Home now. Recently did 10 stops in 14 days for Nikon Europe’s Speed of Light Tour. Been doing this in various shapes and sizes now for 4 years. It’s really Annie’s doing. She’s routinely adored by her colleagues both here in the US and abroad. (Trust me, I understand.)
But she rarely gets to see her mates from Europe and Asia, save at big international events, like what just occurred up Vancouver way. So I think they dreamed this up a few years ago just so they could get to see her over on the continent on a yearly basis. Beyond the likability factor, she also commands enormous respect for her knowledge of all things digital, her ability to communicate and teach well, and her non-stop force of nature work ethic, and, well, you get the idea.
Me? I’m, like, you know, happy baggage.
I bounce into these various locales, halls, conference centers, and theaters sight unseen and try to light ‘em up ad hoc right then and there, and talk through small flash, TTL, hard light, soft light, movie quotes, fast cars, German coffee, Viennese beer, and why the hell isn’t this cord working right now? It’s all off the cuff, and everything I shoot goes right to a screen, which is fun, and has a big gulp factor right there along with it. I also spend all day with a microphone around my neck which makes Annie very nervous.
Been experimenting with getting the most I can out of one light. At the Brabus Motor Works outside Dusseldorf, there was a huge screen essentially made out of strings, so I put up SB900, zoomed to 200mm, with a slight warm gel about 30 or 40 feet away from it. Blogged this last week….
But also managed to move my subject around a little, let the strings drop, and move camera angle to get these two looks.
Couple of different looks from one light on a stick. The nice thing about trying light like this, and putting it through something, or around the door and down the hall is that it might end up….unpredictable. Umbrella? Cool, looks nice. Soft box? Okay, been there, done that. But through a bunch of strings? Or glass bricks? Or something? Anything? Might be fun. It also might suck. That’s a given. But to light well on any level is to experiment, continuously.
Onto Berlin, and this amazing cave like night club place. I had a notion, always a dangerous thing. Ended up doing this with Christian, a body builder, in front of the bar. Nine flashes. Why do I do this to myself? We tried at first to work it out, and just crashed and burned. It was the kind of setup that needed time and attention, two things I didn’t really have available. The audience was gracious, but they were like, huh? I kinda shrugged. Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose. But then, during dinner hour, the crew said, hey, you know, if you want to get this, we’ll stick with you and get it. So we did. 9 lights, one hour. Everybody came back from dinner, and we walked through it, piece by piece. It was a hoot. There were three lights on Christian, three back on the bar, one up top on the upper level, one for Caligula back there, one bounced for fill, and we got ‘em all triggered TTL with an SU800 held up above camera.
In Hamburg, got a chance to work with an amazing couple, Mr. Olympia Oliver Reinhardt and his wife, Iris. Two tri-grips, each to the side. Gave up on this way too soon. Shoulda really stuck with it and worked it out, ’cause they are stunning together. But the mandate of these days is to move fast, and present as many issues and as much information as possible, so kept moving.
At Munich, we worked in a great studio with a cyc wall. You woulda thought I could leave well enough alone, but I went out to the dumpster and pulled in two broken wooden pallets, and put 3 SB900 units on the floor and let ‘em rip, creating a, well, irregular shadow pattern.
Into which we dropped Tobias, a body builder whose arms and chest had a life of their own. Put him here.
And here.
Then moved him out of the hard shadow light, and lit him with a couple flashes. The wider he flexed, the wider his smile got. (If I had arms like this, I would smile a lot, too.)
Then thoroughly bronzed Tobias (no need for cloudy white balance here, folks) posed in front of the NPS loaner delivery car. Yep, in Europe, you need a lens from NPS, it shows up hours later, transported by this Lamborghini:-) Ever try lighting a car with speedlights? In less than a half an hour? Yikes, we moved fast. It was fun even though it was the type of shot you could work on for, oh, about 3 days.
In Switzerland, we had another great studio setting. When we walked in, we found Alexa, hanging from the ceiling and decided to light her, right then and there. Pascal Richard, of NPS Switzerland, sorted out a terrific combo of setting and talent for two days of smaller, group workshops, where everybody milled about and stayed close to the action and the lights.
This is 4 SB900 units outside the building. The three in the back are gelled blue, and the key light for our silk flyer is gelled warm. All are zoomed to 200mm, with no diffusion or light shapers of any kind. I loved this location. Ground floor, great windows. Used Win as a subject, too. A terrific shooter who just happens to have, like, 5 Harleys, he’s definitely got the kind of face that has been pointing into the wind and peering over a set of handlebars for a long time. (He’s also a card carrying member of the “Too Much Fun Club,” and has partied hard with the likes of Peter Fonda, so this is also a face that lives life, and well. This is two lights, one outside, and one into a small ezybox hot shoe soft box.
