Sean's Recent Shoot: Panos Galore

[Sean Setters]

Sean, that's rad.

I saw that Von Wong was giving one of those away not too long ago.. And I actually thought of you because of your DIY attempts however long ago that was.

How many slides do you have? Overall it looks great, obviously. Your impressions? Was that a gelled transparent slide or did you get the image printed that way?

Sent from my HTC VLE_U using Tapatalk 2

I decided to get the LightBlaster because it was better designed than my DIY attempt. My DIY version was so finicky that I only used it on a paid shoot once. This is a much more reliable product.

The device came with 2 slides - one random slide (a snapshot of someone's birthday party, maybe?) and a slide with 1's and 0's. Unfortunately, the 1's and 0's slide has the text in black with a transparent background - I wish it was reversed to mimic the DIY slide I had created. I may have to dig those out.

I bought the Creative Backdrops Kit and the Special Effects Kit with my LightBlaster. That means I have about total 45 slides. I haven't tried adapting the slides I had made for my DIY rig. Maybe I'll try that soon.

The dragon slide I used came like that - it was already yellow. You can use a gelled flash with the LightBlaster, but most of the pre printed slides are color positive transparencies - meaning they look just like a photograph, just transparent.

[Steve U]

This is very cool, I think you may have convinced a few people to click the buy it now button.

[Sean Setters]

A few months ago I was given permission to shoot at an acquaintance's barn. The owner said it was run down - something I might like. I decided to investigate. Overall, the property wasn't all that great. The barn looked old, but relatively uninteresting from the front. However, nearly the whole back side of the barn had collapsed.

Before heading home from my scouting trip, I decided to stick my 7D/17-55mm IS lens into a small portal in the door to see what the right section of the barn looked like. This is what I saw when I looked at my camera's LCD screen:



My mouth gaped open - I loved that scene. I immediately began brainstorming on how to use the unique space.

After a bit of thinking, I decided I wanted to do a creative, artistic shoot using the dilapidated location. After one model cancelled on me on two consecutive occasions, I reached out to Samara - a girl I had worked with a couple of other times - to see if she wanted to do this shoot. She happily and readily agreed.

When the shooting day arrived, things didn't necessarily go as planned. For one, the gate to the property was nailed shut. Even though we had permission to shoot at the location, we had to hop over the gate each time we wanted to get something from the car and hand the gear over the fence (which was quite a bit).

Remember that door I told you I poked the camera through to get the location shot? I never tried opening the door. I assumed we could open the door and be right where we needed to be. Unfortunately, the bottom of the door was buried into the ground. We tried to open the door (by digging with our hands and heels), but had no luck. After 15 minutes, we decided to see if there was another way into the location.

We walked around to the back of the barn and saw where the back side had collapsed. The small section on the right that we were interested in was walled off, so we couldn't simply walk into the middle of the open-air barn and over. Instead, there were just enough gaps in the fallen structure to finally reach our destination. This meant crawling on our hands and knees - below boards with dangers nails visible just above our heads - to reach our intended shooting location.

Once we get there, I asked Samara whether she thought it was worth bringing all the equipment to the spot. I told her we could find another section of the property to shoot. However, after seeing the location first-hand, Samara was confident that it was worth the effort and risk.

We made several trips hauling equipment to the shooting location. Once we were in place, I realized that scene I had witnessed months ago - with the sun streaming through the boards, wasn't a reality. The sky was very overcast and we had even seen some sprinkles while traveling to the shoot. I seriously considered placing two monolights on the outside of the barn, facing the wall, warm gelled, so that I could simulate evening sunlight coming through the structure. However, the threat of rain ultimately kept me from doing this. If it had started raining, it would have taken me about 3-4 minutes to reach my equipment. Monolights + battery packs + rain do not mix well. I decided I'd have to light everything from the inside instead. Not ideal, but a compromise I could live with.

