Strobo

With apologies to Harold Edgerton (and with a little help from Mrs. Documentary Photography) here's a little stroboscopic experiment.

The setup: a Nissin 466 with a red gel on was set up to light the background, then a Metz 58 AF-2 in stroboscopic mode provided 5 flash pops at a rate of 20 Hz. The exposure was ISO 100, f/11, with a shutter speed of 1 second. (The metz was at 1/128th power.)

"But what about the purple and blue?" you ask.

The Metz was fired through a snoot to control where it hit, directed at the ball and the left side of the frame. It puts out light that is at a color temperature of about 6000K, so by adjusting my white balance setting to about 3000K I was able to shift the light to blue -- and it turns purple where it mixes with the red light from the Nissin.

Maillol LOL

A museum visitor poses in front of a sculpture by Aristide Maillol at the Getty Center in Los Angeles, Tuesday, June 28, 2011.

Meta

Robbert Flick photographs curator Tim Wride during the opening reception for the "Street Sight" exhibition at the Armory Center for the Arts in Pasadena, Saturday, June 25, 2011. The show includes work by Flick as well as Adam Bartos, Darryl Curran, Bevan Davies, John Divola, Judy Fiskin, Dennis Hopper, Graham Howe, Grant Mudford, Jane O’Neal, Marvin Rand, Seymour Rosen, Ed Ruscha, Julian Wasser, and Terry Wild.

Street Sight

Two people view photographs during the opening reception for the "Street Sight" exhibition at the Armory Center for the Arts in Pasadena, Saturday, June 25, 2011.

You'd Think She'd Know When They'll Arrive

A woman waits for customers in a storefront "European Psychic" shop in Los Angeles, Saturday, June 25, 2011.

Standard Stoppage

A dog and owner attend the opening reception for the "Street Sight" exhibition at the Armory Center for the Arts in Pasadena, Saturday, June 25, 2011.

Using the Metz 58 Second Reflector Well

Let's start with this: the Metz 58 AF-2 is a great hotshoe flash. In my opinion, it's the smartest flash out there.

I do, of course, understand why a photographer might choose the top-of-the-line flash from their specific camera brand. I think it's worth comparing, though, before a purchase -- it has some features that photographers might not even realize they need or realize are left out of the Brand Name flash.

I'll address the Metz 58's merits some other time, though. Today, I want to address an element I see presented badly around the web, and I just want to clarify a bit about this feature.

I'm talking about the Metz 58's "secondary reflector." Here's the deal: besides the main flash head, the Metz has a smaller, less-powerful flash tube ("reflector") that stays facing forward even when the main head is tilted up for bouncing.

So what do I want to clarify? Well, the typical discussion of this feature goes like this: "Hey, great idea, let's try it. Oh, tried it: it's too harsh."

So, let's look at this quickly. In the photo above, I set a camera bag down and made a quick shot by tilting my Metz up and bouncing the flash off the ceiling. Simple, and it worked well. But ... if we are really picky, and look at the buckle and at the shadows under the flaps of the bag, we can see the drawback of ceiling-bounce-flash: shadows. On a person's face, this can mean that the eyes get a bit dark: the brow ridges cast a shadow and "hide" the eyes.

Well, a quick solution can be to pull out the built-in white card on the head of the flash (similar to putting an index card on the flash held by a rubber band -- the old school solution). Alternately, we could bring in a reflector and redirect some of the light back into the eyes.

But can we use the Metz' "secondary reflector" to help us fill these shadows?

Yes ... and no ... and yes.

So, the Metz lets you sets:

• Secondary reflector at full power.
• Secondary reflector at half power.
• Secondary reflector at 1/4 power.

Cool. Let's try those.



Above: the main flash head is titled up at the ceiling, bouncing its light. The secondary reflector is pointed at the bag, set at "full power."

Awful. It looks like the flash from a little compact camera. Essentially, the secondary reflector is about the same size, so that makes sense. But don't blame the flash: this is the photographer's fault. We need to adjust the power levels between the main bounced flash and the secondary reflector we want to use as fill. In that first shot, the direct secondary reflector was too powerful, so let's turn it down.



Above: the secondary reflector is now turned down to 1/2 power. Better, but the quality of light is still not great. We are getting too much light from the smaller, "harder" light source and not really doing what we set out to do, which was fill in shadows left by the bigger, "softer" bounced light. So let's adjust further...



Above: now we've set the reflector to 1/4 power. Not as bad ... but not good enough.

