Inspiration

I assisted photographer, Richard Booth (www.richardbooth.co.uk) yesterday at Dartford Judo club. He was shooting some visually impaired champions in Judo.

His shots aren't just the everyday reportage shots that most photographers could achieve and require his own lighting setup consisting of a mix between flash and tungsten light.

Shown below is the lighting setup that we used. It consisted of two profoto flashes on battery packs (great for when there's no, or limited power sources. Also no wires getting in the way) and 2 tungsten lights. From what I understood; the flashes were to freeze the subject in motion and the tungsten lights were to achieve a motion blur to give a real feel of movement.

The Results that I saw and the results that I had seen from previous shoots with Richard made me think that lighting like this is a viable idea for my own project.

Here is a result from lighting like this:

Copyright © Richard Booth

Inspiration - Photographer, David Hill

Test Shots - Day 1

Today I did a number of test shots in the locations where I expect to be shooting for the projects. Below is what the results were.... Just real quick edits too, nothing final.

I think in the inner hall image (far left) the client wants the skylight windows in the shot, so I may have to get lower and look more upwards for the actual final shots, but this was a good lighting exercise. The library shot (centre) is my favorite because of all of the interest in the room, I may have to composite so that the end of the room isn't lost in total darkness, but maybe that works for this shot, decision needs to be made! Finally the image of the staircase (right) was a difficult one to light, the wood doesn't light nicely at all. Also the surroundings of the staircase aren't very aesthetic meaning I am going to have to be very directional with the light. I like the lighting setup here in the test shot, other setups made too much of the staircases surroundings and didn't isolate the subject.

It is thought that for the image on the left it will be martial artists, center shot it will be a hurdler and on the right it will be ballerinas or dancers. I personally feel that over crowding the stairs will not work and look cluttered, so I will suggest to the client that we stick with one strong subject.

I need to go back and do further tests, and address anything that the client brings up when we next meet.

High Speed Flash Photography

So today I hired a pool and experimented with high speed flash photography while people were jumping in and I was capturing their splashes. This meant I needed a transmitter that was able to send a signal capable of letting the remote flashes syncing at a fast shutter speed, for example 1/2000 of a second.

Here is one of the results:

It was hard to focus on such a fast moving subject, so I pre-focused on the area that I knew the action would be happening and left it in manual for when it actually happened, this got me more sharp results. Another slight problem was the range of the infrared Nikon CLS (creative lighting system) as I would have maybe liked to be further away from the action but it was workable. A radio trigger that is cable of syncing that fast would be the the ideal solution but not budget realistic.

This exercise helped me start to get my head around high speed sync with flash.

Quick High Speed Flash Test

Ok.. just a quickie but got hold of the Nikon CLS (Creative Lighting System) which is allowing me to trigger flashes while maintaining a very fast shutter speed (up to 8000th of a second).

Quite impressed by the results:

This was just a two light setup but showed to me that the system works and that I need to try it in a few more different scenarios before I can begin official work on final pieces.

Inspiration - Photographer, Joel Grimes

These images are at the extreme end of what I would like to achieve and are not exactly what I'm looking for, however they do shout 'drama'. I find the images way to 'cooked' for my liking and for the purpose my client has come to me for.

I'm mainly using these as inspiration for the harsh lighting rather than the 'overcooked' post production. In some cases the athletes weren't even in the same location that the background shows. This shows possibilities if locations aren't working out and are hard to light.

Project Background

A Client has come to me from a local sports college and want photos that display the range of different sports they offer as well as combining it with their heritage and school grounds.

The client has seen the following images and would like something along these lines.

Images seen on http://2012.emda.org.uk/

Obviously I don't just want to copy the style of these photos but the it is helpful having an example of what the client would like... too many times, clients can be terrible at describing what they want. I have my own style of photography that will shine through strongly.