In Frankfurt, another great location, and surprisingly there was a body builder and a ballerina already there! :-) Ground floor, huge windows, and after I rummaged a bit, a 30′ ladder. Justin clamped a single SB900 to the ladder, trundled it outside and across an alleyway, and leaned it against another building. No one seemed to mind. White light, no diffusion. 200mm zoom.
That light, a white wall, and Marco produced this. Also could look like this from the side, with Daria.
All hard, daylight looking light. Until you put a table cloth in the flashed window. Then you get this.
In Slovenia, everybody was incredibly gracious, and man, Nikon’s Tomas Puh and Rok Gasparic really rallied the troops. Almost 300 people showed up. I faced the typical photog challenge. What to do with four walls? Did have a pair of lovely gymnasts to work with, who were great kids. Washed three flashes off the projector screen to get this, which was a lot of fun.
Then I told them they could freelance a move, and boy did they.
This was shot from the audience by the terrific Ljubljana based shooter, Borut Peterlin, whose imagination is about as wide as his lens. On his site he’s got a terrific set of quirky, provocative (definitely provocative), fascinating portraits of numerous cultural icons of Slovenia. He snapped this just as the two young ladies went into the stratosphere and totally overwhelmed my 14-24. I just put the camera down and lost it. Leaping ladies!
Last stop, Vienna, and a movie theater. The darkness of the place was daunting, but also gave me a measure of control. Was able to try a couple lighting scenarios with the lovely Miss Austria, Valentina Schlager.Worked out a nice combo of light for her up front, assisted by two SB900 units in the back of the room.
Then got the audience involved.
Lots of pix today on the blog, mostly ’cause I have lots of thank you’s to offer. The NPS gang over in Europe was terrific. Yasuo Baba, the architect of the whole deal, just spins ideas and creates possibilities like crazy. His team of Michael Ramroth, Nicola Best, and the tireless Nils Pajenkamp and Stephanie Doll were there for Annie and I every step of the way, even down to staying ahead of the volcano ash and jumping on trains loaded with German soccer fans.
Here’s the team, with the NPS delivery vehicle, which Annie got to drive. (Since she’s been back, I’ve noticed she’s driving her Honda a lot more aggressively:-)
I show Marco how it’s done. 
The helpful crowd puts a tablecloth in the window. 
Setting up a commander to fire the lights outside. You can translate TTL through as many as three SC-28 or 29 cords.
Annie working out a light.
Smoke and silk flyers in Switzerland. 
And…
Annie on a train. Saved my biggest thank you for last…..more tk
You gotta stay loose and have fun, right? So does your subject. We had a great day in Denver Wednesday, doing a Kelby Lighting Tour stop there. Had a great audience, and two terrific folks to work with on stage, in Solomon and Lindsey.
Except that Lindsey was a bit nervous. Can’t say as I blame her. She’s up there in front of 700 people with a photog she had met precisely 10 minutes prior to taking her picture. And, trust me, my first efforts didn’t exactly inspire confidence. But we got it going after a few frames, and that magnificent smile of her’s flipped on like a searchlight at a movie premier. I think I had something to do with that, ’cause back at the lens I tend to keep up a non stop stream of consciousness babble that ranges from mildly amusing to outright idiotic to veering close to legally actionable.
We gotta do that, right? I mean, here we ask our subjects to go along with us on what could be a long walk off a short pier, an adventure, in other words, so we in turn have to be adventuresome as well. I think the key part of that word is “venture.” We have to venture, to risk. We have to make a bridge. We have to create a comfort zone in front of the lens, a place which for many, many folks is very much just the opposite. Face it, lots of people would rather have their teeth drilled without novocaine than have their picture taken, especially publicly, with every frame going up on giant screens.
Lindsey, of course, needn’t have worried. With a face and smile like that, she made my job super easy, aand she was really patient with my antics to boot.
Solomon was great, too. Easygoing and amiable, he was also physically confident, which made him a magnet for the lens. (I’d be confident, too, if I looked like that.)
But alas, I am not as physically gifted or confident as Solomon. Quite evidently.
I never ask my subjects to do that which wouldn’t. Also, I occasionally try to play a bit of “simon sez” with them, by showing them exactly, or, in this case, a very ballpark approximation of what I would like them to do for my camera. Sigh. Perhaps I should change the title of this blog to, “I Can’t Believe I Just Did That in Front of 700 People.”
Solomon’s definitely got more hang time than I do. Perhaps that is because he doesn’t have a buttocks that is the weight and density of an anvil. Wild guess on my part.
Here he is, in a quieter moment.
Tech notes on the pix:
Beauty shots of Lindsey…Two Quadra units, one high, one low, both on c-stands. Overhead the Quadra head is in a deep Octa, a really nice, rich light shaper. Just under her face, in front of her, the other Quadra is into a smaller Octa, and it is running about minus one stop from the overhead, or main light. Pretty straight up, classic beauty light combo. Behind her head is an SB900 running on SU-4 mode, about 1/4 power, with dome diffuser still on the flash.