And usually, that's where the test ends, and why I think this secondary reflector feature has been treated a bit badly by reviewers. They tend to say "Hmm. If it would cut down to 1/8 power, that might work...."

Well, shucks, is it so hard to help the flash out a little?



Okay, that's better. If you look at this shot, and compare it to the original, you can see some positive improvement. The buckle in the first shot is too dark, and here we can see it. And we've done it without letting the little (and harsher) secondary reflector ruin the quality of the light.

How did we achieve this? The Metz only lets you use the secondary reflector on 1/1, 1/2 and 1/4 settings. So ... how did we go further?



Well, duh. I just attached a little diffusion over the secondary reflector. I took out my Honl Strap, put it on the head of the flash, then velcroed on a Heavy Frost gel. If I wanted to cut further, I could use more diffusion.

This could be a very easy and workable technique if one is photographing people and seeing shadowed eyes. Any diffusion material can work -- and you can vary it as you like. For someone shooting night club photos, or a wedding reception, a little refinement of this technique could be a very plausible solution for no-worries fill.

Friday Flower

I'm not really a flower guy. It's important to stretch, though, I think.

This image was made as a little flash-technique exercise. I shot at 1 p.m. under full daylight sun. The trick: I set my flash on HSS (High Speed Sync) and changed my exposure to ISO 100, f/4, 1/4000th of a second. Since the flash was connected via an off-camera cable, I was able to position and direct it where I liked -- letting me decrease the background exposure but still intensely light the flower.

Perfect for Rush Hour

A component of a Richard Serra art work is prepared for transport at Los Angeles County Museum of Art in Los Angeles, Thursday, June 23, 2011.

See also: Cor-Ten

Double Portrait

Today at Los Angeles County Museum of Art. Also, there was this.

Cor-Ten

A component of a Richard Serra art work is lifted by a crane at Los Angeles County Museum of Art in Los Angeles, Thursday, June 23, 2011.

3rd and Fairfax in Los Angeles

A costumed person waves while walking along 3rd Street in Los Angeles, Wednesday, June 22, 2011.

Que? Serra, Serra

A construction crane, used to move art work by Richard Serra, is seen at Los Angeles County Museum of Art on Tuesday, June 21, 2011.

Found

Tatum O'Neal strides forward to join Mario Lopez for a television interview at The Grove in Los Angeles, Wednesday, June 22, 2011.

Dogtown and TV-Boys

A Los Angeles television reporter learns to skateboard during the "Wild in the Streets" event at Lafayette Park in Los Angeles, Tuesday, June 21, 2011.

CORRECTION:
Los Angeles television reporter Cary Berglund learns to skateboard during the "Wild in the Streets" event at Lafayette Park in Los Angeles, Tuesday, June 21, 2011.

The Downside of Street

A skateboarder falls during the "Wild in the Streets" event at Lafayette Park in Los Angeles, Tuesday, June 21, 2011.

And on my other blogs:

Wild in the Streets

First Day of Summer

First Day of Summer

A skateboarder attempts a jump during the "Wild in the Streets" event at Lafayette Park in Los Angeles, Tuesday, June 21, 2011.

Wild in the Streets

A skateboarder lands after a jump during the "Wild in the Streets" event at Lafayette Park in Los Angeles, Tuesday, June 21, 2011.

The Return of Rocky the Fleeing Squirrel

Previously, on Rocky the Fleeing Squirrel....

Ambient Sound: Quarters Dropping

Returning from Utah, we had a few flight delays. While waiting in McCarran International Airport in Las Vegas, Mrs. Documentary Photography suggested we play a small amount of money on a slot machine.

Landlocked, Yet Hopeful

I'm in Utah. It's kind of a long story.

A Face in the Crowd

I heard sirens, and went outside. I photographed this incident. I looked around at the crowd, and saw the expected mix of curiousity and shock that an accident had happened.

And then, there was the guy above.

Pink Shoes

Firefighters help a person involved in an automobile accident onto a stretcher in Los Angeles, Friday, June 10, 2011.

Looks Like He Made It

Barry Manilow is escorted from a performance stage to a waiting limousine after a performance at The Grove in Los Angeles, Thursday, June 9, 2011.

Wait, "Fauve" Means Wild Beast?

Why, yes, we were discussing Chip Simons, why do you ask?

Like A Felon

Recently, I've had to use gels on my flash for both color correction and for effects.

It occurred to me that, if someone is interested in gelling their flash, they may easily be led astray by the "advice" they find on photo forums. You know, those same people who tell you to use the bottom of a 2-liter soda bottle instead of a Gary Fong diffuser. They're out there, in the forums, and telling everyone to ...