For lighting, I boomed a Westcott RapidBox Octa between a couple of rafters above the model. I used an umbrella just off to camera right for fill light. I realized after a couple of test shots that I needed a fill light in order to get good detail in the background. This is where countless hours of studying lighting techniques becomes invaluable. I used a piece of paracord (that I keep in my bag for uses just like this) to hang a flash and umbrella above/behind the model. This way I could light the area with a soft light but still keep the light and modifier out of the frame.

Next, the lit the very back of the structure with a bare flash clamped to a board well behind the model. After getting all of that in place, we started shooting. During the shoot, I changed up camera settings and flash power just a bit to allow for more light to come through on the background.



Setup shot:



To see the entire series, click on one of the pictures above and check out the results on my Flickr photostream.

[Always Looking]

Excellent work again Sean. I am impressed with your creativity and the fact that you were able to convince your model to work inside the barn. I can barely get people (often my own kids) to look at the camera lens and you have a model carrying equipment while crawling into a dilapidated barn. Very nice work.

When comparing your shot of this barn interior from a few months ago to these photos that you just took, I'm curious if you are convinced they would have turned out better with the sun shining between the planks? From my untrained eye and very limited experience with flash, I suspect the shadows and natural light might have actually been a pain in the neck to deal with. I think you did a great job of capturing the moment with great light setup, no annoying shadows, etc. I just looked again at your Flickr page and was able to find the light from the rear flash in "Barn #1" only after looking for it. Thank you for sharing, gives me (and others I'm sure) some ideas.

[Jonathan Huyer]

Sean - Thanks as always for posting such a detailed report on how you work your magic. My own pictures sometimes take a little bit of effort, but mostly I just show up on scene and push the button. This type of attention to detail and creative lighting just fascinates me, not to mention having the talent to work with a model and get the poses just right. Again, thanks for sharing and providing such great inspiration.

[Sean Setters]

Thanks guys.

Me and landscape photography don't get along because of two reasons:

1) I'm a control freak. I want everything to be exactly how it looks in my head.
2) I'm impatient. I'm too impatient to wait for the perfect circumstances where a scene is bathed in just the right light in order to capture what I want.

With auxiliary lighting, I feel I can create something from nothing - that I don't have to wait for all the pieces to fall into line. Instead, I can create an interesting scene on demand (or, at the very least, flattering light on my subject).

Granted, it's a lot of work...and a portrait session with me is no picnic for the subject, either. It's usually slow with a lot of testing and tweaking. But in the end, I usually capture images that I'm proud of and my subjects enjoy. And that's why I do what I do. :-)

[Steve U]

Was there a report attached to those photos???
I didn't notice.
Great shots mate.
I'd be booking Samara again, great assistant.

[Rocco]

Nicely done! I don't know if I would have had the determination to find a way in. Awesome location though.. and kudos for the problem solving. Just goes to show, as much of a control freak as photographers may be, there's a lot to be said for accepting the limitations of any given situation.

[Sean Setters]

Limitations are just opportunities for creativity in work clothes. ;-)

[Sean Setters]

Well, I haven't updated this in a while so I thought I'd explain what I've been up to in the cold(er) winter months: 360-degree panoramas.

In case you're interested, I did a write-up regarding my new pano setup. You can read about it here.

And now for the panos...


360-Degree Panorama: Roaden University Center, Tennessee Technological University by budrowilson, on Flickr


360-Degree Panorama: The Lamp & Lighthouse, Cookeville, TN by budrowilson, on Flickr


360-Degree Panorama: 2nd Ave Watering Holes, Nashville, TN by budrowilson, on Flickr


360-Degree Panorama: Public Square Park, Nashville, TN by budrowilson, on Flickr


360-Degree Panorama: Ralph's Donut Shop, Cookeville, TN by budrowilson, on Flickr


360-Degree Panorama: Bob's Body Shop, Cookeville, TN by budrowilson, on Flickr