Liberty Sports Magazine

Accompanying the article by Michael J. Ross, MD in the April/May 2010 edition of Liberty Sports Magazine is my picture of Becca Howell. This was from a fitness shoot with Becca a few months ago. The picture is simply lit using 2 back/rim lights in small softboxes and a main light in a softbox in front. The main light is in a softbox without the front difuser to give a little more punch to the light. The image is as it came out of the camera, with the exception of removing a power cord in Photoshop. From the experience of cloning out the cord, I realized it would be easier to carry an extra extension cord.

The entire photoshoot with Becca can be seen by clicking here.

Corporate (Head)shots

I was asked to do some corporate headshots for a medical consulting duo. They are a couple of hip guys, great outside the box thinkers.

I thought that they could be represented with some outside of the box photos. There is no reason, I thought, that corporate headshots have to be headshots. I thought some GQ style fashion photos might be fun to get as well.

I used a bounced light through a tranlucent panel for my main light with small softboxes as rims and a gridded light for the background. The bounce into a light panel gives a soft light with a great fall-off for a soft light with some crispness to the clothes from the shadow fall-off.

Click here for the collection of 3/4 and head shots.

Tour of California

Last year at this time, the Tour of California was in full swing. I was in Sacramento for the prologue and the start of the first stage. It was Lance Armstrong's return to racing in the US since he came out of retirement and it seemed that every Bay Area cyclist came out to see him.

I was taking pictures of each rider as they passed, when suddenly I realized that my camera battery was dying. With 12 riders to go, all of the big names hadn't passed our way yet, I didn't have time to run back to the hotel and grab another battery, so my photos stopped with Carlos Sastre, the winner of the Tour de France in 2008.

Here's what I got from the day

Beauty Headshots

I teamed up with Makeup artist Calista and Model Lea Faye for some beauty headshots this week. When I spoke with Lea at our planning session, she brought some pictures with her of what she wanted to accomplish.

We decided that the bare shoulders look was less distracting and were looking to grab a few profiles as well as some hair and full-face portraits.

For lighting, I wanted both high-key (white background at the top of the post) and dark field (dark background with bright rim lights) setups.


I used a combination of studio strobes and reflectors.

I never realized how much time it takes for full makeup to be applied. I had setup my lights and run extension cords with time to spare. It may have taken longer than I realized, but the results were worth it!

Click here to see a slideshow of my favorite shots from the day


Technical info:
High key images were obtained with 2 calumet genesis strobes aimed at the background. They were set to f11, 1 stop above the main light. To get the wisps of light that provide contour on here neck and under her chin I positioned Lea where the refection off the back wall read f8. The main light was a softbox up high, set to f8. For some of the shots, I removed the outer diffuser to give a higher contrast light. Fill light was behind me with a strobe fired into an umbrella and set 2/3 stop below main. A reflector was placed against the main light stand to fill some of the shadows.
Dark field images were done with the same main light and reflector, but the background lights were fitted with softboxes and aimed back at the model. They were set to 2/3 stop over the main light.

Kids in Charge

What do you get when you give a four and a six-year-old control of a camera with a radio light trigger?

A lot of fun and some memorable photos.


I handed over my 9-year-old digital Powershot G1 (they're up to the G11 now) to the boys for some cold weather indoor fun.

See the slideshow

Dave Smith, Circus Performer #3

Dave Smith from onemansideshow.com posed for me as the next circus performer in my series. Dave had a narrow time frame before jetting off to Europe for a few weeks.

We were trying to get a few good portraits that he could use as some promo shots and we were also looking for detail shots.

Since fire is always eye-catching, I wanted to get some pictures of him doing some fire eating. I thought hard edge light would be a good place to start, so I used a three light setup to grab the shot above and this:



Each of the back lights were into reflectors and a softbox was used for up high. The rim lights were one stop above the main to give some definition and separation against the black background.

I set the lights up while Dave was in the “Juggling Laboratory” beneath the Juggling Studio breaking some bottles with his sledgehammer. He was breaking glass for his amazing feets of strength. This shot was done with backlight to create some highlights on the glass.











My favorite picture of the shoot was the long trail of fire we got with a creative exposure of 2 seconds. Although there is some blur, we got this one in 2 tries. The single light froze the action while the fire exposed itself throughout the range of motion.


Click to see the slideshow of my favorite shots from this session.

Performance Lab

I have been taking a bunch of photographs in the new Performance Lab, a state of the art exercise science and sports medicine facility in Cherry Hill, NJ. Today, we photographed a VO2max test in progress.



Simple lighting, using a softbox on the right and a blue gelled flash as a rim.