Tag Archives: headshot

This weekend I attended a lighting workshop with Canon speedliter Syl Arena.  Actually it was much more a seminar than a workshop in that I took exactly zero pictures.  But it was great for reinforcing some of the stuff that I’d picked up about lighting over the past couple of years.  My kit doesnt come close to scratching the surface of what Syl carries in his gearbag.  Probably never will.   But that didn’t stop me from coming home and trying to rig up some relatively elaborate (with my normal lighting scheme as the baseline) setup to get a shot that I had been thinking about since seeing reading Joe McNally’s book The Hot Shoe Diaries.  Both Syl and McNally are lighting savants, and if I ever thought either would come within 100 mouseclicks of my blog, I wouldn’t dare attach his name to this attempt in any way.  The image didn’t live up to the lofty goals I had for it when it was just in my head.  But this is what you get when you have two speedlites with no wireless trigger and have to bounce a pre-flash signal around a corner and down a hallway with the help of reflectors, mirrors, and foamcore.   I definitely had it coming.

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  • Anera Lys

    You captured me at “reflectors, mirrors and foamcore.” The dramatic lighting works for me. I’m still debating with myself who is after who. Sleeping with the lights on tonight for sure.

    BTW, thanks for coming to the Speedliter’s Intensive.

    I’ve always wanted to be called a “savant”… without the obligatory “idiot” in front of it. Thx for that too.

  • Harsh Patel

    Very nice! Now you have to post the setup shot for your signal bounce … reflectors, mirrors and foamcore? That’s commitment. 😉

  • Caren

    Should NOT have read this before going to bed. Please don’t have nightmares, please don’t have nightmares, please don’t … !!!

Last weekend I met Dr. Vanessa Perez.  Vanessa is a NYC-based professor of 19th and early 20th Caribbean Literature.  The moment she said that my mind started racing to see whether I could come up with some author that might fit into that category.  Not even close, so I kept my mouth shut and kept shooting.  Vanessa wanted some headshots to gear up for (and maybe include in) her upcoming book: Hispanic Caribbean Literature of Migration: Narratives of Displacement. It turned out to be a glorious day in the park, so I shot way more than a few images.  Vanessa was a fantastic subject and was even thoughtful enough to  bring bottles of water for the shoot, which would have been a really nice touch for the photographer to have taken care of.  Hmm.  I can’t say that I learned much about Caribbean Lit, though.  Maybe I’ll have to pick up a copy of the book when it debuts later this year.  Congratulations, Vanessa.  And of course a special shout out to Serene, my very capable assistant, for helping me with lighting, gear, and entertaining the talent.

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This weekend I visited family back home in Maryland.  Jordan, my niece (age 8), performed in the Cherry Blossom Parade in Washington, D.C.   Unfortunately its not pictured here…I missed her performance by 5 minutes.  But I was able to spend a lot of time with the kids (part of which included Serene and I chasing them around the yard with a camera and an umbrella-mounted flash), my sister Nicole, and my brother-in-law Troy.  It’s also a real shame that I didn’t capture the faces of the losing team after a NameBurst showdown.  The ladies (Mom, Nicole, Serene, and Jordan) suffered a crushing defeat at the hands of the guys (Karl, Troy, Joshua, and me).  It wasn’t pretty.

 

 

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  • Slewis

    I love the split images centered around the tree.

  • Katelyn

    Dana! I love these shots! Youve done an excellent job capturing the personality of these kids- I feel like I am there with you. Keep up the great work

I was contacted recently by someone with whom I have a mutual friend about getting some shots done for her job. Turns out we went to undergrad together. And business school. But had never met. The shoot was a great time and the shots came out ok, too. If only all shoots could be so fun and feel so easy.

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