeff and Ivan’s house.  Set up the 285 on a light stand about six feet up with a shoot-through umbrella, again having Ivan be the test dummy after I metered the flash.  Raise the camera to my eye, and then I hear yelling.  And then I see a stand, with an umbrella–MY umbrella–and a barely-been-used Vivitar 285 on a Cactus v4 trigger fall to the pavement.

The Vivitar’s hotshoe mount snapped off, stuck in the Cactus mount.  Oh how this (almost) ruined my night.  I picked it up, looked at it, and slammed it back down on the pavement in anger.

It still fires, and the sync port works.

So now I need the cable to go from the proprietary Vivitar plug to an 1/8″ port for my trigger if I want to use this flash.

And a ball bungee cord or three.  How sad.

This is the last photo I took with this flash.  I’m still pissed at myself for not sandbagging the stand, or at least making someone hold it.  Plus, I missed out on getting some cute pics of Krissy all psycho’d out!  Bummer indeed.

This shot is of Ivan, doing what he does best.  Drinking.

Steve had a Christmas/holiday party at his house on Friday.  It was set up to be the afterparty of our work holiday party, however we ended up not going.  A few people showed up, Joe, Jen, and Jake brought the beer pong table, and we played some Rock Band.  All in all, a good night was had.

I’m posting this pic first because Matt’s expression on the right there is epically hilarious.

Also, this is the first time I’ve ever set up a lighting situation like this before.  Two flashes, one tripped by the Cactus v4, the other was optically slaved, set up across the living room/kitchen.

Here’s the lighting diagram.  Don’t have a decent photo editor here at work (also on my lunch lol), but the beer pong table was nearly vertical, slanted a bit to the left, inbetween the bottom flashgun and that overhead tungsten lamp.

The top flash was a Minolta 118EX I believe, on the Cactus.  The bottom was the Phoenix, set to optical.  Oddly enough, I think the tiny little Minolta, with half as many batteries (2 as opposed to 4) and about 20 years older is brighter than the Phoenix.  Seriously odd.  I’ll meter them with my light meter later, probably.