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Great Moments in Great Light

In Hawaii we are very fortunate to have so many talented photographers, and not only that, but also so many breathtaking backdrops.

The beach, the ranch, the hills, the lush interior part of the island, I’m just enamored with this island everyday more and more.

I was a participant at Fred Larson’s photography workshop. He visits the island from San Francisco every year, and puts this workshop together called Great Moments in Great Light.

Fred is a photojournalist Pulitzer Prize finalist. He worked for the San Francisco Chronicle for 24 years, and specializes in documentary and sports photograph. He recently released a photo book Mystical San Francisco, where he explores the moon, sun and fog over San Francisco. From talking to him I gathered that timing and positioning are essential to achieve the kind of images he captures. He shoots early in the morning, before 5am, or at midnight, when the light is more even.

For pictures visit http://fredericlarson.com/

The Great Light portion of the workshop tittle captured me. The workshop consisted on a photography tour in different outdoor locations around Honolulu.  The first location was Waikiki strip, the next day we met at Magic Island, and the following location was Chinatown. We met at 6pm for all days, and had the opportunity to get the twilight time of the day in its entire splendor.

We walked alongside Fred and got tiny bits of advice here and there. His class is 99.9% hands-on, although I would have appreciated to have an orientation session on the first day, added to the critique session on the last day of the workshop. Also it would be nice to list knowledge of manual settings as one of the requisites for the workshop, that way the novice that are just transitioning from auto to manual don’t slow down the rest of the class.

For the people who is just transitioning I would recommend the Know your Camera I, a workshop by Jerry Omo. He is an excellent teacher and very thorough, there you will learn all the basics and more!

Some things I learned from Fred is to appreciate the light shining through objects; another little trick consists in zooming in or out while pressing the shutter in order to create a movement effect around the main subject; and to focus on a surface that is lighter than the subject (background) then setting your camera two F stops under. This way your subject will pop (ex. The eyes) and you will create a nice frame/vignette around. Anticipation is key and so it is talking to people, connecting with your subject.

Fred is a great street photographer artist. Thanks Fred for your valuable critique of my images!

Here are some of the pictures I took over these three-four days:

Photoshoot July 3rd on a rainy day

1/250 sec F3.5 ISO 200 0EV

1/250 sec. F 4.2 ISO 200 -1EV

Keep it simple. Tell a story. Shoot from the heart.

I had arranged a photo session with my friend’s daughter, Pomai, the previous week for a Saturday early morning.

That day I woke up early and dressed in black, not only it's professional but also strategic if you don’t want to see yourself in the eyes of your subject.

When I opened my home front door I realized it was raining, and started to hesitate, and also hoped that the moody rain of Hawaii would dissipate by the time I reach the shooting location, Honolulu downtown.

But what really gave me encouragement was an article written by Neil Van Niekerk on “Bringing sparkle on a rainy day” that I read the night before!...... in the article Neil accentuates the fact that when working on location one is always left at the mercy of the weather (sounds pretty obvious), but the key is whether you call its quits or keep going with the assignment making the best out of it. I went with the later plan, and moved to certain spots where we were shielded from the rain.

To check the entire article go to http://neilvn.com/tangents/2010/06/14/off-camera-lighting-bringing-sparkle-on-a-rainy-day/

The first location was the corner of Beretania and Bethel, next to Fort street mall, a lovely and very clean alley. I was lucky my assistant brought a very colorful and huge umbrella that we ended up using a lot. Be always ready for days like this.

1/125 sec @ F8, ISO 500 0EV

Part of my equipment was my loyal and always ready Nikon D90, with a 18-200 f3.5 lens attached (rented from Hawaiirental.com), a Nikon flash unit SB600, a light meter (which I barely used, as my camera built-in meter was enough), and a lastolite ezybox softbox 20’x20’ with a stand.

I decided to use off-camera flash for the first time, for its convenience. As Neil mentions in the same article the major benefit of using off-camera flash is the control over the quality and direction of light. That means that I can use any background I want and add soft light to my subject.

My speedlight was useful and with the softbox in front of it made the light very soft. I was satisfied with the result, the softbox was extremely easy to carry around (thanks David and Kainoa), but I soon realized that with this option you are limited in two ways: 1. Make sure your flashlight is pointing at the sensor in the camera, so I was in the right side of the flash at all times. 2. The recycling time of my SB-600 was slow meaning I was taking pictures faster that my flashlight was ready to flash.

The positive side of this is that I was forced to slow down and think every shot more thoroughly. I’m used to the adrenaline of getting all the shots of my mind first, and worrying about the technique later (usually in the digital darkroom), and just go with the flow. But I guess this is what separates and amateur from a professional photographer, self-control and planning ahead.

So, I found myself thinking every shot, and it was somehow overwhelming. I had to think not only about making my vision come alive , but also about the weather, the flash output, where to place the light, the backdrop, my flash exposure compensation, and last but not least my subject!

I realize now that I didn’t interact much with her, since I was focusing more on my technique and checking my viewfinder of course. Note to self: don’t forget about your subject. Remember that the camera looks both ways, in picturing the subject you are also picturing a part of yourself. Your energy, mood, emotion, etc.

I followed Neil’s tutorial to the letter for this photoshoot. “The speedlight (Nikon SB-600) was used in TTL mode, and fired wirelessly by my on-camera speedlight. I had disabled the output from my on-camera flash. It just acted as the Master flash, and its sole purpose was to fire the Remote / Slave speedlight that was mounted on the softbox. The Ezybox made it easy to swivel the Slave flash around so that the Wireless TTL control sensor faced towards the camera. This way it was much more reliable in picking up the Master flash’s control signals.”

I am still learning about flash exposure compensation when using TTL flash. Why TTL flash? Because its versatility when changing locations, especially when you are in the move exposing your subject to different light on a single photoshoot.

Visit to read more on flash exposure compensation: http://neilvn.com/tangents/flash-photography-techniques/8-flash-exposure-comp/

So here some pictures of how the portrait turned out.

Erika