Challenge 24: "Off-Camera Lighting" - Submissions

[bakubo]

Henry, that's so unusual in the way it has rendered that it could be one of the classic photographs of all time. Not exaggerating here; this kind of result, where light and tonal response combine to create something unique, appealed greatly to photographers like Laszlo Moholy-Nagy and Hugo Van Wadonoyen (not to mention Minor White). This is one of the best images I've seen here for a long time.

David, I appreciate those comments very much. I always liked this photo, but I never thought of it anywhere close to that. I guess I will have to reconsider my opinion of it now.

I recall that this was taken on the first morning after arriving in Morocco the afternoon before. I was walking around in the small little alleyways near the Djemaa el-Fna and this Moroccan named Mohammed (surprise!) approached me and wanted to show me around. We haggled a bit over the price and even though his English was very poor he was a friendly guy so I said okay. We spent a couple of hours wondering around and if I saw something I wanted to photograph he would wait for me. I recall that as we were walking down one of these narrow alleys where people were working in workshops, etc. that I saw some flickering bright light coming from an open doorway. I could tell even before we got there that someone was doing some welding. Mohammed went in and asked if I could enter to take a photo. We got inside and I just got 2 photos off in a few seconds and then an older guy came in and said something to Mohammed and he hustled me out. The 2 photos are almost identical with only the exposure a little different with a quick bracket shot. Also, the second photo (this one) has a brighter flash of light from the welding torch so is more blown out.

In Marrakech I stayed at the Hotel Ali which is only about 50 meters from the Djemaa el-Fna. I had made reservations for a private room on the internet for my first few days and paid with a credit card. I printed out the email acknowledgment from them. When I arrived the woman at the front desk was swamped with people (mostly Moroccans, but also foreigners). When I finally got up there to check in she was pretty frazzled. She had no record of my reservation even though I showed her the email they had sent me. No room available. Finally, she was able to put me into a dorm room with 10 beds and 9 young backpacker guys from various countries. Most were travelling alone. I was 49 at the time, they were all 19 to 24 years old. Had a good time talking to them over the next few days. By the way, I found this funny, true story about the Hotel Ali. Be sure to read the first response at the bottom too.

http://thisfish.com/Archives/000840.html

[David Kilpatrick]

I have only ever had real systemic food poisoning close to home (read Henry's link, or you won't understand why I am writing this!) - I was stupid enough to eat at one of the seasonal 'restaurants' created in the Royal Mile during the Edinburgh festival season, where all the staff are Australian students trying to earn some cash to pay for the backpack hostel. That was something which lasted a week. I got the 24-hour purely intestinal variety once in Madeira from a very powerful chilli, and both Shirley and I nearly ended up unable to travel back from Spain in 1984 after eating in the dark to avoid waking the kids, and failing to notice that our bread had got blue mould on it. Now we always carry small torches, which occasional serve (on topic) as off-camera lighting!

It's SO rare to get food poisoning from fruit. In recent years I've survived Turkey, Egypt, Morocco, Mexico and a fair amount of street food in Barbados, France, Spain and Greece with less effect on my system than a chicken sandwich I got last week from the hospital shop when Shirley was being discharged.

When the Minolta Club did a world tour in 1986, India really hit some of those who did not understand how to eat in India. These were older club members, who did not want curries and preferred the western-style buffet at the Hotel Oberoi - they even ate salad and cold buffet dishes. Shirley and I stuck strictly to thoroughly cooked, hot, Indian dishes. So did the late Tom Hustler, the well-known royal and society photographer who had come on the trip with his young daughter. He also had supplies of generic imodium, and enough other prescription drugs to get you arrested today - he handed out Valium tabs to anyone who was worried by the high-pressure flight schedule or the Indian coach tours.

Even though

[bakubo]

The only time I have ever had food poisoning, and it was a really bad case, was in Vancouver, BC in 2005 from eating some bad octopus at a Japanese restaurant.

[gio67]

[Ewannawe]

Food poisoning, I've only shared this story with a couple of others before due to the nature of the event. There was nothing really spectacular about the result, just two or three hours of very painful bowel cramps. It's what preceded that is so fascinating to me.

