Vagabond Hiker Photo Shoot

It is called the Vagabond Hiker Photo Shoot because my nephew agreed to be my model to practice some things I’ve been wanting to try.  He has hiked the Appalachian Trail, and I knew he had some outfit pieces from the trail that would help set the pictures.  I guess in my mind, I was wanting some shots that would convey the idea of looking for your path in life.   Your best path is sometimes hard to find.  I’m not sure I got there.  But the main objective was to practice some photography things I have never done before and I like some of the results.

We waited for the sun to get low in the evening, and went out behind the house for the setup in the trees.  I used two flash stands, one for a back, or hair lite, and one for the front light.  The camera settings purposefully underexposed the scene, knowing the flash setup would bring the subject back into exposure.  Some Mag Mod flash accessories helped narrow the angle of the beam, and soften the flash. 

My idea was for the picture view to show a lot of the trail, but in hind sight, I placed the camera too far away and ended up cropping most of the pics from this setup.  A learning experience.  You have got to grab the camera and try things you’ve never done before if you want to get better and improve your photography.  I wasn’t really happy with most of the pics from this set up.  Many shots were too similar, or had the wrong flash settings.

So here are a couple from in the trees.

Just for a laugh  🙂

Here is a happy accident I’m including just for fun.  I call it ‘Cosmic Dump’.

Poses in the Arundo donax variegated grass

Next we moved to some tall grass I have planted, that I figured would make a great backdrop.  I used my same Tamron 90mm macro lens again for these shots.  The 90mm is great for macro, but also fills in as a good portrait lens.  Of course this time I moved in a lot closer, and we got a nice variety of shots.

Crystal Trio

Last we moved inside and I set up for a tricky shot.  This is NOT a multiple exposure.  The picture is actually a long exposure.  The camera itself was moved for the three positions in total darkness.  It was the manually aiming and popping the flash that actually made the exposures.  Don’t laugh at how I set this up….. it worked.  I taped two pencils to the tripod at the ball head to act as stops limiting how much the camera could be rotated.  That way I pre-set the camera positions for the two outside exposures when I rotated the camera.  The room was setup to be totally dark, so there was only light from the flash…. no ambient light allowed. 

We lit up the crystal from a small led light in his hand. (Click on the link in blue for the crystal energy blog  I did in July.)  To make it work, the crystal was lit just for the first center flash, then turned off as he changed position to look toward the center for the next two flashes.  The crystal still ended up being over exposed, but I had thought we were good, and we didn’t have a chance to go back and try again.  I’m happy with it, even if it isn’t perfect.

Thanks for the look

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