Greetings from Vistaphotography everyone! This last week I went from photographing Children on Sunday morning (I don’t say shooting even though photographers say this alot ) to running down to Salem to photograph an ad piece for a local hounted house, Dracula’s Castle on Pickering wharf.
I had two models come in and play as vampires for this shoot. < The girls found out that makeup for this type of shoot is much different than normal and Jen was the first to sit out in the lobby with a towel just barely wrapped around her while the makeup guru (Marshall) sprayed her with white paint

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While Jen was going through her transformation. I took Brandy out back for some scared victim photos in different areas of the haunt.
I settled on this shot of her running away from some unseen night terror and caught between a stone wall and a hard place.

The culmination of this running away was where the vamp, I mean vampire caught up with the lovely victim and having sucked the blood from her neck, raises her head in the sensual moment of ecstasy.

For the strobist folks out there who want to know how the third shot was lit. You can check my Flickr page for a more detailed accounting but basically it was a two light affair. With pocket wizards on two flash heads. One to camera right with an umbrella and then a bare bulb flash head to camera left and above the subjects. I’m using the new PW minis/flex PWs and to be able to shoot at 500/sec I had to put a second manual pocket wizard in the hot shoe of my mini tt1. If someone wants more info on why I did this, leave me a comment.
I’m doing this to keep in practice for the weddings that I have coming up this summer. I love to back light a bride and groom during severl scenes at the reception and pocket wizards make it possible.
If anyone wants to talk about photography with me “Vistaphotography” then please go to this flickr group and join in the discussions and we can talk about photography or pocket wizards or anything you like.

To see some of the changes I made in Lightroom check my galleries here.
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I’ve also started my Fall Blogging on Yankee Magazines Foliage website Yankeefoliage.com. Come by and say hello and tell me what you like about fall in New England.

At Vistaphotography I’m not as good as some of the folks out there who are using flashes (otherwise know as strobes) off camera as can be seen on Strobist.com. The first shot was to show you the horrendous light we had at 6:30PM.

This was with a Nikon and no flash and the second was with the Pocket wizards on a Nikon flash (1/16th power) at camera left and a canon flash to camera right and it was twice as far away at 1/4 power with a white umbrella.

Next I set up my Mini TT1 and Flex TT5 along with a Nikon flash on a manual pocket wizard. All were set between 1/16 and 1/2 power depending on distance and light modifier.
It took a bit to get a pleasing balance between the three flashes and you can see that as we started to go beyond the camera/flash sync speed you can see the curtain shadow start to show up. but even in a few of them where we shot at a shutter speed of 320 the curtain wasn’t so bad that if you crop in, it’s either gone or negligible.

The last shot was where Jay and I stopped and I think we were finally getting close to what I was looking for.

Jeff Folger
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I photographed a Bar Mitzvah a few weeks ago and while it ‘s not my first I’m always at odds to find ways to keep it fresh and different. I’m constantly trying new things to give my creative side a work out. One place that I go to for inspiration is the Strobist website. The main idea with this site which is really a blog, is there are thousands of photographers from around the world who submit work here. I have to admit seeing their work is humbling but if you want to take your off camera flash work to a new level it’s the place to go.

With that I’ll show you the results of my “strobist” off camera flash work. I find that when I shooting a Bar Mitzvah it’s hard to get really creative since the parents want their formals and the boy pretty much just wants it over. Like a wedding a Mitzvah has similar events that need to be captured. It usually starts with immediate formals of the boy or girl and then building up to the immediate or even extended family. This time I even did a generational shot with four generations.

Then since no photography is permitted during the ceremony you get the Rabbi or a Cantor to pose with the boy or girl and this time I had my voice activated light stand with me.

(Jurgen) held my second flash, 90 degrees off my position and had it 10′ in the air aimed down. I fired it with a pocket wizard and had it set for 1/16th power. The over all affect made it look like there were windows with sunlight streaming in. I was very happy with the effect and my mentor Herb Goldberg even said that I had captured a shot that he was going to try for next time.

Then after this it’s usually off to the reception site and the candle lighting and the Hora. The Hora is a dance that most people will recognize since it’s been see at a lot of weddings. Basically they have the person of Honor go sit in a chair and they then raise this person up before the crowd. Then each member of the family follows suit. There is usually much dancing and the kids usually have a DJ that has all sorts of games to keep all the kids occupied.

In the end it’s a matter of keeping an eye open for things going on around the boy or girl and making sure they are the center of my focus. Then it’s just a matter of telling their day with my photos. The parents called after seeing the photos and scheduled their daughter for next year so I assume they were happy.