With No Camera

Saturday, Mumbai went underwater. The monsoon is in full swing. I was wading up to my knees trying to get out of the train station. They told me a bit further on it was waist deep. The commuter trains were stopped because the tracks were underwater. Hoards of people waded up the train tracks to stations that were not underwater. And through all of this…I had no camera. Not even a point and shoot or a cameraphone. It was painful, but I had fun.

I am almost finished editing the Kashmir trip and will have the update up soon. In the meantime, I’ve done a couple of shoots in my apartment using just my speedlites.


Self portrait. Keylight: Bare Speedlite high camera right. Kicker over the
shoulder: Speedlite in Orbis Ring Flash. Ambient fill.

I wanted to take photos of Amy for a while and finally got her in front of my camera last week. Love the results.


Bare bulb speedlite high directly above camera. Bare bulb speedlite
camera left hair light. Speedlite in ring flash on camera for fill.


Same as above, except I moved the high key to camera left.


Ring flash held very close to Amy’s face and bare bulb camera left for kicker.


I leaned my 72″ shoot-through reflector against a tripod and shot a
speedlite through the back of it for the soft keylight. Again, bare bulb
camera left for the kicker.


Keylight: Ring Flash. Fill 72″ reflector with speedlite. Kicker: Bare Speedlite.