Thursday, December 25, 2008

Shooting at Schulich























No, not that kind of shooting. The one with cameras. I had a great time at Schulich (even with the York Strike situation), and got a few people to turn out to get some portraits done. I appreciate everyone that volunteered; most of which were just stopped randomly in the school. Seeing how much interest there is, once the strike's over I may do this again (if you're interested, contact me at: info@fodorphotography.com). Big inspiration here came from Zack Arias' OneLight dvd set. Especially the "pretend you're in a black gospel choir; clapping along" concept to get some motion in models. It really help eases the tension. Highly recommended. Max (Bright Ideas Group President) had a good time (above photo).

It's interesting seeinng the Schulich Building through photographs. The bland concrete walls don't seem as bad anymore.

You can check out the video of the day here: 



Renting from Headshots was great; they have a 50% off overnight charge and 10% off on top of that for being a student. Plus half of the final rental cost can be used to buy new equipment (got me a nice new ballhead). It's the first time I used a ring light, and it's challenging to balance it with ambient/other light sources without just blowing out everything with too much power. I'll definately use it again, but try to stop down the softboxes more. I also spent too much time in photoshop cloning out the heavy vignetting from using too wide of a lens. The 35-70mm f/4 minolta is a fantastic lens, but it's stubby. And that means vignetting at its widest. It's hard to zoom in closer, because then the ratio of light changes. My beloved Tamron 17-50 f/2.8 is out for repair (front focus+coating peel), so hopefully I'll have that back before the next shoot.

Attached below are some of my favorites from the day.