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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.

It’s been a busy few weeks here in Mumbai. I’ve been working to get all of the photos from Ladakh edited while trying to get some other things accomplished. I shot a project for a magazine on friday that I will hopefully post soon (I’ll probably have to wait until its been published next month). Anyway, here are a few more shots I did in Ladakh.

After the rest of the group took off I was free to explore on my own. I took to the hills on a motorcycle for a few days then came back and stayed with my friend Vaibhav, who owns a rock climbing café (a small café with a bouldering area). On Sunday we went out to a boulder project he has been developing above the city of Leh. It’s a beautiful boulder, isolated by its size from the rocky landscape, located near a religious temple. The boulder promises a few short sport routes and several bouldering problems. Vaibhav is projecting this little beauty.

This is GraviT, Vaibhav’s cafe in Leh. If you ever go to Ladakh, you have to stop in here. It’s a great place for a banana shake.

World Cup mania is in full swing here. Finally the Indians are distracted from their beloved Cricket, and focusing on a real sport. The rains have come and it is relief from the heat. I’m knee deep in editing the photos from Kashmir and Ladakh and will have an update eventually for you (Travel Journal). Here’s a teaser:

I’m leaving momentarily on another adventure. The plans are sketchy at best. My friend’s keep asking when I’ll be back, but I honestly do not know. So fare the plan is to take the overnight express train to Delhi, arriving Saturday morning. I will meet up with my friend Carrie and stay with her friend for the night. A few more people are flying in Sunday afternoon and we are catching a train to Jammu in Kashmir. We will spend some amount of time in Srinagar and the surrounding areas while waiting for the highway to Leh, Ladakh to open (It was closed recently because of mud slides). We may go for a trek in the high deserts (well over 11,000ft up) and I might get some exhausting high elevation bouldering in. At this point anything resembling a plan ends. I’m leaving the group and finding my own way back to Mumbai, hopefully through Mussoorie so I can see the family I stayed with in 2007 and another friend doing a Hindi course there.

I have no expectations for this trip, so…well, let it begin. See you guys sometime in June.

Kashmir and Ladakh were a treat, both in scenery and in temperature – an escape from the mind-numbing heat of Mumbai. I’m sifting through over two thousand images to select the standouts. It’s a task. But I had the pleasure of traveling with a group for the majority of this trip, an experience I’m not used to. Cammy came along to visit her friend Taylor in India and happened to be the perfect running model. I asked her if she’d be willing to do some shots with me and she thankfully agreed. These are a taste of the kind of work that I am striving to get involved with.

Above Stok Village, Ladakh.

Pangong Tso Lake, Ladakh – very close to China.

While I was home a friend asked me to do some head shots for her. She’s a doctoral student for Performance Violin at the Jacobs School of Music. Needless to say she is quite talented. Our schedules finally lined up on the Saturday before I left. We had a good time shooting around the Union on the IU campus. 

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The Conrad is a beautiful five star hotel in downtown Indianapolis. A friend of mine connected me with the Marketing Manager at the hotel, and she welcomed me to shoot around their beautiful property. I showed up with all of my lights and no assistant, clumsily moving everything around in a luggage cart. My friend, Alison, called and asked if I still needed help and, thankfully, she came down to lend a much needed hand.

I love photographing people, so in many of these shots I wish I could have used a model. The environments are so inviting and someone feels distinctly missing. But the shoot was a great exercise for me in expanding my interior portfolio.

More Photos After the Jump –>

I had spent my entire morning shooting at a five star hotel and was on my way to a friend’s party on the north side of Indianapolis. On I-65N I passed this skate park, so I took the nearest exit and found my way back to it, passing through Marian University’s campus. I’m glad that I stopped. I enjoy unplanned shooting like this. Most shots are with my 16mm and a flash fill, but the closer ones toward the end are shot with my 50mm at f/1.4.

More Images After the Jump!

This seems like a good idea…

Doing the jerk (Watch a tutorial here)

Last week I made a journey around Indiana to see several of my friends before I left for India. It was great connecting with friends I had not seen in years. I hadn’t seen Allie in probably over five years, but I had suggested doing a shoot together a while back. We went out in Ft. Wayne, IN looking for a good location to shoot. I lost the sun a little faster than I anticipated so I did more shots with flash than I intended, but I like the results.

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Yesterday my dad dropped me off in Cincinnati with all of my bags for heading back to India. I planned on staying with my good friends, Casey and Jeremiah, before flying out the next day. When Jeremiah came to pick me up he asked, “Why are there so many expensive cars in the parking lot here? Oh, I guess this is an expensive hobby.” He met me at Lunken Municipal Airport where my dad had dropped me before taking off again in his recently restored French trainer four-seater airplane. My dad has an expensive hobby.

I realized I’ve never taken very many photos of my dad or his planes, so I took this opportunity to document this flight. This plane is temporary, at least until he gets his RV-10 kit plane up and running. He has probably another 2 years work to put into it before its done.

My dad, the pilot.

Flying over Lake Monroe.

I would love to do a photo study on clouds as seen on their level.

The Skyline of Cincinnati in the distance.

The Final Approach.

I’m packing again. This is getting to be the norm I guess. I am leaving my home this morning and flying out of Cincinnati tomorrow afternoon. It’s been a while since I’ve updated. I’ve been busy traveling around and seeing friends. I’ve been shooting a lot, but haven’t had much time to edit. Once I get back into my routine in India I’ll have some editing time and get things updated on here. Be well, my friends.

I wanted to do some more fashionesque photoshoots since I got to Mumbai. That’s why I painted my walls white. Besides the few Couch Surfing portraits I did, I did not really take advantage of my situation. The friday before I left Mumbai to come back to the states for a visit I went to a party and met Jazba. I asked her if she’d be interested in doing a shoot before I left and she said she’d love to. Finally, on tuesday, our schedules lined up and she came to the studio, err, my living room. She brought a lovely black dress she had bought at a thrift store for $5 that was perfect.

