mjhphotography's photostream

Strobist: Sb-600 in a DIY Beauty Dish at 1/4 power from above model. Bare Vivitar 285hv @ 1/16 power behind model.

I approached this model, having worked with her previously, wanting dance pictures. That was about all I gave her to go on. She came back to me with a whole story she wanted to portray. The character she's portraying is burdened with domesticity, and only finds solace and escape through dance.

I had a blast shooting this and had to shake myself a few times watching her, trying to remember that I had to also be pushing the shutter button.

Strobist: Sb-600 in a DIY Beauty Dish at 1/4 power from above model. Bare Vivitar 285hv @ 1/16 power behind model.

I approached this model, having worked with her previously, wanting dance pictures. That was about all I gave her to go on. She came back to me with a whole story she wanted to portray. The character she's portraying is burdened with domesticity, and only finds solace and escape through dance.

I had a blast shooting this and had to shake myself a few times watching her, trying to remember that I had to also be pushing the shutter button.

DIY Beauty dish from camera right and above. The elements that converged to make this photograph made it almost like cheating.

We were about 20 minutes away from this location when we figured we'd swing by again to see if we'd get a decent sunset. There almost no clouds at the location we were at, so we almost didn't go. Halfway there I saw the clouds in the distance and the sun going down and proceeded to speed much more than I usually do. We caught the sunset with about 5 minutes left and ended up with over 150 shots. She was freezing, and I'm normally very concerned with the comfort of my models, but I was determined to use every second of that sunset. Well worth it.

Lit with a DIY beauty dish from above and camera left at about 1/4 power.

Straight up, backlit sunlight; no fill. Probably one of my favorite shots of the day and it's basically is a big fat "mistake". This is the reason I don't worry about shit like catchlights and all the other crap photographers worry about. You know what I care about? Do I like the image? If yes, then it's not a mistake. Photography is like gardening in that sense: Is it a weed? I don't know, do you want it to be there? If not, then it's a weed.