brandon wells 10/11/15 brandon wells 10/11/15

Some Of My Favorite Lighting Tools

A few of my favorite lighting tools.

Every now and then, I get asked on how I create some of my photos.

"The lighting is crazy! How did you do that?!"

So I figured it would be cool to give a rundown on some of my lighting equipment (my umbrellas), and how I utilize these tools.

As crazy as it sounds, these two umbrellas are what I use for everything. There's certain qualities of light for certain situations thats more fitting per assignment, but I feel like these two options seal the deal for me. I personally don't like the "look" of more harsh light (silver bare reflective umbrellas, bare beauty dishes, bare flashes, reflectors, etc) when it comes to main lights, but I think they have their place for other uses. In most situations, its usually just an A or B decision on which of these umbrellas I choose from. I'll break it down a little bit:

This is the smaller of the options...Option A. I have 3 of these umbrellas just in case. They produce a soft quality of light due to the matte silver of the umbrella on the inside, plus the diffusion layer. They are small enough to be utilized in almost any situation, and would be my main choice if my option B does not work on size of workspace.

36" from front

36" from side

36" lit from front

36" lit from side

Option B...This is my baby right here. Of course its pretty large (5ft), so I can only use this when the space allows for it. If I'm outdoors shooting and use this, I usually have to have an assistant since its also basically a giant sailboat.

With this one, I have options when it comes to the quality of light I want as a result. Since its a bigger umbrella, the light may naturally be a little bit softer than a smaller umbrella, but theres still a nice "shimmer" when I use the bare umbrella. I can also add the layer of diffusion if I want to soften the light even more.

60" no cover

60" with diffusion

60" lit bare umbrella

60" lit umbrella with diffusion layer

This is just a size reference to how big this beast is (lol).

One thing to keep in mind when it comes to choosing light modifiers...bigger does not always mean better.

Choosing a modifier is like balancing an equation; size, texture, diffusion, shape, and position all take affect on your overall quality of light. A few basics that make you decide:

1. The smaller the light, the more harsh the quality will be. The bigger the light, the softer it will be.

2. The closer the light is to the subject, the softer the light will be. The further the light from the the subject, the more harsh it becomes.

3. Bare umbrellas create a more harsh light than a diffused umbrella.

4. Deeper umbrellas create softer light; shallow umbrellas create more harsh light.

Last thing to add: These are NOT the only modifiers I own..just my favorite ones that stay in my bag at all times. If ever need other options for a particular project, I would utilize the required tools to achieve the mission.

Hope you liked this :)

brandon wells 9/28/15 brandon wells 9/28/15

I Got a Review from Fro Knows!

I was lucky enough to be one of the few who were picked for Jared Polin's website review this month. This was awesome....

brandon wells 9/27/15 brandon wells 9/27/15

Thank You

Just wanted to send a huge thank you to anyone who's been a part of this journey so far. This has taken me to many awesome places in this world, and I've met some really great people while doing so.

If we've ever worked together, or if I've met you through working with someone, just wanted to say a little thank you. It's been an incredible journey so far, and I'm just getting started.

A little more about me...

brandon wells 8/28/15 brandon wells 8/28/15

My Ultimate Fail For the Day

So last weekend I had photoshoot with my friend and teammate, Nsima.

We started the day out shooting pictures at a local gym (as I do with most athletes I shoot). After shooting for about an hour or so, we packed up everything and moved to a local track because we wanted to do more commercial-athletic looking pictures out on the field. He has a lot of experience with outdoor sports so it was only fitting.

Anyway, with Nsima, I was given a little more creative freedom...and I wanted to try something new that I've never experimented with before...colored smoke grenades. I've seen many awesome photos with these being utilized, or with a similar substance (holi powder). If you don't know what I'm talking about, imagine those cool color run marathons where everyone is throwing colored powder:

I personally wanted to use colored smoke grenades to avoid the mess of the powder, so the smoke would just dissolve in the air, so I ordered two grenades: one red and one yellow. I figured each lasting 30 seconds would be sufficient to get what I planned...or so I thought.

The setup of this shot was a direct profile from the side with one Elinchrom 400w strobe placed above camera, pointed down at a 45 degree. I was going to countdown a 3-2-1 and have him lunge forward while I ran around him with the smoke to create the motion of the shot.

Here's the video of what happened:

So as you can see....super fail. I didn't anticipate the slight wind that was happening outdoors. It was about 96 degrees so nothing else was really on my mind besides trying to make this photo work. I didn't have any assistants with me on this shoot due to the fact I didn't need one prior and I thought this particular shot would work with just me and I could use my remote shutter while I ran the smoke. For some reason, my remote wouldn't fire the camera unless I was within 3 feet (which is not usual for my remotes).

So what did I learn?

1) Make sure there is no wind at all, or at least utilize the wind to my advantage.

2) Bring more smoke grenades for experiment.

3) Bring an assistant (DEFINITELY).

4) Also look into holi powder.

So all things combined....a complete fail.

I DO want to redeem myself with this one in the near future and pull off something AWESOME though....I am determined.

Here are a few shots that day on the track that I hope make up for my fail of the day:

Thanks for reading :)

brandon wells 5/26/15 brandon wells 5/26/15

Gaspari, Guys, & A Go-Pro...

This weeks blog post was made from a recent test shoot I did with my friend Jason Newman. Jason is a fitness manager at California Family Fitness, a personal trainer, and a competitive bodybuilder...and also a very kind person for letting me use him as a subject for this shoot. I wanted to make something a little more "commercial" to add some variety to my portfolio, so we planned a sunrise photo shoot at a local high school. Here's a behind-the-scenes video filmed by my good friend/assistant for this shoot, Brendan:

The gear I used for this shoot:

Nikon D600
Nikon 50mm 1.8G (primary)
Sigma 24mm 1.8
Elinchrom 400w strobe
PocketWizard Mini tt1 & Flex tt5
Fotodiox octabox

This was also my first time experimenting with glycerin as a spray on the athlete (clip in the video). I usually just use water, but I've been meaning to try this for a while as when you mix the glycerin with water (about 50-50), you get a better spray that sticks longer and creates better water texture on the subject.

Jason is also a Gaspari Nutrition rep, so we wanted to get a few shots with the Gaspari logo/products in case he may need them for anything else...

Correction*

In the video I explained that the hypersync worked great for the following picture. However, I forgot that I actually changed the shutter to 1/250 sec so that the speed light that was at the bottom of the staircase would by synced also. At that slow of a shutter speed, hypersync doesn't really matter, but it really helps with anything usually faster than 1/250. What I do like about this one though is that you can see the front half of Jason is sharp and frozen, while the back of him is blurred with the motion of his stride. Bada bing.

All in all, I'm very happy with the images we created.

What did I learn?

Check the forecast (even if the weather is great all week).
My strobe synced just fine at 1/800 sec outdoors.
Having good people on set with you really helps the environment, the process, and the experience.
Dress a little warmer for earlier shoots.

Hope you enjoy!