©Caleb Kenna
It’s always great to see a series of photographs which tell a story. Whether it’s photojournalism from a war-torn population to a series of fashion looks in an exotic locale, groups of photos with unifying themes make us feel and think differently than a single image can.
Caleb Kenna knows this, and presents a wonderful cross-section of Vermont residents. Known for their free-thinking, tenacity, self-reliance, and Yankee wit, the subjects Kenna has captured are more varied than famous son’s Robert Frost’s time, but are just as at home in the beautiful state they call their own. Here are some of his thoughts on this series.
©Caleb Kenna
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“Somebody To Love”
This year’s camera body is amazing! It’s your main squeeze, your baby, your precioussssss! What to do with last year’s camera body; Old Black Betty? Occasionally you tote it around as a spare, “just in case something happens.” 99 times out of 100, nothing ever happens. It sits in the bag patiently waiting for you, vibrating the dust off its little sensor joyfully, gleeful at being powered up for maybe the second time this year. It’s making sad little puppy-dog eyes at you right now, actually, but you can’t see it buried among all the spare radios, batteries, and flashes. Poor thing!
Photo ©Chris Valites. Eyes by Steve Miller.
Make it happy and put it to work! At your next wedding or ball game, use it for a little self-serve photo booth. While your customers enthusiastically mash a big red button and take nicely framed and beautifully lit self-portraits, you’re off making artful money shots somewhere else. The masses are entertained and you have one more folder on the DVD you can deliver, or one more line item to offer in your package deals, setting yourself apart as a dynamic photographer.
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My colleague Matt Hill has succeeded in fusing his two main artistic passions, night photography and cut paper art, in his ongoing project entitled Night Paper. It’s been exciting to watch him find the heart of this amalgamation, and even more exciting, it has culminated (for the time being) in a live art experiment in New York. Read his own account of the execution and find full details of how you can witness this in person below.
©Matt Hill
NIGHT PAPER is a personal project I started dreaming about over five years ago and began executing last July. It’s the combination of long exposures at night and surreal, hand-cut paper fashions. I live for playing with time-dialtion and by introducing portraiture at night, especially when they are only wearing paper, makes for a visually challenging combination of the practices. I’m constantly surprised by how well they blend and continue to evolve together. And, it must be said, all of these images are done in-camera. There are no composites in this series. Also, since this involves tasteful nudity in the context of fine art, you may want the NSFW warning if you are in the wrong place…
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© James Quantz Jr.
When James Quantz Jr. was asked to create a number of promotional images for the University of South Carolina’s 2013 football season, he approached the project from a fan’s perspective. “If I think it would look cool on my wall,” he says of the concept, “I’m hoping I’m hitting on where the fans are coming from.”
In the behind the scenes video, you can see him working with Paul C. Buff Einstein lights with a variety of modifiers, including a large umbrella and a grid. The Paul C. Buff Einstein lights are being triggered by PocketWizard PowerMC2 Receivers. He shoots the athletes in a controlled environment and then composites them into background images of a full stadium that he had shot earlier.
And what’s that on top of his camera? A PocketWizard Plus III! He says,
“During a photoshoot like this when I’m capturing athletes in motion, I rely on my PocketWizards to sync flawlessly so I don’t miss any of the action. A lot of times these are day long events so one of my favorite features on the Plus III is a battery level indicator so I always know when power might be running low.”
© James Quantz Jr.
© James Quantz Jr.
© James Quantz Jr.
See more of James’ work at quantzphoto.com and connect with him on Facebook and Twitter.
All images, video and quotes in this post are used with permission and ©James Quantz Jr., all rights reserved; story is ©PocketWizard. Please respect and support photographers’ rights. Feel free to link to this blog post, but please do not replicate or re-post elsewhere without written permission.
Photographer Ian Coble was featured on Season 2, Episode 3 of SnowChasers. Coble is candid about how he became a professional shooter, his undergraduate work, and his love of skiing. He discusses using strobes in snow, and the gear he carries in waist-deep accumulations far off the trails.
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©Dan Bailey
We’ve covered Dan Bailey several times on the PocketWizard blog. One of his most recent posts is a great behind-the-scenes look at how to execute flash photography with snow biking as the subject.
