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It’s not often you get to shoot magazine covers so of course I jumped at the chance. The thing about magazine covers is that it’s never boring, unknown or obscure. The cover sells no matter what people, your parents, your boyfriend/girlfriend, teacher, BFF tell you. People do judge the book (or in this case, magazine) by the cover. So if a magazine wants to survive in today’s mostly digital, online world, the cover has to do its job.
So obviously, this contemporary Christian magazine still has to do what other magazines do. Put someone well-known on the cover versus someone else. Anyways, people who make magazine covers usually don’t have time for photographers to fuss over the shots. They give you thirty minutes and you better nail the thing down or it’s bye-bye, and you’ve got tons of P&P (Photoshop & Prayer) to save the crap you just shot.
For Winnie, my appointment was 5pm and I showed up at her Mid-valley studio at just a quarter past four. Ten minutes to introduce myself to the receptionist, scout around. She’s a genuinely nice lady and really simple and down to earth so she actually meets me, gets her assistant to make me coffee and ask me my shoot ideas. Since we’re not shooting for Business week, including the studio logo and name is out of the question so she thinks two of my ideas work out and offers a room. I see the a couple of possibilities there so she goes off and I setup.
To keep things fluid, fast, and portable, I throw up a Lastolite EzyBox on a Manfrotto 1052BAC stand. Since I’ve no time to fuss with line-of-sight crap, I shove on my RadioPopper PXs on a Canon 580EXII flash.
Clock hits five and it’s action time. Took a couple of frames, moved a to a glass door and bam, much better than the textured wall. Still not getting it. The editor said beauty so here’s this E&Y Entrepreneur of the year winner, savvy business woman and beautiful at the same time. I didn’t want to position her too hard so I changed ideas, asked her to sit and put her hands together. EzyBox up close, my favorite 70-200 2.8 lens at f/3.2, dialed in +2/3EV to factor in all the white and my 5D Mark II’s brain took care of the rest. Did a couple more but I knew I had the cover.
The first shot, I like the textured wall so I had a tight grid on the flash head to create a natural vignette. Flash head zoomed to 70mm.
The logo for A Cut Above featured blue glass with horizontal texture so this door reminds me of the logo in a subtle way so that’s the reason for the backdrop. Felt something lacking and the don’t really like the door frame so next…
The cover shot here. Flash down -1EV with +2/3 for ambient. I did soften this in LR3 a bit for a final but this is exactly what I got out of the camera. Notice I left space at the top for the Magazine masthead. I shot three of the same, with space on the left and right.
Did a standing shot but it’ll didn’t excite me so that’s wrap. And a couple of shots which they also ran inside for the article.
I know a fair number of so-called photographers that would rather buy more gear than more education. Gear will only help if you know how to use it. Spending money on workshops and books allow you to use your equipment better. At least that’s what I believe and I think it shows in myself as well as others. I’ve seen people with fancy-pants DSLRs and even Leica M8s complaining their photos suck. Maybe their skills suck?
Anyways, on a beautiful Monday morning saw the postal delivery van ring the door bell and behold, my Kevin Kubota Lighting notebook. [Buy here]
As a fan of their Photoshop and Lightroom actions — none of my shots escape my studio without one of them being used, when Kevin pre-announced the Lighting notebook, I know that I’m going to be getting it. And, yeah, I have Kubota Bucks to spend 
Inspired by the likes of Joe McNally, Syl Arena and Louis Pang, I’ve been shooting more and more with multiple speedlights. More inspiration, more guides and more information can’t hurt. You don’t stop learning!. You shouldn’t anyway. Like what a friend of mine likes to say: “You only stop learning when you’re dead!”
Woohoo! My own autographed copy! Had to crop the shot this way because my justin clamp was used to weigh down the cover!
Kevin’s Lighting notebook starts with a lighting basics primer and there’s lots of information there. The book is generally aimed at the intermediate level photographer who kind of knows what do to with a single flash unit and has exposure, aperture, shutter speed and all that down pat. However, I still think that it would be invaluable to beginner photographers who’ve just started out on lighting by buying their first flash unit. I don’t know about you all but my experience seems to show that people starting out photography buy in the following order: DSLR, replace their kit lens with something better, some super telephoto lens, a couple of lenses and then only a flash unit. If you’re at that level where you’ve bought your first flash unit, see my notes below on other books you ALSO SHOULD get with this book.
While it’s titled a Lighting notebook, there is enough gear talk to satisfy the geeks and gear-heads. There’s ample description here but let’s go to the more important and obviously thicker portion. The Lighting notes! Final shots, setup shots, diagrams and straight out of camera shots help illustrate what is going on and how the shot was done. There’s ample cool tricks (leaf-blower, perforated garden hose, etc), techniques and more. The lighting diagrams and tools used is very helpful in helping you recreate the look or lighting. The one thing I find most useful is how Kevin writes in many places that you can use a speedlight in the place of a mono or AC/Battery strobe. For many photographers starting out, they can still try the lighting without owning a bigger strobe. There’s also plenty of examples where simple reflectors are used — who says you always need battery or AC powered strobes!
Seriously, I’m inspired. Inspired by the themes and ideas that are in the book. Not necessary to copy, but to use the light in a different way. Eventually, we all ought to find our own style but if you want to see the light (pun intended), what are you waiting for? This book has to be on your bookshelf. It’ll probably inspire you to shoot with flash in ways you never have thought before. Worse case, it’ll look quite cool on your bookshelf and you can impress your clients!
Here are a couple more photos from the notes pages. If you want more, buy the book yourself. I’m not loaning mine to anyone for now!
Since I purchased it much earlier, I get to enjoy additional free Kubota Lightroom presets and have a wad of Kubota Bucks! Yay!
For the photographers:
The book was taken on my studio editing room floor. I turned off all the lights and used a 50mm lens at f/2.5 hence the shallow depth of field and blurring of the pages. The book is new so it doesn’t lay flat. To light it, I had a single speedlite, a 580EX II (connected to camera via a 30′ ETTL cord) mounted on a Justin clamp which was attached to a Manfrotto magic arm, that in turn was attached to my Manfrotto Air-cushion stand. The Justin clamp held a lastolite 2-stop tri-grip diffuser. My intent was to turn the flash into a big light that hit the white ceiling, wash back down over all my white walls. Overly complicated? Maybe. Why? Because I could and this is a lightning notebook and why not try something a bit crazy. It may work!
Buy this book here and buy this book and this book together!!
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Taking family portraiture is fairly straightforward if the family is looking for standard group shots where everyone’s kinda looking at the camera. Nothing fancy and it doesn’t stretch the artistic brain very much. It is however important to the older generation as I’ve experienced. While the younger (read the couple or one or two others) folks might like a more arty kind of portraiture, the older folks would buy a larger (12 x 16) print if everyone was grouped traditionally and looking right at the camera.
So, I had twenty minutes and several combination of people to shoot. First thing is what’s important in the location, in this case, the family home. Obviously, the antique Chinese name plate. Sadly, I don’t read Chinese and I rely exclusively on Google. For the two sample shots I posted below, I had two 580EX II flash units firing into reflective umbrellas to even out the light. It is obvious that everyone is standing in the shade. In order to balance back the light as the outdoor light is obviously warmer than my flash, a half-CTO gel was placed on each flash.
A couple of tests showed that things were fine except that the built in spotlights on the sign board were not bright enough when you’re shooting at noon, f/5.6 and 1/125 shutter speed. I couldn’t drag the shutter any longer as it’s noon. Gel in another flash to hit the signboard. This was zoomed to 105mm to tighten the light being thrown out. Unfortunately, I didn’t have a snoot, as you can see even at 105mm, there was visible spill.
Finally, Malaysian hair is typically dark and the dark brown door doesn’t help things so another flash unit placed behind the group shots and we were good to go. If I’d do this again, would I do it differently? Well, of course. A snoot would have improved the signboard flash. That flash was in group B and one-stop under compared to my group A flashes (in brollies) so I would have probably dropped it down another half-stop. Might also be fun if I gelled that flash red (and maybe the one firing at the door. Again all this wouldn’t be accomplished without my RadioPoppers. Canon’s wireless flash lacks that reliability needed in this circumstance.
Lighting group shots has always been a challenge especially when the location is not exactly the best or the ambient light fairly low. The other problem when you’re using studio strobes with flash detect triggers is that someone down in the group with a flash will also trigger your strobe. Could have lit the entire group with five 580EX IIs actually but I’ll need the softboxes or reflectors to smooth out the light. Anyways, for the last minute shoot, my radio triggers were on loan to a good friend who needs it more than I do. All I needed was my Mark II, a 16 foot high aluminum folding A-frame ladder, two strobes and a 580EX II on full power on the camera. Ah, you start seeing the distorted people with at the edges with my 16mm lens. Need a higher ladder!
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