Ninja Final

I decided to continue the series of ninjas for my final project in lighting this quarter. I shot 5 situations in 3 days. Here they are! I had an awesome time shooting. Thanks to Josh for being an awesome ninja and thanks to all of my models. I'll go through the lighting info and my thought process  in all of them for those who want to know.

Originally I had envisioned the ninja behind a tree trunk lit but I couldn't find the right path/tree combo so i settled for this one. Ninja lit with a strobe zoomed to 105mm to act like a snoot and the runner was lit with an umbrella and a alienbee 1600 (thanks frank). I wish I had more power in my lights so I could have dialed it down and froze my runner more. If you look closely there is a bit of a blur in her. So for you people just learning how to light. The shorter the flash duration the more motion you can stop. When you bump lights to full power the duration of the flash is longer so there is blur.

This one was kind of fun to light because all of the lights were outside! For the ninja I had two strobes at full power outside zoomed in at 105 to shoot through the window so it casts a nice shadow against the wall. I also wanted to catch the glint of the sword to add dramatic feel. To light the victim I had a the alienbee outside with an umbrella at around...maybe quarter power so that the light would wash over my brother and into the room. I still wanted the dramatic shadows and darkness because ninjas are...of the night.

For this image, I had Janika look up to pray and  I had an umbrella high right to simulate the heavenly light casting down on her. For my ninja I wanted harder light so he would look dramatic. I had two lights one camera left and one camera right zoomed in to create a crossfire. This in turn made him look super dramatic! and it caught the glint of the sword. In hindsight I wish I had used two strip softboxes to light him so that all of his body would be lit.

For this image we were running out of time, so I feel like I would like to redo it. I don't like the angle and one of my flashes wasn't working. This was originally suppose to be a 3 light setup. 1 fill and 2 kickers. It ended up being just 1 fill and 1 kicker. Anyways, I had the alienbee bare tubed camera left, and then the kicker was on the ninja zoomed in at around 85mm? I would have placed the other kicker behind the victim to give separation in the background. I really need to get myself some legit lights...or another pocket wizards..or something!

This last one is really funny to me because all this time the photographer has "documented" this and finally while he is sleeping he gets it too! And don't you love pooh bear? <3  Ok This was lit with two lights. One softbox high and camera left to create a wash of soft light on me. And on the ninja, I had a flash zoomed in camera. I wish I had a boom so I could have put the softbox right over me instead of angled. And I wish I had flagged the flash so it wouldn't spray the light everywhere. But oh well.