Split Gels: Packing Aerial Perspective Into Single Point Flash

Yellow jacket in orange and blue;

gels on strobe to accentuate depth.

by John O'Keefe-Odom

AgXphoto.info

Lighting diagram for the shot. One flash handheld on the left, above the subject and away from camera; pointed slightly back towards camera. CTO warm side closer to camera to throw the colder blue into the background.

Flash face covered with both CTO and CTB gels; each has half of the flash face. With the CTO towards the camera, and the CTB towards the background, this layout can bring a touch of aerial perspective from painting to the photo.

In aerial perspective, objects which are farther from the viewer are represented in blues; objects that are closer will be represented warmer.

Gels over the flash this way will still provide white light; because the light fans out; a fair amount of the surfaces close to the centerline of the strobe axis will be illuminated by both halves of the flash. Those areas will have a good amount of the traditional white light power of the flash, particularly at flash to subject distances that are within the first half of the thrown light's range at that power.

With the flash cast directly on the paper,

we can see the warmer parts close to us; and,

the colder light away.

With simple attention to the flash's axis of illumination, we can throw the colder light behind the subject. The warmer gels are used on the closer half. A close look at the penumbral edges (where the half-shadows meet light surfaces) will also show traces of the warm and cold gels.

Those penumbral edges are the primary disadvantage of this otherwise handy trick. If the flash is cast through cucoloris (any deliberate shadow pattern projected by a light before it gets to a subject), then all of those shadows will show that warm and cold fringe. The closer the cucoloris is to the strobe, the wider the penumbral fringe will be.

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Band Photo: Getting a Variety of Looks From One Setup with CTO and Post-Processing Temperature

Cold "homemade slide" look from CTO full gel counter-balanced

with a hard temperature adjustment in post.

by John O'Keefe-Odom

AgXphoto.info

You've got about 15 minutes to get the photo done; they want it for web publicity, and you have no idea what kind of look will go with their music. What kind of plan can you come up with that will present a subject's personality, from personable to vicious, in one setup?

I laid on a full CTO from the left; blasted white from the right, aimed at their black shirts. Roughly half of the photos were also cut with single point lighting; with the CTO at full power on the left.

Sometimes we can overlook the influence of color temperature on monochrome conversions of digital photos. Why use a CTO instead of just plain clamshell lighting? Underpainting.

It's an old trick, used by master painters for hundreds of years. Color temperature can be used to turn the shape of a form. In this case, the forms will wrap from warm to cold, depending on their shape. Warm up one side, or cool down the other, and you can accentuate the tonal changes on round forms in traditional two dimensional illustration.

To vary things further, in post I made changes to the pictures overall color temperature. Meanwhile, the CTO will affect only those surfaces it hit. This means that by choosing what the CTO hits, we can have some forms appear to turn, while others can appear to remain flat.

Normal figure forms on the left to flat, litho-like on the right.

From full form curves on the left to almost flat on the right, while maintaining a flat-appearing background. This frame was single point with full CTO at camera left, from the lighting plan that was already in place.

How strong of an effect that you can achieve with this can be controlled with the intensity of the light striking the subject (subject to flash distance) and the intensity of the coloring of the light. In this case, it's a full CTO.

How we did it. Clamshell lighting plan with

different heights and temperatures on the strobes.

Lighting diagram for the setup. CTO full on camera left, a little high.

White strobe on camera right, aimed for the chest, to help illuminate

the black shirts the subjects wore.

Camera heights and flash heights relative to the subject.

Downward strobe angle and distance of flash to subject can help us move from rounded forms (figure left) to flatter subjects (camera right). Notice, the figure on the right is positioned so that the light striking the side of the face is at a strong, obtuse angle to the camera's lateral axis. Meanwhile, the figure on the left maintains a strobe to subject to camera lateral angle of closer to 90 degrees.

Main post-processing adjustments for temperature.

My runs also include frequent standardized changes in

black point.

Background conditions, by time of day choice,

gave us a very dark, almost black, set of greens

in the background.

A hard, full-on orange from the CTO and white.

Overall exposure set for facial skin tones,

while maintaining drapery in the black fabric.

Colder blue temperature over the camera-recorded

CTO and white. Notice, the post-process changed the

whole image's temperature, but the CTO affected

only those surfaces its light hit.

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Packed for Flight: Some Air Travel Tips for Photographers

Hard case, as unpacked after flight.

by John O'Keefe-Odom

AgXphoto.info

I remember the look of my hand as I slammed closed the overhead compartment lid. I had just moved the third set of another passenger's luggage for them because they couldn't get their stuff packed into storage by themselves.

I was ticked. This was about the third time in a week that the flight had turned into a comedy of errors for a variety of reasons, all of them centered around passenger luggage.

We've gone from "zoo" to "circus" because of the carry-on baggage thing. Photographers can avoid this. Experienced travelers don't like being part of these problems.

Here's what I learned along the way.

As a photographer, bring the minimum to get the job done. My carry-on baggage fits under the seat. It's light; I check my main cargo. Check most of your photo gear. One laptop, one camera, one lens, all film and digital media are pretty much the only photo items I will carry.

