Colorado

The Pomona-Pitzer Women’s Water Polo team has its sights set on a three-peat for the Southern California Intercollegiate Athletic Conference (SCIAC) Championship in 2019.

The Sagehens are coming off of a historic season in which they repeated as SCIAC Champions and went a perfect 14-0 in conference play. The Sagehens went 22-11 overall and had impressive regular season wins over the Chinese national team and Brown before falling in the opening round of the NCAA Tournament to UC Irvine.

Many of the experienced players from The Sagehens return from seasons past with a total of eight seniors to lead the team, including star goalie Morgan Stockham. This season, Morgan appeared in 29 games with an 18-8 record and 125 saves.

I had the distinct honor of photographing Morgan at the team’s training center in Claremont, CA. Many thanks to her amazing mother, Sarah, for inviting me on this shoot, and capturing the behind-the-scenes shots as I worked!

Speedlight Sunset

I love photographing on overcast days. The light is soft, the colors are saturated, and the subjects don’t squint as much. But sometimes the images come out a little flat and lack impact…kinda just blah. Fortunately, I have a great little tip to keep all the benefits of the soft natural light, but add a little extra POP back into the image.

Here’s a little technique I call “Speedlight Sunset”. My preferred setup is to work with 2 or 3 speedlights mounted together on my home-made triple-threat flash bracket. Having multiple flashes ganged together provides me with extra power, directionality, and versatility when needed. But you can definitely do this with just one speedlight as well.

Instead of using your wireless off-camera flash as a fill or main light, place it far back behind your subject in the corner of the frame. For best effect, I try to have it shining through a background element like some low-hanging leaves or a clump of Spanish moss. This serves to obscure the true source of the light, and also defuse the quality of the light so that it looks more like the real thing. For best effect, you should also add a CTO gel over the flash. Also known as Color Temperature Orange, this piece of plastic changes the color of the light source to a deep warm tone, like that of a setting sun.

I prefer to trigger my wireless off-camera flashes with radio waves. Nikon’s built in Creative Lighting System is free and will do the job up to a certain distance as long as the Master flash and the Remote flash can see each other. But to place your flash further distances away, or hide it behind leaves and trees, you’ll need a radio triggering system. I sometimes use RadioPoppers to trigger my older Nikon SB-800 flashes. PocketWizard is another great solution that’s out there. But with the new Nikon D5 (as in this case) and Nikon D500 cameras, I can remotely trigger my Nikon SB-5000 flashes via the built-in AWL (Advanced Wireless Technology). I just plug in the WR-R10 Remote Controller, and away we go!

Many thanks to Kelli and Tom for being so much fun to work with on their beautiful maternity shoot.  Check out more of their images and see more samples of this Speedlight Sunset at:  https://chrisandcami.com/kelli-tom-at-hampton-park/.

I hope this helps open up some ideas and possibilities for taking your images to the next level. Speedlights are small, light, and portable. But they can make a HUGE difference in the quality and creativity of your images!

Chris & Mandi’s Secret Proposal at Middleton Place

I feel like a SPY!!!

Chris and I have been in cahoots for several weeks now, planning his really cool surprise wedding proposal to Mandi. Chris is an incredible guy! Everything he’s planned out, down to the finest details, has all been to make Mandi the happiest girl in the world. I think it’s so honorable when a man does that for his future bride!!!

Yesterday, the big day finally arrived! It was Mandi’s birthday. Chris had planned it that way so she wouldn’t suspect he was proposing until the last minute…pretty sneaky! They drove down for a fun weekend get-away to Charleston. The first stop on their list was to visit Middleton Plantation for a relaxing tour of the gorgeous gardens before their dinner reservations.

Before they arrived, I took all the picnic items, and the painted pumpkins, and set them up under the oak tree Chris had selected for “the spot”. With eyes on the target, I was able to follow the Mandi & Chris as they strolled around the grounds, sneaking a few shots as they went. Once they began approaching the picnic area, I got myself hidden and waited for them to come into view

With heart pounding and hands sweating, I gripped the camera and captured a ton of great shots as Chris asked Mandi to be his wife! Photographing all the cute moments of their picnic was a delight. Finally I came out of hiding so that we could create some beautiful engagement photos of them in the gorgeous “Magic Hour” right before sunset!

CONGRATULATIONS Mandi and Chris! May your lives be full of joys too numerous to count!!!

Amanda & Alicia’s Lifestyle Shoot

With all the mayhem leading up to their BEAUTIFUL wedding (which was featured in Borrowed & Blue by the way), Amanda, Alicia, and I didn’t get a chance to photograph their engagement session. So instead, Amanda had this really creative idea to do a post-wedding “lifestyle” shoot in their home! We had SO MUCH FUN hanging out and creating these awesome images of life, love, family, and togetherness!!!

Off-Camera Flash in Daytime

I get a lot of funny looks and silly questions when by-standers and tourists see me using my off-camera light-stand, especially when I’m on the beach, and in broad daylight!

So I decided to take a before-and-after to show what a difference it makes. I’m using four Nikon SB-800 flashes, attached to my home-made Quad-Bracket, mounted on top of a Bogen light-stand. Each is triggered by a RadioPopper Px receiver, and controlled by an SB-910 mounted to my Nikon D4. All flashes were in Group A and manually dialed in at 1/4 power. Camera settings were f5.6 at 1/250th and ISO 50. The stand is placed 30-degrees to camera right.

Many thanks to the Clark family for another AWESOME annual family photo shoot!!! 🙂

RadioPopper Goes to Romania

I have been a HUGE fan of RadioPoppers since they liberated me from the line-of-sight limitations of my Nikon Creative Lighting System.  I absolutely LOVE the versatility, dependability, and control that the whole Nikon CLS flash system gives me.  Extending all those qualities to HUNDREDS of feet instead of a couple dozen, and being able to place remote flashes around walls and behind subjects, all while maintaining full i-TTL functionality and high-speed-sync, truly allows me to bring my vision to life without any limitations. 

This past July I traveled to Romania with a very compact lineup of gear that included a RadioPopper Px System.  (To see some my other posts and photos from Romania, Click Here.)  I have a couple of tricks I’ll share some day that allow me to attach the units in a more compact and streamlined manner to my flashes.  This maximizes my opportunities and minimizes set-up, tear-down, and excess space in my camera bag…especially important while doing run-n-gun street-level travel assignments like this!

In spite of the different radio frequencies floating around most of Eastern Europe, I had absolutely no problems with interference.  My RadioPoppers worked every time and made for some really dramatic shots that never would have been possible without them!  Since I’m such a believer and real-world tester of their products, the wonderful folks at RadioPopper have been kind enough to sponsor my “Light Bending 411” wireless lighting workshops like the one I’m doing in Maine next week.  So please check them out at www.radiopopper.com and let me know if you have any questions or would like a discount code so you can order your own set!