Folsom Street Hero

This is another one of my shots from Folsom. This one was shot as this guy walked by, and I thought it was interesting to see one with such a perfect physique (uh, and largely unclothed) in the foreground, with some people sort of trailing off behind him. Since the guy was in the shade but with bright, bright sky behind him. Did the same trick as before, where I dropped the overall exposure, and popped up the flash. The result was better than expected -- rather the opposite of my normal experience of walking around with a flash in hand.

The Dog Catcher

For this photo, I had my camera, trusty 28mm, and an SB-800 on a TTL cable in my off-hand. Using a flash like this is tricky. Despite a fair amount of monkey-ing around with flashes, I never feel like I have an instant intuition for what a picture with a flash in it will look like. Something I can plan for to predict, but not something that I have instinctively.

What this meant in practice was that I was not yet ready to be a complete bad-ass, walking around with my flash in full manual, getting the look I wanted by whipping the flash around to just the right spot for the right amount of brightness...

Well, maybe one day.

One I did instead was to rely on the balanced i-ttl mode, which works pretty well. I set the camera to meter off the background, and the flash pops a little pre-fire, then computes what it would take to fill in the parts of the scene that *aren't* background. Great way to reliably make a sunny scene less harsh. When I got a little daring (like I did here), I'd drop the camera exposure about 2/3rds of a stop to get a more darker (and generally more dramatic) background, and kept the flash so that it would 'normally' expose the subjects.

The result is what you see here: These guys are lit up in a pool of flash, with an underexposed sky and dark mid-ground. I liked the effect, and the folks here helped out by being arranged just-so.

Miss Piggy

I've lived in the Bay Area for ten years, and I've never been to the Folsom Street Fair. So, this year I resolved to go, and (of course) bring along my camera. Looking at the weather report earlier last week, and then again on Saturday, I realized that after a summer of glorious cloudy, partial-directional light, I was going to have nothing but the worst shitty straight-over-head-beat-me-like-a-Folsom-Street-booth-babe light there was. I'd been thinking about this Bruce Gilden video I've seen, and about how people like Diane Arbus used flash in daylight, so I had a notion. I went out and picked up a TTL cable for my flash yesterday, and thought I could put it to some good use as strategic fill, or (more interesting for my purposes) a tool to inject some drama into a poorly lit scene.

I learned a lot in just a few hours of using the flash-on-a-rope, and I'll probably write more about it here. In the interim, please enjoy this lovely young lady, who saw my flash an immediately offered to pose.

Count Zero

As the Mountain View Art & Wine festival was wrapping up, I saw this guy strolling down the street, with a little pink compact camera in hand. The way he moved, I thought he might be another street photographer -- kind of that hungry look as he glanced into stalls. Didn't take any pictures though, and so I guessed he was just curious.

With character like this, I busted out my 85 and fired off four frames, and this is the one as he really turned to look at me. Liked it best of all, and you can see why I thought of him as the Count. :)

There was even a convenient Renfield nearby -- check this one out too.

Caltrain Confidential

About a month and a half ago, my friend Damien was in town, and I suggested we take Caltrain up to the city to do some shooting. Unfortunately, we ended up running late owing to my dry cleaning being a few hours late, so we didn't get much time up in the city to do anything other than eat. Managed to snap this at the Caltrain station, and I was amazed at how well it stands out.

My friend Rob and his wife Renee saw an early crop of this, and suggested a better cut, for which I am most grateful for. It really works for me, and I was happy to hear Rob say that it 'really sings'.

Totem

 

More fun from the Mountain View Wine & Arts festival. As usual, finding the good light is half the battle. :)

Solar City

Another one from the Art & Wine festival in Mountain View.