Finally! Here is an example of a lighting setup I used with 3 studio lights on location. I am using Alien Bees for my lights with an Alien Bee’s Vagabond battery pack for portable power. I am use the CyberSync transmitter and receivers. These are Alien Bee 800s which are fairly powerful. But lately I have been craving more power so I can truly overpower the sun. Maybe White Lightings would be cool. But if I had the money for it I might someday get the Elinchrom Quadra RX.

But for now this set up works pretty well. I was able to get about 150 shots with 3 lights on one battery before the battery started to show signs of weakness. That is when I came in and used just one Alien Bee on the battery and I used 2 Nikon SB-800s attached to the CyberSync receivers. And that worked pretty well for the rest of the shoot. So in about 3 hours we got about 250+ shots. Not to bad. It is expensive? Not as expensive as a ProPhoto or all Elinchrom setup. So it will work for most people who want to have some power.

Alien Bees Studio Lighting on the Utah Salt Flats

I am using a boom arm with a c-stand so I can get light in front of and above the subject without the light poll being in my way. I am also using ankle weights to weight down the light stands so they don’t fall over. I don’t want to lose a flash head to wind.

I would like to say that I am self taught in photography. What the heck does that mean? Does that mean I picked up a camera and just figured it out by myself? Heck no! I actually have read countless books, watched many tutorials online, or picked the brains of other photographers to learn everything I know.

Recently I gave away several dozen books to other photographers – I wasn’t going to be reading them again and I figured they weren’t doing any good on my shelf. And there is always some new book out there for me to read. Well, I found a new book!

David Ziser is a wedding photographer based in Tennessee or Kentucky (I can’t tell the two states apart). And he has been photographing for years upon years and he knows the practical lighting as well as a ton of tips and tricks. He has a great blog that will help anyone interested in photographing people and weddings.

And he just released a great book that I have been lusting for for some time now. And Captured by the Light: The Essential Guide to Creating Extraordinary Wedding Photography just arrived from amazon.com and I am loving it. I would buy it from amazon.com and save some coin since regular bookstores are selling it for $55 m.s.r.p.

It is just packed with so much information it might take me a few days to get through – once I get through the book I will probably give it away. But I would recommend you run (don’t walk) to your computer and buy a copy.

When you are photographing an event you need to photograph the details. Signs, decorations, food and more all help tell the story of the event. (Don’t forget the people).

This weekend I photographed a party in Salt Lake City, Utah. When the food is ready at an event you don’t have a lot of time to get the shots but you want to get them done right. Often the food is ready and people are already lining up to get food.

At events you can’t be weighed down with huge studio lights – you travel light and you want to move fast and get out of people’s way. Below I have my lighting setup – the Nikon SB-800 speedlight is attached to a Lastolite Ezybox 24″ on a Manfrotto light stand.

Lastolite Ezybox with Nikon SB-800

I always photograph in manual mode and I used the Nikon’s wireless TTL lighting system. I will be writing up some better blog posts how to use the Nikon Creative Lighting System in the future.

And here is a sample photograph from that evening (P.S. the food was delicious!). The food was catered by Bambara in Salt Lake City.

Sample food photograph

Hooray! My first behind the scenes of a lighting set up. I have been working on taking one photograph a day at least for an entire year. Today I really had a hunger for some frosted sugar cookies and I ended up getting some donuts as well. So when you have some really yummy and beautifully decorated food you might as well photograph it right? Thats what I thought.

So here is my lighting set up – I am using a Nikon SB-800 on a Manfrotto light stand. I am using the Nikon CLS (Creative Lighting System) to trigger the speedlight remotely. It is shooting through a 24″ Lastolite Ezybox softbox. I often use this lighting set up when photographing people and it works for photographing most anything. I have a reflector on the other side of the donuts to fill in the shadows cast on the food.

Food looks best when it is brightly lit and it looks best when lit from the side or from behind.

Behind the scenes of food photography

The next two photos show off the difference of the shadows with and without the reflector. This would also work with people. I love to have dramatic lighting where the light come from one side or the other – but sometimes that is too much drama and you can put a second light on the opposite site OR you can use a reflector. And reflectors are a lot cheaper.

Donut light with softbox and reflector

Softbox only - no reflector