Not only is Jazba beautiful, she is also a very talented model (these are not one and the same).

Click to see more photos–>

I am finally getting around to editing more of my trip to Washington State. Here are some of the finals.

View from Mt. Erie near Deception Pass. It was a beautiful day and location to climb. Click on image to see large.

Mt. Erie from across the lake near sunset.

My favorite spot at Deception Pass.

The second peak of Big Chief in Squamish, BC shot from the bald first peak. That was a pretty incredible hike. Class 4 hiking.

The view from the first peak looking back over the Strait of Georgia which connects to the Pacific Ocean.

I am glad to be working again.

Yesterday I did quick head shot of a business professional in Indianapolis. It’s not the travel and adventure stuff I have been doing, but its still fun problem solving. This doesn’t have a fun story to go with it, so I’m providing the How To…let me know what you think and if I should keep doing these.

I showed up about half an hour before the subject was supposed to arrive. I selected an open space in the office near a window for the location. The light spilling on the white background can only help, no negative. And since I’m shooting at f/8, 1/125s, and ISO100, my lights should over power any ambient lighting.

(A) I brought with me a travel background kit and a simple king size White bedsheet as the backdrop. Maybe its not “professional” but afterwards, no one can tell the difference. I also carry a black bedsheet for low key photos.

(B) I placed an AlienBee 1600 behind the sheet shooting back towards the subject. This will blow out the center more than the edges. It doesn’t really matter since it’s going to be an all white backdrop, but it reduces clutter around the “studio”. This is roughly 2 stops above (F/16) the key light.

(C) Next I set up my White Lightning 1600x with the 42 inch Brolly Box, a shoot through translucent white umbrella with a reflective backing that keeps light from escaping out the back. I place this very close to the subject to get the best quality light from the brolly box. The subject has glasses so I have to adjust the height and position of the light above and further to the right. (f/8)

(D) I set up my Canon Speedlite 580EXII on my tripod behind and to the left of the subject. Using my Cybersync radio slave it will fire along with the studio strobes. I set it on 1/32 power which put it about a stop and half above my key light, the brolly box.

(E) I had a VALS (Voice Activated Light Stand) holding my 32inch reflector on the left side of the subject bouncing light into the shadow side of his face so it is not void of detail.

(F) The Subject stood roughly 10ft from the backdrop which minimizes the amount of spill light coming from the back light.

(G) And I shot with my 50mm lens which requires me to get pretty close to the subject for a headshot. I like the dynamic this creates with the subject, but it would be best to shoot around the 70mm range. Even though 50mm is normal and does not distort the subject, 70mm is a little bit more pleasing to the eye.

My grandpa is not who he used to be. I remember him always laughing, always pestering or pinching. I remember how hard he would try and to what lengths he would go out of his way to help someone. That seemed to be what he lived on: helping others. Over the past several years his health and memory were fading gradually enough, but suddenly in January he had a heart attack that put him in a nursing home. Now, at age 89, it is hard to recognize him as the same man sitting slumped in his wheel chair or fighting sleep in his recliner. It’s been difficult for me to watch this once strong, proud man deteriorate. I tend to distance myself rather than watch up close. I would rather remember him as I did as a kid, riding in his horse drawn buggy or helping me to feed the neighbor’s pigs.

Grandpa loved horses. Anyone entering his nursing home room could guess as much by the yellow plaid blanket inlaid with the heads of horses folded over the back of his chair and the multitude of horse posters covering the walls. He spent so much of his life caring for other people as well as his horses. Now he struggles to have enough strength to do simple tasks like shaving. He has to rely on others to take care of everyday needs. I know this is hard for him since he wouldn’t let others help him if he could do it himself. I feel like it was yesterday my mother yelled at him for climbing into the attic to open the air ducts or trying to till his vegetable garden. No one could do it like he could.

This series speaks about self-reliance. You are never strong enough to do it alone forever. 

I was unsure about going to see him. I did not know whether he would recognize me; grandma had warned me he may not. When I found my mom pushing him through the home in the wheel chair suddenly became a bit more alert. “What’s with all that fuzz?” he asked in his typical jovial tone referring to my recently grown long hair. But that was the only coherent thing he said the entire time I was there. The nurses moved him into his recliner and he spent the rest of our time there moving in and out of sleep.

I am leaving again for India in a few weeks. I do not know whether I will see Grandpa again before he moves on. I do not know what the next few months hold for him or myself. His existence here is limited. It’s no doubt hardest on my grandma. Living by herself is lonely. Separated from her love, she is unsure of her own existence or what to do next.

All of us have limited time. I’m ok with that.

Sometimes I need inspiration to shoot. I have barely picked up my camera since I came to Indiana in March. I get stuck just doing my thing not looking for creative outlets, but my soul suffers. My good friend Katie Collins (katiecollinsphoto.blogspot.com) from Nashville, TN came up to hang out for a couple of days. One thing ALWAYS happens when we hang out. Photography. She’s an incredible muse and encourages ideas. Even when I’m on the other side of the world I’m bouncing ideas off of her.

Friday night in Bloomington, IN Katie and I set out to attend a photo gallery opening and meet some friends near Kirkwood. I break out my Orbis Ring Flash and we go to work flagging down strangers and friends, asking if I can get entirely too close to them to take a portrait with my 16-35mm wide angle lens. With this absurd plastic dish inches from their face I ask the subject to make a funny face.  People outside of bars seem to be much more willing to do funny, silly things than people in day to day life. I like shooting in this atmosphere.

Test shot #1

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Examples of using the ring flash as a off camera key light.