Hitman

Hitman
Originally uploaded by brendan.oshea

Another shot from the Modern Legion shoot last month. Me and my buddy Rom headed to the Melbourne Uni carpark where a few scenes from the original Mad Max was filmed early one Sunday morning, then headed to a car show which featured some brilliant american cars from last century, and then put it all together. I know it's not perfect, but we learned a lot and we intend doing a few more of these "scenario" type shots in the future. As long as we can find bands which are as accommodating as these guys were!
I'm the two guys on the ground back there.
This is a composite, but we used two sunpaks triggered with Pocket wizards for the main subjects.

Original modern legion shot

Original modern legion
Originally uploaded by brendan.oshea

There have been a few people keen to see the original version of one of my shots recently featured on strobist.com
As I mentioned on that very informative site, the shot was nearly there straight out of the camera, and I just tweaked it a little in Photoshop. The process I used is well documented on strobist.com so I won't bore you by repeating it here.

It's taken me a while to figure out that a shot will never work without properly thought out lighting. My Photoshop skills aren't good enough to rescue a badly lit shot, so I just try to get it right at the shoot.
Thanks for the interest!

Angela and Elvis

Angela and Elvis
Originally uploaded by brendan.oshea

Angela wanted to try a Chris Isaak/Elvis look, so I got a single Sunpak 383 and bounced it off an A3 sized piece of paper taped to the side wall.
I wanted it to look like a still from a Noir style film.

Angela with a white background

Angela with a white background
Originally uploaded by brendan.oshea

Part of the same session. A single Sunpak 383 up high on a stand with a translucent plastic bag tied around it. Another sunpak on the floor bounced off an A3 sized piece of paper directly in front of her, just to provide a subtle fill. I'm getting a little frustrated with the recycle time on these little strobes since I have to shoot at full power most of the time. Time to move up when I get some bucks happening.

Angela and the black background.

Angela and the black background.
Originally uploaded by brendan.oshea

Angela was very patient while I fooled around for a couple of hours trying different lighting and looks. I've been in awe of Dan Winter's portraits for a while now, and I was determined to get close. Unfortunately I failed dismally, but I managed to stumble across a few other ideas in the process. It seems that the quality of light is totally different when I just used the feathered edge of the light as opposed to focusing it straight at the subject. Pointing the flash straight up, and just illuminating Angela with the falloff. A ringflash would have got me part way to the effect I was looking for, but the kids will complain if I put them on yet another diet so I can afford to buy more photo stuff.