The, uh, leaping pix. Me, one Ranger unit with a long throw reflector from the back of the room. Solomon, one SB900 unit from about 50′. Zoomed to 200mm. No diffuser. That’s it. One light, far away.
Last, Solomon on black. Two 3×6 Lastolite panels, each with 2 SB900 units firing into them. He is much closer to the camera right panel, hence it is the main or dominant light. Very smooth light, due to the size of the panels, and his proximity to them. Shot at f11.
FYI: Drew found a way to make the pix bigger on the blog, if you just click on them, they will enlarge. More tk….
Drew with his Iphone. Me, on the appropriately described baggage rack. Denver stop, Kelby Lighting Seminar. More tk….
Working in Europe, under a giant umbrella of volcanic ash. No fly time now. Just as well. I’d rather drive just about anywhere than fly. Except home, of course. Gotta fly home, and pretty soon, so hoping for a wind shift, or maybe one of those movie special effects deals where all of sudden the volcano goes into reverse gear and sucks back down what it just threw up.
Working with Nikon Europe and a bunch of Annie’s extraordinary colleagues over here. What started small in Copenhagen 4 years ago has become a barnstorming tour, with stops in a various cities across Europe, particularly, this year, in Germany. Yasuo Baba, the manager of NPS Germany, and a complete, total force of nature, has put together a terrific itinerary that has us in Switzerland, Austria, Slovenia, as well as 6 stops in Germany. Somehow, through his efforts, every place we show up, there’s ballerinas and body builders.
Just crossed into Austria. Gonna be a while before we hit Ljubljana. Darkness closing in. Domen and Rene up front sharing the driving. Young guys, they are, somewhat oddly, into 80’s music. Dire Straits through the speakers. Annie eating gummi bears.
People across the board have been wonderful at the various stops. Meeting photogs from the commercial world, newspaper guys, wedding shooters, you name it. Playing with light and shooting stuff. Talking gear, the language we all understand.
Years ago, my first foray out of the US sent me to England. I was a student, and my photography professor, Fred Demarest, urged me to come over and mix chemistry for the Syracuse London photo program. I got 9 free graduate credits, and 5 pounds a week.
I jumped on it. Got myself a cold water flat with a shower down the hall in Parsons Green, south of the Thames, for six pounds fifty a week. Ran the lab, shot stuff at Speakers’ Corner, looked at lots of pictures. Went to the London Royal Photographic Society, where they had a show of Gene Smith’s work. Went back six or seven times.
Ate at the original, and at that time, the only, Hard Rock Café. Played basketball for a semi-pro team called London Amber. Had a blast. Starting five was a crazy Ozzie, me, and some terrific English blokes, one of whom was a chauffeur during the day. For a road trip, he could stuff the whole team into his massive limo. Played some pretty basic gyms, lacking, uh, amenities. Jesus, that car stank after a game.
Went to sea. Wandered up to Lowestoft, the eastmost tip of England, and signed onto to a fishing trawler named the Boston Shackleton for a two week stint in the North Sea. In November. On board, they called me “Hank the Yank” and made fun of the fact I had to hang on to stand up. Couple of them piped down a bit after I climbed the mast, which most of the crew wouldn’t do. Fun up there, a seaborne roller coaster, complete with salt spray.
Nighttime on the the Dogger, as some fishermen liked to call the North Sea, is particularly, deeply black. The wheelhouse was like a cocoon. Outside the sea circled the boat like a powerful snake, waves coiling and uncoiling. Wind sharp as a thrown knife. Inside, the glow of instruments, and the smell of strong tea.
Thirty five years and nearly 60 countries later, still at sea. Still love staring at darkness, slipping by. Still love the uncertainty of photography. Still love the fact that it kicks my ass. Nowadays, love knowing that all those millions of pixels, hot wired for color and speed, are still blind without the eye of a shooter pointing them the right way. Still love that my imagination precludes the possibility that I will ever grow up.
Still love the passport stamps, and the fact that each one means a connection made, a culture observed. Lessons learned. People met. Bridges, however temporary and fragile, made. Never get tired of the sound of a shutter. Never tire of nights like these, especially now that I share them with Annie. Here in the dark, asleep now, listening to her breathe.
Ljubljana still couple hours away. It’s okay. They can drive slower if they want. More tk….
In Germany now, rotating to various cities on the 4th edition of Nikon Europe’s “Speed of Light” tour. Lotta fun, great people.
Worked the other day at Brabus, who design, engineer, and re-tool cars that sell for over a half million dollars. Yikes. In the showroom, they had a huge curtain made basically of strings. In the distance was a white wall. Hmmm…..
One SB900, about 80 feet away. Raw light, nothing fancy. Warm gel. Part the curtains, enter Eva. Blog’s a little light this week. Traveling like crazy, and meeting some book deadlines. More tk….
