Nikon SB-5000 does Head-shots for Clawson & Staubes

After receiving the new Nikon SB-5000 a few days ago, I put it through all the rigorous paces to make sure everything was working perfectly, and that I knew what every button and menu item did. This is Nikon’s latest, most advanced speedlight…and it has a few new tricks over previous models. I’ll get into those in a later post! 🙂

Yesterday was my first assignment with the new flashes, and they worked BEAUTIFULLY!!! I was photographing environmental head-shots of new attorneys for one of my favorite clients, Clawson & Staubes.

The images were made with a Nikon D4, Nikkor 70-200 VRII, an SB-5000 on the camera, running as the Master in CLS mode, and two SB-800 flashes as remotes, firing through a 24″ softbox. Everything ran beautifully! The new flash recycles extremely fast…the size is smaller…and the design of the button layout is even more user-friendly than all previous generations I’ve worked with.  The best part is, it’s completely backwards compatible with all other Creative Lighting System flashes!

Next, I’ll be working with the new Advanced Wireless Lighting (AWL) radio mode. Stay tuned…

Hotel Room Head-shots

While photographing the Withit Women’s Conference at the historic Francis Marion Hotel this week, part of my assignment included creating head-shots for the professional ladies attending the program.

The motivational conference was held in the elegant Gold Ballroom. So as not to distract from the speakers, and to give each lady the time and privacy they deserved for their photo session, I was asked to setup in one of the hotel rooms down the hall. The point of this post is to show that with a little knowledge, a smart selection of compact lighting tools, and some beautiful subjects to work with, professional portraits can be created just about anywhere!!!

My entire portable studio setup included 6 Nikon SB-800 speedlights, 4 Manfrotto light stands, 2 60″ Westcott shoot-through umbrellas, and a white pop-up style background. Utilizing the given space to suite my purpose, I arranged everything around using the white doors as a reflector for extra fill. A couple of the flashes were used as background lights to create the modern high-key look I wanted. A couple flashes were used to evenly disperse light through one umbrella as the main light source. And the last two were used similarly through the other umbrella as a fill light. This entire lighting kit fits into a large Manfrotto tripod bag for compact portability!

All the flashes were triggered through RadioPoppers, using a Nikon SB910 as the Master flash. The images were photographed with a Nikon D4, and a Nikkor 70-200 f2.8 VRII, tethered to my laptop. After each client’s portrait session, we reviewed the images together to make sure there was something in there that they LOVED!!!  🙂

Business Portraits for Lowery Legal

I had the distinct honor of photographing new Business Portraits for Marie Lowery last week!

Marie was a very kind referral from Scott Falls, who’s head-shots and promotional portraits I photographed last year. Both are amazing attorneys in their respective fields, though often collaborating together together. So when Marie was considering having some new images made to help market and brand herself in 2016, he gave her my name. Thanks Scott & Ashley!!!

Marie and I had an awesome time, finding some fantastic backdrops in the old French Quarter in downtown Charleston. Congratulations on your incredible success, Marie! Here’s to an even more amazing 2016!!!

Metanoia and Fresh Future Farms

Fresh Future Farm is a city-based venture that leverages healthy food and grocery services to create socially just economic development. The project’s focus is on developing a socially responsible urban grocery model and farming operation that keeps costs down for customers by growing organic produce where it will be consumed, and educating customers on the social economic and environmental benefits of an urban farming operation.

It was a pleasure photographing promotional images of this project for the South Carolina Community Loan Fund, which granted the seed money through its Feeding Innovation Challenge. Germaine Jenkins (the CEO of FFF and Metanoia’s Community Garden Coordinator), and Rev. Bill Stanfield (CEO of Metanioa), and the rest of the staff, were an absolute pleasure to work with!