Hoping to catch the sunset through a spot of second-growth trees, yet have the rider and bike properly illuminated, Bailey triggered a TritonFlash with two PocketWizard PlusX radios.
©Dan Bailey
Check out the post for behind-the-scenes shots, final images, and all the gear info you could want. Get more of Dan’s Alaskan action shots on his blog and site.
All images and quotes in this post are used with permission and ©Dan Bailey, all rights reserved; story is ©PocketWizard. Please respect and support photographers’ rights. Feel free to link to this blog post, but please do not replicate or repost elsewhere without written permission.
©Dave Hahn
Dave Hahn is a Freelance photographer based in the New York metro area. His primary focus is sports and action photography. Below, Dave explains how he sets up floor-mounted cameras during basketball games using both PocketWizard’s new PlusX transceiver and the Plus III.
If you’re new to remote photography hopefully this will help explain how easy it can be using a camera mounting plate I developed, combined with a couple of transceivers from the folks at PocketWizard.
March 23, 2013: 2013 Women’s NCAA Tournament – University of Idaho @ UConn – Gampel Pavilion Storrs, Connecticut. Mandatory Credit: David W. Hahn / CSI: Photo
Here I’m going to talk about setting up remote cameras for basketball using both the PlusX and Plus III radios triggers. In the image to the right, you can see my set-up for the Women’s NCAA basketball tournament at UConn. The camera was mounted to a plate called a “fplate” (floor plate) and a Plus III was used to trigger the camera from the opposite side of the court.
If you’re new to remote photography, the newly-released PlusX is a great way to go. The benefits of the PlusX transceivers are affordability. It’s the first time PocketWizard radios break the $100 barrier. Next is, its simplicity in design and ease of use. The Plus II’s had only four channels to work with, sometimes making difficult to find an open channel when there are other photographers working the same event. The PlusX radios have ten channels. 1-4 will work with all the older models. With the addition of channels 5-10 you now have six low-use channels that will also work with the Plus III’s and the MultiMAX radios. Setting the channels on the PlusX transceivers is as easy as turning a dial.
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Joe Morahan at Morahan Visuals in Colorado is seriously into time-lapse photography. He recently brought his Canon cameras to bear on a group of Vans footware and some skateboards, putting together this amusing and impressive footage.
What’s so impressive about sneakers getting stitched together? That’s a good question, but as any exceptional craftsman will tell you, the quality is not always indicative of what you see. It’s primarily what doesn’t go wrong which denotes superior skill, strong concept, and gorgeous aesthetic.
©Joe Morahan
As Morahan points out in his behind-the-scenes blog post on the shoot, “PocketWizard just saved me hundreds of dollars.” How did this happen? By not having to physically pause eight cameras after each shot. Remote camera triggering with PocketWizard technology is used extensively in this video. If each camera needed to be physically handled, that would’ve allowed for even minor physical movement of them, and that would’ve forced he and his team to start over again from the beginning.
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© 2013 Wes Craft Photography
Wes Craft Photography is a husband and wife wedding photography team working out of Chicago, priding themselves on capturing “bold, beautiful, editorial wedding photography.” Here’s a behind-the-scenes look at one prime example of their work.
On the wedding day we strive to capture all the emotional moments in vivid and dynamic ways. It’s part of our signature look to use off-camera lighting to achieve that. PocketWizard Plus III radios allow us to fire our multiple lighting groups in customized combinations and overcome challenges to get the shot. Sometimes, as it was with this shot, it’s the simplest lighting setup that works best.
© 2013 Wes Craft Photography
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Catching Air | © 2012 Mark Shaiken
Mark Shaiken is a Kansas City photographer who aims to “tell stories, one image at a time.” For his athletes series, he’s using HSS to capture the action. Here is a story he wanted to share about his shooting told in his own words.
I use my FlexTT5’s to take shots of developing athletes in action, whether on the track, at a lacrosse field, a baseball field, a motocross course, a climbing rock, a boxing facility, etc.
Adding light is absolutely essential to get the look I’m going for. I can control the ambient light, adjusting for ISO, aperture, and speed, and then add light to the athlete for the “look.” I had heard of McKenzie and her hurdling and thought showing her from below, as she went over the gate, would be a good, unique perspective. We were lucky the Kansas skies cooperated that day.
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