Josh Mullenite Photography

So this will be the last post on this blog. I have no desire to write here anymore and am thinking about not renewing the domain all together. If there are any questions please contact me.

Here is a photo:

So, I haven’t been doing much lately. I have a few possible shoots coming up that I am at least a little excited about. I have a few ideas too, one involves me drinking a lot of beer so I’m really excited about that one.

Football season starts soon, I went and watched the University of Florida football team practice on Monday (their opening practice day) and while I wasn’t allowed to take pictures, I did notice what the other shooters were using. Surprisingly only one Canon present, the rest were shooting D3s. I keep telling myself I will be shooting more, and I keep not doing it, but hopefully these upcoming shoots will spark my creativity again and I can just get out there and shoot more.

So, after finishing off a bottle of my favorite beer I decided I would photograph it. I threw a black sheet over my computer as a back drop and got started. I knew how I wanted the photo to look before I ever started. I wanted the bottle, with the label cleanly lit, and the cap on the opposite side. This would require the light to be coming from two places, and that would against my whole “anything you can do with two lights you can do with one” theory if I used another flash. My only other option was to use a reflector. I had a notebook laying around (thanks Wal-Mart!) and that would work perfectly.

So now the scene is set, the bottle is setup, the background is nicely wrinkled and the notebook is in place. Now to setup my light.

The main problem with using bareflash is it goes everywhere, but an umbrella just wouldn’t work in this case as it would also just go everywhere. I would end up with flat light and no control. My first thought to control the bare flash was to snoot it. Using a Pringles can as a snoot I took the first shot and immediately took the snoot off. The light source was far too controlled and wasn’t hitting the reflector with a large enough light source to provide any kind of usable reflection on the back side of the bottle and the cap.

I took the shot with the flash bare at 28mm, no modifiers at all. Too much light, it looks like it’s bouncing off the ceiling. Then I had an AHA! moment. The Honl Speed Gobo can keep this from happening, all I have to do is put it on top of the flash. As I’ve stated previously this is not ideal because it sags a little, but raising the light up an inch or so helped out with that. Perfect. Since I wasn’t photographing the top of the bottle I aimed the light at the neck and let it feather off to deal with the reflections.

With another Wordpress update comes another layout update. I am really enjoying this template and switching to it forced me to update my portfolio page as well. I wish you didn’t have to click on a link to view it, and I will be working on that shortly but I really do prefer the whole thing over the last setup. If you run in to any problems or have any suggestions feel free to contact me or leave a comment on this post.

As far as content updates go, I will have a dissection coming up later today and a lighting solution probably up tomorrow.

So I recently ordered a Honl Photo Speed Strap™ (DHS-SS) and Speed Grid™ (DHS-SG) through Adorama. I haven’t had too much time to experiment with them yet but as far as first impressions go, this is not a good one.

The Speed Strap does not fit very well around the head of my SB-600, it took removing it and replacing it several times before I was satisfied with the fit and even now I’m not sure. If I were to put the Speed Gobo on the top I would not be able to remove it quickly without taking the strap off with it. Construction is nice, and the rubber padding on the bottom is a nice touch to keep it from slipping but it just looks too sloppy mounted the way it it is.

The Speed Gobo is nice as well. The name bothers me because it is not a Gobo in the sense I am used to, I would call it a flag. It is two sided with black on one side and white on the other. My only real problem with it is that it is not as stiff as I’d like it to be. When mounted on the top or bottom of the flash head it kind of sags down which can make for a big problem in some situations. I will probably order another one (or two) though.

Though I am not impressed with the system I can see it’s uses and it is better than the alternatives. I will probably also get the grids, but not the snoot, my Pringles can works better for that.

So with insomnia comes sleeping aid induced days and nights where you just don’t wake up for anything. I had one of these Wednesday when I went to sleep at around 11PM and woke up the next morning at 2AM. After a few hours of reading a book and browsing the internet I decided I would head out to Lake Alice on the University of Florida campus and make it my goal for the day to photograph an alligator. At around 7:45AM I packed up my bag and left.