• buy big sheets of color gel material and velcro fasteners
• spend all day cutting the gel material into strips and carefully attaching the velcro
• somehow label the gels so you'll be able to figure out which one is the full "Color Temperature Orange" and which one is the 1/2 "Color Temperature Orange" during the pressure of a shoot, in the dark.

Great. Because you need to spend hours doing that to save about $20. Nothing like work that equals about $5 an hour and looks kinda shoddy at the end of the day. Let me save you the time, but cost you about $50. First, know what you want to do. The idea is this:

The Problem:
 Your flash puts out light that is pretty close to the color temperature of 5500k. So if you go into an office and want to use it to augment light coming from overhead fluorescent panels (which are kinda green if you shoot them with Daylight white balance instead of Fluorescent white balance), you may find a mismatch that can create color casts somewhere in the image. Or, if you go into someone's living room and want to add to the light coming from their table lamp (possibly balanced for 3200k) you will have to choose to set your white balance to match your flash or to match the lamp -- which can mean either a blue or yellow cast in some areas of the image.

The Solution:
Put a gel on your flash to match it to the existing light in the space. Then, you can set your white balance to match. In other words, in an office you would make your flash a bit green to match the greenish light fluorescents put out, and set your white balance to Fluorescent. In a living room, you would gel your flash to make its light close to 3200k color temperature, so it matches the living room lamp, and then set your white balance to "Indoor" or "Tungsten."

So what you need is the right gel -- and you can get custom made ones for relatively cheap, and quickly attach them to your flash. (And then, if you want to explore the world of "painting with light" or other color trickery, you can get additional gels to work with.)

Here's what I recommend:

1. Get a Honl Speed Strap.
This is just a strip that wraps on the head of your flash -- it's basically one size fits all for any hotshoe flash -- and that gels can be Velcroed to.




2. Get a set of Honl Color Correction Gels.
These come with a two of each of the important gels for making your flash match the conditions you'll find in the world. They attach quickly and easily to the strap, and take up almost no space in your camera bag. Adding flash to an office shot? No problem. Adding flash to a living room shot? No problem. Purposefully warming up a shot? No problem.




3. Later, get a set of Honl Color Effects Gels.
Then, you can spend hours in the dark, playing with light.




As an example, the image on this page was made with a "Bright Red" gel and a "Moss Green" and just a touch of "Yellow" -- I set my camera on a tripod, darkened the room, set my aperture to f/11 and the shutter speed to 8 seconds. I held my flash in my hand and then manually fired it in varying positions -- set on low power -- a few times with each gel.

The Circle of Life is Noisy

I don't mind that the backyard crows fight. I just wish they'd wait until I've had my coffee before they start.

Gelling Your Flash

Recently, I've had to use gels on my flash for both color correction and for effects.

It occurred to me that, if someone is interested in gelling their flash, they may easily be led astray by the "advice" they find on photo forums. You know, those same people who tell you to use the bottom of a 2-liter soda bottle instead of a Gary Fong diffuser. They're out there, in the forums, and telling everyone to ...

• buy big sheets of color gel material and velcro fasteners
• spend all day cutting the gel material into strips and carefully attaching the velcro
• somehow label the gels so you'll be able to figure out which one is the full "Color Temperature Orange" and which one is the 1/2 "Color Temperature Orange" during the pressure of a shoot, in the dark.

Great. Because you need to spend hours doing that to save about $20. Nothing like work that equals about $5 an hour and looks kinda shoddy at the end of the day. Let me save you the time, but cost you about $50. First, know what you want to do. The idea is this:

The Problem:
 Your flash puts out light that is pretty close to the color temperature of 5500k. So if you go into an office and want to use it to augment light coming from overhead fluorescent panels (which are kinda green if you shoot them with Daylight white balance instead of Fluorescent white balance), you may find a mismatch that can create color casts somewhere in the image. Or, if you go into someone's living room and want to add to the light coming from their table lamp (possibly balanced for 3200k) you will have to choose to set your white balance to match your flash or to match the lamp -- which can mean either a blue or yellow cast in some areas of the image.

The Solution:
Put a gel on your flash to match it to the existing light in the space. Then, you can set your white balance to match. In other words, in an office you would make your flash a bit green to match the greenish light fluorescents put out, and set your white balance to Fluorescent. In a living room, you would gel your flash to make its light close to 3200k color temperature, so it matches the living room lamp, and then set your white balance to "Indoor" or "Tungsten."

