Sometimes I really love playing around and shooting one of the most difficult to please models in the world, but in many cases it’s the only one I have – Myself! 😉 I’ve been quite busy recently and didn’t have time to take a lot of photos, but now since I finished my studies I’m gonna have time and do some more self portraits, so this will be the first from the series I’m thinking about!
I am doing a section with setup information on my homepage as well, so feel free to check my journal there with a lot of other articles, here is the link:
That was a damn cold night in Kobe, don’t ask me how I motivated myself to go out in the middle of the night and do this! So, about the setup I’m using, my main light is coming from a gridded 80x60cm softbox on the left of the camera, I wanted to have some cool light on myself here! And for some fill on the right I’m having a shoot through umbrella with a Nikon SB-26 and a blue gel. I’m using some blue gels on this shot to make up a little the atmosphere the way I wanted it to be, a little colder. Also behind me you can see one more blue gelled Nikon SB-26, and there is also a gridded flash on the left side. That one I use to put some more detail on the objects in front of me, and I gridded it to restrict the light that I didn’t want to hit me.
I’m triggering the main flash here, Canon 580EXII with a Pocket Wizard, and all the others are triggered by optical slave, that’s why I love the old SB-26s, they have built-in optical slave unit, and they are cheap. I have the PW attached to the 580EXII and actually on the camera body I have a Phottix Atlas Trigger. This is a new tranciever I purchased recently as I managed to break both of my PWs hot shoes, so now I can use them only as receivers and I can’t attach them on the camera anymore! Here the Phottix trigger comes really handy, it’s much cheaper than the wizards, and is doing basically the same job! And the most important thing… has a metal hot shoe! lol
So here is the setup from the shot with all the details in it:
Strobist info:
Canon 580EXII in a 80×60 Gridded Softbox – Camera Left
Nikon SB-26 with a shoot-through umbrella – Camera Right with a Blue Filter
Nude Nikon SB-26 behind me for the blue glow, with a Blue Filter
Nikon SB-26 with a DIY Grid Spot camera left
580EXII Triggered by Pocket Wizard II Plus, and Phottix Atlas trigger on the camera body
All three Nikon SB-26s are triggered by Optical Slave
photographer: Ilko Allexandroff
Also I’m using the LEE Filters, to gel my flashes, I usually got them for free from the company that is a representative in Japan, and they are very handy.
Well, as I said that was a really cold night, it was below the zero, and after we finished the shot spent a few warm hours in a McDonalds around there! I’m having one of my favorite models here Kt as an assistant, and she helped me a lot for this! She is awesome as a model, as an assistant and as a cameraman as well! Thanks~ If you click on the image you will be able to see it on my Flickr Account!
In the end you may see a website here where my photo was featured as a different photograph, so if you click on the image below you can open the website and read the review!
Feel free to write to our e-mail anytime for questions, creative.lightbrary@gmail.com or also you can leave a comment below and we will make sure to reply!
You can also follow me on my Facebook page: Ilko Allexandroff Photography, or check my homepage where I’m uploading some other articles on other topics: http://ilkoallexandroff.1x.com/
Stay tuned to our website for other articles soon!
Ilko Allexandroff Photography
Creative Lightbrary 