I was in Amsterdam with a friend, and we'd stopped in a buffet bar to get a sandwich. Graham, (the friend), was talking to me though I have no recollection of what he was saying. I was looking over his shoulder out into the Amsterdam night, focussed on nothing in particular. I was in a sort of reverie, ( a dwam as my father used to call it, or a 'dream'). Now, here's where it gets interesting. Although I never moved my head a fraction of an inch, nor blinked my eyes, my vision changed to a view of the counter assistant reaching into the display to pick up some cold meat, I even zoomed in until all I could see was a close-up of his finger tips touching the meat. Then just like nothing had happened my vision cleared and I was still standing there looking over Graham's shoulder into the night. I shook that off, wierd. We paid for our food and left. Even as we walked up the street eating our fare and the thought came back to me.. 'What happened there?'.. I shrugged it off, well I didn't know what to do with it! A few hours later the first cramps hit and I knew what it was all about then.

Never had a prescient moment like it since but there have been other 'occurances' that convince me our consciousness is not what we generally accept it to be.

(btw, to this day I still find the idea that I could 'zoom' my vision in more strange than the fact I could see something I wasn't looking at. )

[pakodominguez]

I was in Amsterdam with a friend,
...

Never had a prescient moment like it since but there have been other 'occurances' that convince me our consciousness is not what we generally accept it to be.

And all this was before or after the visit to the coffee shop?

My girlfriend will love your story, this kind of experiences happens to her all the time.

Regards

[aster]

I believe earnestly that the human brain and spirit are much more capable than any equipment we have yet devised in any particular field, Ewannawe. Espcially when cameras and lenses are concerned...
These special capabilities only find more room to show themselves up when we are in a semi-conscious level in our daily routines. Otherwise they are more or less supressed and will not appear as distictively but may have the power of increasing our awareness without interfering fully with our conscious daily life and relations.

You had a very potent and interesting experience which I believe can happen...

Yildiz

[Johnc]

Acrobatic show #1.
Lousy seats but satisfied with result.

[Johnc]

Acrobatic Show #2
(in Shanghai - Sep09)

[pakodominguez]

I was trying some accesories for the monolights the other day: the front light was done with a snooth and the backligth with a honeycomb and a blue filter.
Here a couple of samples, both with the A850 and 100 mm f2.8 Macro

[Juanito200]

Everybody comes to our house for Thanksgiving. I figured it was a good time to take some portaits . Here is my first attempt at using my flash umbrella set up. I learned quite a bit in the few shots that I took .
1.I need more practice.
2.I still have much to learn
3. I really need to replace the kit lens. Even at max aperture at 24mm the entire background is in focus.
4. See 1 and 2.
My sister-in-law Angela and her husband Greyson. This is my favorite of the few shots I took. C&C always welcome, John Here is the Flickr link:http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2643/416 ... 6428_b.jpg

[KevinBarrett]

Here's my advice, John:

Get low. If you're shooting in a really familiar setting, like a house or at work or something, you've got to vary the angle and composition so that it has no resemblance of a snapshot of convenience. I like to get low, so that my angle of shooting adds no convergence to the upright elements in the picture. Shooting from about waist or chest level is enough to square things up.

Back off. The standard interpersonal distance for two familiar people, as well as the default angle of view of point and shoot cameras, are the stuff of facebook pictures. Step back if you can and capture more of a person's body language. When I shoot with my 24, I get my subjects' feet in the picture. There's a reason that portrait lenses are 85-135mm, because it forces a photographer to back off and introduce less distortion to a subject's countenance...you can back off just as far with a 24mm or 18mm on APS-C and just let the environment have the distortion instead of your subjects....very Wes Anderson.

Other than that, your exposure is fun. The vibrant colors bring out a slight playfulness in their expressions. The positions of their hands is all very good. I can't say much for your use of the off-camera light because I'm still learning that, too. I really only think the first part of my advice applies here, but the second is more of a challenge. Overall, I like it.

[Juanito200]

Thanks for the advice Kevin. I do need to step out of my default settings... Everyone is coming over for Christmas.. I'm gonna do it again. Probably have to use a different location than my dining area... I only had 4 or so feet before hitting the wall behind me. It may be enough. As to the 'vibrant' colors... When I first uploaded the picture it was flat and undersaturated. Different than it looked opened in Photoshop.. I oversaturated it some to post it online. It seems a little oversaturated to me... I have to look at my settings to find out why the change... Here is how it looks on Flickr:
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2643/416 ... 6428_b.jpg
Thanks again John

[KevinBarrett]

The colors are still vibrant, but much better on flickr. Why not link that one here?

[Juanito200]

Done