So what you need is the right gel -- and you can get custom made ones for relatively cheap, and quickly attach them to your flash. (And then, if you want to explore the world of "painting with light" or other color trickery, you can get additional gels to work with.)

Here's what I recommend:

1. Get a Honl Speed Strap.
This is just a strip that wraps on the head of your flash -- it's basically one size fits all for any hotshoe flash -- and that gels can be Velcroed to.




2. Get a set of Honl Color Correction Gels.
These come with a two of each of the important gels for making your flash match the conditions you'll find in the world. They attach quickly and easily to the strap, and take up almost no space in your camera bag. Adding flash to an office shot? No problem. Adding flash to a living room shot? No problem. Purposefully warming up a shot? No problem.




3. Later, get a set of Honl Color Effects Gels.
Then, you can spend hours in the dark, playing with light.




As an example, the image on this page was made with a "Bright Red" gel and a "Just Blue" -- I set my camera on a tripod, darkened the room, set my aperture to f/11 and the shutter speed to 8 seconds. I held my flash in my hand and then manually fired it in varying positions -- set on low power -- a few times with each gel.

Rocky, The Fleeing Squirrel

No moose sightings to report.

The Tune Without the Words

A boy approaches a crow bitten by his dog, Los Angeles, Thursday, May 26,2011.

Exit Through the Bake Shop

Thierry Guetta, a.k.a. Mr. Brainwash, visits a bakery, Tuesday, May 10, 2011. (Photo by Ted Fisher.)

California Museum of Photography

Sant Khalsa explains her photographic practice while California Museum of Photography Director Colin Westerbeck listens during the opening reception for "Riverrun: Sant Khalsa's 20-year Journey with the Santa Ana River" in Riverside, Calif. on Saturday, May 7, 2011. The exhibition will be on display until August 13, 2011.

Riverside, Riverrun

Sant Khalsa explains her photographic practice while California Museum of Photography Director Colin Westerbeck listens during the opening reception for "Riverrun: Sant Khalsa's 20-year Journey with the Santa Ana River" in Riverside, Calif. on Saturday, May 7, 2011. The exhibition will be on display until August 13, 2011.

Riverrun

Sant Khalsa explains her photographic practice while California Museum of Photography Director Colin Westerbeck listens during the opening reception for "Riverrun: Sant Khalsa's 20-year Journey with the Santa Ana River" in Riverside, Calif. on Saturday, May 7, 2011. The exhibition will be on display until August 13, 2011.

The Ground Below

Museum visitors look through Sarah Oppenheimer's "610-3356" to the ground four floors below during the show "Gestures: An Exhibition of Small Site-Specific Works" at The Mattress Factory Art Museum in Pittsburgh on Tuesday, April 19, 2011.

Turrell at Mattress Factory, Pittsburgh

Patrons examine the work of James Turrell during the show "Gestures: An Exhibition of Small Site-Specific Works" at The Mattress Factory Art Museum in Pittsburgh on Tuesday, April 19, 2011.

See also: Turrellean Blue.

Turrellean Blue

Patrons view the work of James Turrell during the show "Gestures: An Exhibition of Small Site-Specific Works" at The Mattress Factory Art Museum in Pittsburgh on Tuesday, April 19, 2011.

Liberty Avenue

Marie smokes a cigarette on Liberty Avenue in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, on Monday, April 18, 2011.

The View from the 26th Floor

I'm in Pittsburgh.

Untermensch

Not every one can be super, you know. (Above: an iPhone snap from Friday at Union Station.)

Freewaves Friday

20,558 (Twenty Thousand Portraits) from Ted Fisher on Vimeo.

In 2001 Doug McCulloh and I photographed 20,558 people at the Los Angeles County Fair. The project served as raw material for several exhibitions previously, and tonight one of the short films created from the photographs screens at:

2011 OXY FREEWAVES: THE ART AND POLITICS OF SPACE
A night of global and local media works exploring space, in public space

Friday, April 15, 7 - 9 p.m. Occidental College Main Quad

As part of the 2011 Spring Arts Festival, the Occidental College Film & Media Studies Program invites students, alumni, and the Los Angeles community to participate in an evening of food, drink, conversation, and cutting-edge videos addressing contemporary questions around the cultural, ideological, environmental, and creative uses of space.

