And doing the opposite look-and-feel of the white on whute shot below, this one obviously being all about black. But you knew that.
Filed under: Photography, Technology | Tags: D3, Flash, Manfrotto, Nikon, Photography, Sydney
An interesting shot this one – it involved securing the camera to the car with a Manfrotto suction cup and arm. The camera was fired by Pocket Wizard, roughly an eigth of a second to get the blur off the tunnel walls, and at the end of the expsoure, the hotshoe fired another PW that in turned fired flashes on the back seats and one on the dash. Sweet. If not nerve wracking.
This photo looks straightforward, but it involves a little magic. The trick is in the shadow. What I have done here is light the flower from above right, and also from below – as it is resting on some translucent white plastic. The shadow efect is simply black cardboard cut to a shape traced from another light (which was not used in the photo). That shape is called a gobo as it “goes between” the under floor light and the subject – in efect atached to the base of the white plastic – and voila, one well lit flower with depth added by trick shadow!
This photo was produced “in-camera” meaning that the only help from Photoshop was to crop the image and apply a little sharpening. So how did I get the splash effect, well it’s a secret 
OK, not so secret. The wine glass was filled with colored water as real wine would have been too dark. The glass was taped to a piece of foamcore and the foamcore board was rested on some wheels so that it could roll to the right. I focused, killed the lights and rolled the foamcore into a stack of books. The dead-stop caused the liquid to spill – and the noise activated a sound trigger which fired a flash pointing at the wall behind the glass. Then I closed the shutter, turned on the lights and checked my work.
Nikon have a “significant” demand challenge on their hands. Their new D3 DSLR has quickly become the must have camera for pro photographers (and more than a few enthusiasts too I imagine). Being patient as I wait for mine is testing.
