Estrogenic Capture

A couple of weeks ago, our house became an estrogen center when my mother-in-law and three sister-in-laws spent the weekend. It really wasn't as bad as it may sounds but then again I did have other things going on.

On saturday I spent the day at the race track shooting cars and environment shots. but before the lady;s took off on Monday we had to get the "family picture". So why not take the opportunity to jack the lighting up and use my skills.

Above are the ladies in question, Ma, Nancy, Ellen in the back, Ruth and my wife Evelyn up front. We had a couple of different poses, one of which was all five on the couch. All I can say for that attempt is that none of them are in their twenties anymore and I will leave it to that. (That probably got me some couch time)

The lighting combination for this impromptu shoot was a Wastcott TD-5 Spider-light with a 36" soft-box for the main light and a Canon EX550 II on a light stand shooting through a 36" diffusion umbrella. The TD-5 was powered all the way up while the 550 was controlled by a camera mounted ST-E2 transmitter with the flash power dialed all the way down for some fill. I would have used a reflector but as I did not have anyway to hold it and with the size of the subject coverage, the flash probably worked out better.

Here you can see the setup of the lights. There was a little bit of natural light coming in from the front picture window. Once the image was captured and brought into Photoshop I hit it with levels, brightness and curves. I then tossed a layer on top, oval marque selection with a fifty pixel feather, inverted, and filed with black. Then it was a simple drop in opacity the provide a nice vignette to the photograph.

That does it for today... Doug