Artists and Videos:

Nancy Atakan: Thinking Garbage (2005, Istanbul, Turkey)

Natasha Dyu: On the Ground (2008, Mumbai, India)

Göran Boardy: Target Seeker (2006, Goteborg, Sweden)

Marco Montiel-Soto: La Sinfonia De La Calle/The Street Symphony (2007, Barcelona, Spain)

Tenzin Phuntsog:  om-ma-ni-pad-me-hum (2004, New York, United States)

Martha Gorzycki: Unfurling (2003, San Francisco/Los Angeles, United States)

Ted Fisher and Doug McCulloh: Video Billboard  (2001, Los Angeles, United States)

Bonita Makuch:  Strangers in Paradise  (2004, Los Angeles, United States)

This marks the second OXY FREEWAVES venture, an exhibition of experimental and documentary films, that places documentary works by Occidental students into conversation with works by international artists from Freewaves, an organization supporting innovative, relevant, independent new media from around the world. Directions and parking information can be found on the campus map. The Oxy Quad is # 126 on the Map. This event is made possible by the Remsen Bird Fund and the Office of the President. Contact Prof. Broderick Fox with any questions. 6522 Hollywood Boulevard | Los Angeles, CA 90028 US

Above: the short film "20,558 (Twenty Thousand Portraits)" which shows how the images were made.

Screening at OXY Freewaves on Friday

20,558 (Twenty Thousand Portraits) from Ted Fisher on Vimeo.

A long while back I made a project with Doug McCulloh where we photographed 20,558 Los Angeles residents. The images were shown in a variety of ways, and tomorrow one of the short films created from the photographs is screening at:

2011 OXY FREEWAVES: THE ART AND POLITICS OF SPACE
A night of global and local media works exploring space, in public space

Friday, April 15, 7 - 9 p.m. Occidental College Main Quad

As part of the 2011 Spring Arts Festival, the Occidental College Film & Media Studies Program invites students, alumni, and the Los Angeles community to participate in an evening of food, drink, conversation, and cutting-edge videos addressing contemporary questions around the cultural, ideological, environmental, and creative uses of space.

Artists and Videos:

Nancy Atakan: Thinking Garbage (2005, Istanbul, Turkey)

Natasha Dyu: On the Ground (2008, Mumbai, India)

Göran Boardy: Target Seeker (2006, Goteborg, Sweden)

Marco Montiel-Soto: La Sinfonia De La Calle/The Street Symphony (2007, Barcelona, Spain)


Tenzin Phuntsog:  om-ma-ni-pad-me-hum (2004, New York, United States)

Martha Gorzycki: Unfurling (2003, San Francisco/Los Angeles, United States)

Ted Fisher and Doug McCulloh: Video Billboard  (2001, Los Angeles, United States)

Bonita Makuch:  Strangers in Paradise  (2004, Los Angeles, United States)

This marks the second OXY FREEWAVES venture, an exhibition of experimental and documentary films, that places documentary works by Occidental students into conversation with works by international artists from Freewaves, an organization supporting innovative, relevant, independent new media from around the world.

Mentored by media artist and LA Freewaves founder Anne Bray, the students of Occidental's Film & Media Studies Program will transform the campus' main quad into a series of public screening venues, permitting visitors to move between eight different themed media programs.

Directions and parking information can be found on the campus map. The Oxy Quad is # 126 on the Map. This event is made possible by the Remsen Bird Fund and the Office of the President. Contact Prof. Broderick Fox with any questions. 6522 Hollywood Boulevard | Los Angeles, CA 90028 US

Above: the short film "20,558 (Twenty Thousand Portraits) which shows a bit about how the images were made.

First New Neighbor

Hey, remember when I moved from Manhattan to Los Angeles and made my First New Friend? (That was a friendship with its ups and downs, of course.)

Well, I'm now moving right into the heart of Los Angeles, and while unpacking I've met a new pal. I call him "Red." He (or she?) hangs out high in the tree and stares inside, checking me out.

Which is either very cute, or maybe a little creepy, depending how you look at it.

Happy April Fools' Day from Los Angeles

In case you were wondering, I've vanished from San Francisco and I'm blogging at Los Angeles Portraits and also at Documentary Photography.

Re-Break

A woman photographs art at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art in Los Angeles on Friday, April 1, 2011. LACMA has an extensive collection of modern and contemporary art.

Matchy Matchy

"What should I wear to the museum?"

"I dunno. What about your striped shirt?"

"Hey, great idea. What could go wrong with that?"

Above: A woman views art at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art in Los Angeles on Friday, April 1, 2011. LACMA has an extensive collection of modern and contemporary art.