Kodak Moment - For Real

This post is funny, sad, unbelievable, and audacious all at the same time. Of those adjectives I like audacious the best as it is defined as one showing an impudent lack of respect for another. Of this story that was the bottom line be it intentional or not. I look at it as a funny experience as I had no ulterior motive in my actions. Ok... With all the lead up to this Kodak Moment what in  the world am I talking about.

Sunday I wrapped up my shooting for our churches pictorial directory. One family came in with a disposable Kodak much like the one above. The dad asked if I wouldn't mind taking a picture of them when I was done. My first reaction was "no problem, I'll be glad to." Then I got to thinking, I was not selling the images I was taking for the directory as I considered them high end snap shots. I was not spending a proper amount of time with the "client"/subject for me to consider it professional portraiture. So this guy was looking to use the occasion to snag a family portrait on the cheap.

Here is a sample of the shots I was taking and no this was not the guy with the Kodak.

The setup went like this. The background was side-lit by a pair of Alien Bees B800's at 1/8th power through a 2x CTO gel. The main light was an Elenchrom RX600 set at f/5.6 flashing through a parabolic umbrella on the left side. From the right was another RX600 set at f/2.7 through a Rotalux 39" Mini-Octa softbox as a fill light. Light control was by my little stack of a PocketWizard MiniTT1 on the hot shoe to fire the B800 on the left side with a Plus II transceiver. Stacked on top of the TT1 was the Skyport controller for the Elenchrom's. Here is a picture of the transmitters but you can read the post right here.

The second B800 was triggered by its own built-in slave trigger. I had the RX600 set-up to slave flash also in case I had a problem with the wireless. So back to the story...

I took my two or three shots (I told you it was a high end snap shot) and then grabbed the little Kodak disposable. With the click of the shutter, a pop of the little flash on the camera and all four of my mono-lights popped in all their blinding glory. Hope the dude is not expecting miracles because if he is lucky it will look at best like the one below.

A little over exposed I would presume if not completely white. Guess he will not be looking to benefit from someone else's hard work and investment of time and equipment.

Like I said, I found it to be funny and I thoroughly enjoyed doing the shooting for the church. People are funny though. But thats what makes people different.

Take care... Doug