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In Reply to: Re: You really....There is no problem we photogs can't solve with homemade solutions posted by Joe M on January 21, 2003 at 07:59:56:
for all of the info. After doing photography professionally for about 35 years I've always wondered why you used those really cheesy little flashes with white cards for PJ work (not).We never had those when I started. I carried around a huge Graflex "potatoe masher" unit that used a 5lb 480V dry cell battery. No tilting heads, no place for reflectors. Just straight-on pure power - and lots of it. Made lots of shadows, everywhere. Rather Weegee-esque but then it was fast snaps for publication - not art.
I really don't get the "no shadow" deal. I do architectural photography and go out of my way to do light setups with streaks across walls & strategically placed shadows so that the room looks like it is "naturally illuminated."
When I do my own environmental portrait work, I use a 750 Watt-second mono-light shooting through a white umbrella so that I get a north light window look to the work complete with soft wrap-around shadows. No shadows = unnatural in my book.
Follow Ups:
The one I carried around was :)Yeah, they weighed a freakin' ton, didn't they?
-- Do not seek the treasure! DO NOT SEEK THE TREASURE!
..freakin big & seemed to last forever. Could have been 510V - that was over 30 years ago & I've had beers since then.I do remember this teenage kid following me all over the place during one shoot & being a general pain in the butt by jumping into the frame and saying, "hey, take my picture, take my picture!!" I took one photo of him with the strobe set at 1/4 power & he thought it was so much fun he started doing it all over again.
If you remember the unit there was a button that only looked like a red rubber dot on top of the flash head so you could dump the charge when you were done shooting or test the unit. I flipped the switch to full power, the little bugger was about 3-feet away from me and I said, "hey - kid..." and he looked over at me & got a face full of light. Took him about 30 minutes to recuperate so his eyes worked right & he didn't see a blue flash tube on his retina.
I know the dump button. Btw, I dug up a reference to the battery. See below. It was 510 volts, and you recalled the number correctly!
-- Do not seek the treasure! DO NOT SEEK THE TREASURE!
All I know is the strap kept sliding off my shoulder from the weight.It could clip to my belt,but messed up my Tux. I don't miss those days!
http://www.bhphotovideo.com/bh3.sph/FrameWork.class?FNC=ProductActivator__Aproductlist_html___19185___GB510V___REG___CatID=435___SID=F331E2C8FD0
-- Do not seek the treasure! DO NOT SEEK THE TREASURE!
ever burn your fingers with hot flash bulbs? I've been in the game since '72, and doing weddings I carried 497 battery,Metz and yashica TLR.Now it's my Hassy and modern 800 asa films with more ambient light shots and/orbounce flash.Sometimes portable umbrellas.Certainly you can recognize that PJ work differs from the past!Faster shooting styles,get different angles and perspectives. Require high speed drives, small cameras and flash held out to the sides ,for that side lighting natural look.Yes! getting good shadows and facial modeling is still desired.I was talking about ridding ourselves of that strong heavy black shadow behind a subject.Inorder to make a less obtrusive softer one.So we are not that far off in our shooting style,you and I.
Also in a news gattering situation,where there are maybe up to 50-100 PJ's all fireing together the subject is more comfortable seeing us bounce flash and not blinding them.See my above pic.
In my commercial shoots,I also use creative flash/umbrella with reflector boards and gobos,for emulating natural shadows , such as palm fronds,window blinds.On room walls or on models themselves.
But we are getting ahead of most shooters here on Shutterbug st.Maybe not!
Ooops!!! here is the pic I meant to show in above post.Notice the celebrity and imagine how many of us PJ's were shooting Gorbechev.
You were shooting the map of the Philipines on his forehead to find out if it contained any covert information....Flashbulbs....yeah...we did a photo shoot of a large canyon area using #1 & #2 flash bulbs when I was a freshman in college. Would be much easier today using strobes & radio remotes to trigger them. Have some nice dc powered location units that would be just the ticket...
Do you guys see the same thing I do? Gorby is smiling with his lower face, but his eyes are hard?
:-)
Joe,You were right. Besides you, me and Feedbag, nobody cares. What a drag.
Jerry
Guess I'll go over to the outside forum and stir up some trouble there.
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