Strobist Spotlight - NickWheelerOz
Photo by NickWheelerOz
I wanted to add another category within Photography called “Strobist Spotlight”, which is a lighting technique for on and off camera flash photography. This is a major area of my photography that I will be sharing next year, so I wanted to get this party started early, sharing other great photographer’s work. Of course to create such a category, I wanted the first article to be amazing [in content, not in my writing]!
Flickr may be an enormous website, but I can still find a needle in a haystack. Today Flickr user NickWheelerOz is that needle and the first person discussed in “Strobist Spotlight”.
Before I tell you the most amazing part of Nick’s work, I wanted to go over the basics of why I love Nick’s photos. Nick has a great eye with his photography and knows how to prepare for the shot. His photography also looks to need very little post production work. Nick shares his photos in high resolution and shows his range in studio/portrait photography and studio/macro photography.
The coolest part about Nick is his ability to share how he accomplishes the final photo. Besides sharing a photo of his physical layout of the equipment, he also writes about the process in great detail. When you visit his studio setup work on Flickr, Nick also adds “Notes” to areas of the photo to also help viewers pinpoint what the items actually are and the true strobist info of each flash.
An example below shows the process of how Nick created the final photo of the female at the beginning of this article. First is a photo of his studio setup. Next is the written description, describing the process.
Studio Setup of the first photo in the article
Strobist Information:
With Keoula’s MBFF show coming up in a few days, she wanted some pictures of her new range taking. With all the dresses based on a spring flower theme, a fresh white background seemed perfect and as we had been playing around with the Zack Arias setup for the hen pictures we decided to go with it again.
For the shoot we asked Elspeth and Ashleigh to model for us. Keoula had been put in touch with a couple of new guys, Tim and Loclan for hair and make up. They had not met before but they worked absolutely brilliantly together and did a fantastic job!
For the shoot, we worked through the range of dresses that have been completed so far and I worked a few portrait shots in along the way. I will post more of the dress shots later, but for now it is all portraits.
When the dress shots were all finished Ashleigh and her Mum kindly agreed to stay on for a little while longer and I played around with the conference room head shot setup but with slightly more glamorous lighting!
I have posted these portraits with a separate setup shot.
Nick [his Flickr photostream] is also an amazing macro photographer which is a skill that can attract companies to photograph their products, or for ads to market themselves.
Macro shot with a special effect - by NickWheelerOz
Although the photo above isn’t a perfect macro photograph because of the backer paper having shadows, it’s still a great shot because of the process needed to create it. Besides, I’m sure Nick didn’t publish the perfect shot because he may want to sell it in the future.
Macro Setup for Glasses - by NickWheelerOZ
In the photo above, Nick shows the elaborate setup needed to create the final shot of the glasses.
Strobist Information:
For this picture I had to turn the world upside down to defy gravity. I placed the three glasses on a sheet of glass and then placed another sheet of glass on top of these. The top sheet would become the floor when I flipped the picture in Paint Shop Pro.
I supported the whole thing on two chairs so that I could put a box underneath with a flash head in it. I also used two SB-28’s on either side fired through translucent umbrellas.
For the final shot, I filled the glasses to the brim with water, sucked up three colours of food colouring in three straws and while my better half put a quick squirt in each glass I replaced the top sheet of glass and fired off a couple of shots.
It took four attempts to get the wining shot as it was really hard to get everything in place before the food colouring hit the bottom of the glass.
You gotta love the setup with so much expensive equipment! A cardboard box to add light with a “barn-door” effect. Folding chairs used as a professional product stand. Setups like this make photographers love the strobist lighting idea. It’s inexpensive and it expands your options for macro photography. Try sticking a softbox powered by a 250watt flash unit under those glasses!
Ninja Geisha - by NickWheelerOz
I wanted to share one more shot that Nick took that I liked, mainly because I really like the idea of a Ninja Geisha. Below is a photo of the setup and strobist info. I didn’t add all the other photos that he talked about in the setup, but it was good that he shared the stuff he didn’t like and his frustration doing it.
Ninja Geisha setup - by NickWheelerOz
Strobist Information:
This set of pictures came about after a trip to the local Sunday market. While having a wander round perusing the assorted collection of junk and rusty old tools, I came across a stall selling all sorts of replica swords and daggers. A couple of swords in particular caught my eye, the ones you see in these pictures. They are both samurai style swords, one a simple single bladed affair and the other an unusual double bladed version. The scabbard splits in two with the bottom part housing a short sword and the top part housing a longer sword that slips into a second slot in the bottom part.
After sending my partner in to do a spot of negotiating, they were both picked up for a very reasonable price with the express intention of pairing them up with a couple of costumes worn by my partner and her friend Ly to a fancy dress wedding (don’t ask)! So was born the Geisha Ninja Zombie Killers (and with a title like that, you’ve just got to have a look)!
So, this afternoon, we broke out the lights, the girls got dressed up and we had a some photography fun. Each of the pictures used a different light setup and I was shuffling the lights round like a mad man so I don’t really have detailed setup shots for every picture. I have included the ones I did take in the comments along with a few out takes that either didn’t make the cut or were just plain funny!
Oh, and by the way, top quality models like Keoula and Ly don’t come cheap! It’s the start Laos and Thai New Year this weekend so their price for an afternoons sword play was a contribution to the food stalls of the Thai temple. Not a bad deal all told, I got some delicious Thai food as well as some mean looking zombie slashing action!
If you’re a fan of strobist and want to learn more from someone, then I recommend checking out Nick’s Flickr photostream. It’s great to checkout all his photos and he’s very popular on Flickr too.
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