Break down the larger equipment, like tripods, with a screwdriver so that you can get it into ordinary checked baggage.

Do not check film. Carry on film.

Do not check digital memory. Carry on digital memory and laptops.

Pack the main photo gear into a hard case. All of my hard cases have not only the usual scuffs, but some kind of "chew" marks on them from machinery. They take a beating.

Call the airlines after you get your ticket, and find out what the dimensions are for under-seat storage. The websites will have the maximum allowable dimensions for overhead storage.

You will notice other passengers bringing on elephantine luggage that looks like it was stuffed with balloon animals and bowling balls. They'll probably have other items lashed to the outside. Women's purses will be about the size of a Beverly Hills waterbed pillow. They'll contain microwave ovens, or other small kitchen appliances. Don't be one of those guys.

Bring the minimum. Check everything else. Let me say that again: check everything else. Yes, including those lenses; or, whatever else you have with you that you think is important.

If you have an involved trip, you'll need a few weeks, a reliable mail service, and a good receiver for the packages. Consider separate cargo lifts if you have a lot of stuff. The more time you are willing to spend on waiting for the gear, either in advance or after the trip, the cheaper the cargo mailing will be.

Allow for baggage costs in your travel plans. They're frequently removed from the immediate list price. That list price is just a sales pitch. Find out what your actual total would be.

Allow for airline insurance limits in your baggage. If you are not willing to destroy it, then leave it in the studio. My baggage inventories stay at or below 75% of whatever the maximum limit for compensation would be on that bag, for that type of flight.

International flight baggage insurance limits have a tendency to be low. By "low" I mean, below $750; around $500 would be common.

Keep that in mind if you carry a CanNikon 547 X-Mark D 9000 with Hubble Telescope Super Zoom f/1.1 lens.

I avoided an additional $250 in charges on a recent trip by taking a measuring tape to my favorite hard case. It was three inches over size; and, yes, it was heavy. That case has served me well, but it was not the right answer for this last trip. There's no end-all, be-all solution.

Give yourself a shakedown inspection, twice. Do you really need it? If the answer is "maybe", then remove it. Yes, remove it.

I was able to move several hundred dollars in film through carry-on X-ray machines in the United States with no trouble. I chose slower speed films for the trip just for this reason.

100ASA and below will keep you within the X-ray limits by a generous margin. The published limit is 800 ASA. Over that, and the machine is sure to fog the film. Check your TSA website for the requirements before you fly.

Check the specific website of your airlines for baggage and carry-on guidance before you fly. There are so many variations in the rules from airline to airline, and even from aircraft to aircraft (because of spacial structure), that there is no one set of comprehensive rules.

Get the facts about your specific flight, each one, that specific plane, from your airlines.

As an example, here's a list of what I brought on a recent trip, by bag. The trip's project involved using three different formats, digital images, two slide films, and my mainstay, black and white film in 135 and 120mm. Outdoor environments were: desert, grassland, forest, beach and underwater.

Pelican 1514, packed for flight,

excepting items used to make the picture.

Packed into Pelican Case:

• Vivitar 285 HV with batteries, 6’ coiled PC cord, hot shoe to PC adapter
• Changing bag wrapped around Manfrotto Ball/Pan head
• Pentax 645 80-160mm zoom
• Pentax 28-80mm FAJ with Zing soft case
• 77mm lens hood
• Minolta Spotmeter F
• Battery recharger with cord
• DSLR cord
• 12” PC cord to “thorn”
• 49mm reversal ring
• 49mm closeup filter kit
• 50mm Takumar with K mount adapter
• Pentax K200D with hot shoe to PC cord adapter and neoprene strap
• Pentax 645 body
• Tenba Rain Cover
• Wet Weather nylon bag
• 77mm filter kit
• Scissors, tape, compass

Hard case loading, minus the DSLR that I made the picture with,

its lens, and a tripod head.

Carry-on contents. Items were well below the size restrictions for

domestic air travel in the USA.

In carry-on:

• Pentax K1000
• Pentax 645 Adapter K
• Pentax 645 35mm lens
• Cable release
• Cleaning cloth and brush
• 120mm films (Ektachrome E100G, Pan F+)
• 135mm films
• bulk reel films (EDUPE and Ilford Pan F+)
• All films at or below 100ASA
• Laptop computer with cords.
• Paperwork and personal items I would normally carry in my pockets.

Additional items for photography in different environments

get packed into the suitcase.

In suitcase:

• Manfrotto tripod, with legs detached by screwdriver
• Screwdriver
• Boots
• EWA Marine UF underwater bag housing
• Mask, snorkel, fins, 1mm wetsuit
• Katadyn Pocket Filter water filter
• Spare 35mm cassettes (empty).
• Clothing and personal items.

Break down that tripod with a screwdriver

so that you can pack it in a small suitcase.

Pack the screwdriver in checked baggage.

And, if you need me to pack your luggage in an overhead bin because you can't lift it, then remember: I drink Jack Daniel's. Thanks.

Bon Voyage.

J.

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