Rolando Lopez Photoblog

While enjoying of a bonfire with friends on Thanks Giving weekend at a remote farm in Deep Creek Lake suburbs it occurred to me we were in the perfect place explore with night portrait. We were in the middle of nowhere, there were countless stars the moon was bright and it had snowed the day before.

I suggested my friend Gilbert that he should pose for my experiment (he agreed).  Missing light stands I setup two strobes left & right of camera on top of a table and a chair.  I set one strobe at just a bit less than 1/4 of power and another one at 1/8. The strobes both had about 1/4 CTO gels.  Unfortunately the lights were way lower than the subject’s face so I didn’t get the best results but I had to work with what I had. Everyone else was well into the guitar, singing and the burned marshmallows so I didn’t think about using to human light stands.

At the end I liked the results, although I know it could be done better with some planning. The image has not been retouched except for the copyright addition. Your feedback and tips are appreciated.

This is the end result:

(FYI: The picture is being resized to fit in the browser, to see it properly you may have to click on it to open it separately)

Strobist style night portrait

<Update: 12-04-2009>

Below is a portrait of Felipe. We got the effect by accident as he wasn’t aware he was supposed to stay still after the flash went off on first curtain sync. I like this ghost effect as it gives the sensation of action in the picture as if it was alive. The flash and camera settings were the same as the one used for the portrait above.

Strobist style night portrait of Felipe

This year I had the opportunity to participate in Scott Kelby’s second annual Worldwide Photowalk, leading the Arlington group.  It was fun to walk around Crystal City with 13 other passionate photogs snaping pictures of everything we saw (even our shadows).  We even had the opportunity to crash a couple of wedding photoshoots that were taking place at the Crystal City Water Park.

The route went all the way to the Gravelly Point park via the Mt. Vernon trail where we had the chance to snap a few pictures of the airplanes taking off the runway and where we decided to take our group picture (see below).

We ended our photowalk sharing our experiences over tapas at Jaleo spanish restaurant in Crystal Dr.

Here are some of the pictures taken by different Photowalkers:

Yesterday, I had the opportunity to be at the “Soirée Carte Blanche” event presented by The Alliance Française de Washington and the Mexican Cultural Institute. Gina Velasco, a NYC based Clothing Designer, presented her Fall 2009 collection and I had the opportunity to snap a few shots.

I was planning on using two speedlights to shoot the runway but things didn’t work out as expected so I ended up shooting with available light.  Here are some of the shots: