steampunk in corridor

steampunk in corridor

Did this a few weeks ago on location at an old miltary fort. Its actually a pillbox/bunker that is almost completely buried under sand at this time, but there remains an obscure path to both entrances, one of which can be seen behind me.

I had a couple of Canon 580 EXll strobes. One shooting through a small softbox to light subject and another off in the back shooting through a red gel to the wall in back of me.

A vivitar 285HV shooting from the back to light side of subject and hair. There are three rooms off the corridor one of which I placed the two lights shooting out from so as not to be in view of the scene.
It was good fun till the wild dogs decided to come strolling through. . .

Man at the Table

Well, this is what I was doing on Valentines Day weekend :)

Actually, I had been working on this SP for a few weeks and finally finished a take I was overall pleased with, and it happened to be on Valentines Day.
Thanks to Georgine Benvenuto, owner of Gallery 364 in Bay Ridge Brooklyn for putting up with my requests for her thoughts on each take as I went through the process of the concept. Georgine is a fantastic photographer as well as owning and running the gallery and its been my pleasure and benefit to have her as a friend over the years. Wonderful person too.

This is meant to be light hearted and even funny as is most of my SP that come with the intention of poking fun at myself and the characters I create.

Ok, for the strobists out there who are interested in how this was made, this was done using two 580EXll speedlites and a vivitar 285HV all triggered with Paul C. Buff Cybersync wireless triggers. No TTL, all lights and settings are manually set.

The background is a botero collapsible muslin which is about 5x7 ft and grey. I hit it with the Vivtar shooting through a green gel for the color and separation of the subject.

A 580EXll speedlite was shooting through a photoflex 16x22" softbox for the main light and was camera right about 3ft away from and just above head level of subject.
The second 580EXll speedlite was set at subject right and behind shooting through a small lumiquest softbox and aiming at the right shoulder,hair and side of face.

Canon 5D mk2 on a Slik 700DXpro tripod with Bogen Ball head using a Canon programmable remote shutter release.

I had not smoked cigarettes in about 20 years and so most of the takes had my eyes closed as I was squinting from the smoke burning them. . .not very cool glad no one was there :) The cigarette case was given to me by a friend of the family who had acquitred it from a friend who passed away. The case nust be at least 50 years old and still had about 8 filterless cigs inside. Very old and stale smelling, though.

I get asked about my post processing often and while I like to offer much information there are certain things that I like to keep to myself. Basically, I desaturate, tone map a bit with PS gradient tools, layers using "mulitply" properties and sometimes "color dodge" properties, sometimes add diffuse glow and textures and of course dodging and burning here and there.

Yes, it was another Bad Hair Day, and I had to take advantage of it. . .
thanks for looking, hope your not totally disgusted and will return again in the future;)