Sunday, October 12, 2014
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This is my favorite Dragoncon 2014 photo. The Make-a-Wish foundation made it possible for 10 year old Dawn Garrigus, who has a life threatening illness, to meet Patrick Stewart backstage. He was about to speak to a packed room of 2000 people, but they sat down and he really focused on her; they talked for about 15 minutes. As things are winding down and she and her family are getting ready to go, Dawn unexpectedly throws him this huge hug, and you can see the happiness in both their faces. Bravo Sir Patrick!

This photo went viral; it's wonderful that what really interests people is this very real moment between two people. (In addition to the 3300+ likes and 1100+ shares on my facebook page it was run by Huffington Post, Entertainment Tonight, MSN, Yahoo and BuzzFeed among others.) 

Hats-off to Make-a-Wish for making this possible http://wish.org and for Patrick Stewart for being such a class act. 

 
Friday, September 05, 2014
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Jim Divitale and Jack Resnicki were preparing to go on a 24 city national tour for Canon, teaching photography, and they were making photos to use in their presentation. See the results for yourself, the Canon in Action Tour comes to Atlanta on September 27th and 28th. (I was shooting behind-the-scenes photos for use in social media.)

This is Jack shooting the model, Jim shooting the setup of how Jack is shooting the model. And I’m shooting Jim shooting Jack shooting the model. :)

and then vice-versa

Most of these shots were made using Westcott modifiers: the scrimjim, backdrops, 5 in one reflectors and my favorites – the rapid boxes. (You can get an interior deflector for these which makes them into portable beauty dishes as well as softboxes) Note that the big octoboxes near the ceiling were not used to shoot the models, just add ambient light to the setup shots.

I’m a huge fan of the new 600EX-RT Canon Speedlites because they are radio controlled (no line-of-site issues) and are really reliable. So, it was especially fun to watch these guys take these flashes through their paces. Here's a setup with three 630EX-RT canon speedlites in the softbox being triggered by another on-camera speedlight.

Climbing up and down the ladder to change settings gets tiresome...

So adjusting and reviewing the shots wirelessly on an ipad, using Camranger, is a huge help...


Leesa in the beauty-light setup.

The indefatigable Lisa Pulicci standing in for the Leesa while we set lights to demonstrate using multiple 600EX-RT’s in stroboscopic (multi) mode.


The final shot: 5 Leesa’s (& 1 Jack.)

Demonstration of second-curtain sync capabilities of the 600EX-RT. Ok imagine the red LED light is the taillight of a car.

Compared to the shot without the second curtain sync


Reviewing the photos and signing the ubiquitous model release.

I guess we are all done!