Samantha and the Sing-Ray Vari-N-Duo
I recently picked up a used Singh-Ray Vari-N-Duo on Ebay. The Vari-N-Duo pairs a circular polarizer with a variable neutral density filter. After being impressed with the results I got while shooting at Burgess Falls, I really wanted to try the filter out on a portrait shoot.
So, here we have a young lady who will be graduating high school later this year. We set up in the same location as the Jordan Chitwood shoot, and the lighting setup was a near mirror of it as well (however, I was using a fill light on this shoot, unlike the previous shoot). Samantha wore the flannel shirt to the shoot, and that's what we used first. After several shots, I asked her to put on her prom dress (which I had seen pictures of on Facebook). The dress transformed this (for lack of a better term) kid into a Greek goddess. The dress turned out to be a stellar choice. And on the equipment side, the Singh-Ray filter surpassed even my highest expectations. While the Genus provides satisfactory results for a variable ND filter, having a circular polarizer in the same filter is an ideal fit for my type of shooting.
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Samantha: Flannel 1 by budrowilson, on Flickr
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Samantha: Flannel 2 by budrowilson, on Flickr
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Samantha: Prom Dress 1 by budrowilson, on Flickr
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Samantha as Aphrodite by budrowilson, on Flickr
Suburban Rapper: May 2012
Well, I'm running behind on the Suburban Rapper series, but I finally got May's done. As the flickr caption notes, the inspiration for this shot came straight from my buddy Mark. He said, "You know what? You need to do a group of kids for the next rapper cover thing you do. And I'm pretty sure I know where you can get a bunch of kids..."
So, we ran with it. We used his five kids to create the next cover. I had to make sure and tone down the humor in this cover because I wanted his kids to be able to show it off to their friends. ;-)
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Suburban Rapper: May 2012 by budrowilson, on Flickr