My bag for the day is pictured at the left. I travel light (okay the bag weighs about 25 pounds fully loaded like this) and only bring one flash, two lenses and my cameras, the D1 is there for backup duty and thankfully wasn’t used. I may strap a lens to it next time however and just shoot with both bodies.

While walking to the lake a long time friend and neighbor of mine happened to be driving home from work (as a paramedic for Alachua County Fire Rescue) and decided to tag along and give me a ride. We arrived, wandered for a bit, and no alligators to be seen. Only a few box turtles and one snapping turtle in water far too murky to get a good photo of them.

After returning to his apartment and cooking some breakfast we eventually managed to make it back out to the lake later in the day, this time with more success. Our first alligator spotting was a small one, maybe 4 feet long including the tail. Nothing spectacular and because of where it was I wasn’t able to get a good angle anyway. I probably would have passed this one up if it weren’t for one small detail. This baby gator had a tennis ball in it’s mouth. Yes, a tennis ball. Like a dog. Making the best photo I could I quickly switched lenses to my 85 and took a safety shot. As I was positioning myself for a better, and much closer photo the gator jumped in to the lake and swam off, still holding the tennis ball. It was quite the sight and is one of the many things I am glad to have experienced first hand. I am also glad I took that safe shot because otherwise I don’t think anyone would have believed us.

After a bit more walking and a run in with a large, nasty looking spider we decided to head to Library West. Since our parking was only good for the Baughman Center we could either walk or take the bus. Taking the bus would have required waiting, and taken us longer so we huffed it as they say. Not a bad walk, the campus is really nice and there are plenty of beautiful girls to occupy your mind to kill the time. On the way there, cutting through some buildings we saw our second, and final gator of the day. This one was a little bit bigger but in a small man made pond with a ridge around it so again I couldn’t get as close as I wanted, but a shot is a shot.

Below is a photo taken in the library… it is a sign of things to come as being there sparked a lot of ideas for me. Stay tuned.

So it’s been quite a bit since I’ve written anything, and the truth is that is because it’s been a long time since I’ve shot anything. Both of these will be changing soon hopefully, stay tuned.

So it is not very often I search for my own name, but I was going through my Analytics stats and noticed that there are apparently quite a few people who do. I decided to do it to see what they see and I came across this link:

http://www.stumbleupon.com/url/www.jpgmag.com/photos/279984

I feel honored and honestly a little humbled. I still can’t believe that photo has gotten as much attention as it has.

If you’ve never searched for your name, do it. Lots of cool stuff and it’s like a blast through my internet history.

So a break from the normal style of posts, I want to take the opportunity to share some photos I am particularly proud of. This Saturday me and a friend took a trip down to Ybor City in Tampa to see Jukebox the Ghost and Via Audio. We got there a little early and wandered around for a bit. It is a very cool place with a lot of history. I had done a presentation that included Ybor City and it’s founder (Vincente Ybor) and their impact on Cuban immigration but had never been there so it was really cool to see it first hand and this will not be my last trip there.

Of the two, Jukebox the Ghost performed first and were even better than they were back in April when we saw them with Nightmare of You. They are also very cool people who know their beers and are very easy going. They performed a few new songs and some from the current album but sadly, no Victoria because the keys were being finicky. i love listening to their music, it always puts me in a good mood and is very enjoyable. You can view all the photos from the set here. Be sure to check out their myspace to hear their music and if they are coming to your area do NOT miss them.

After them came Via Audio, a band from New York that is a little out there. In a good way though. I had heard their music before that night and liked it, but after seeing them live they are quickly becoming one of my favorite bands. Again, you really need to check them out. You can view their full set here.

So there was a discussion going on in the strobist flickr group about the ambient over powering capabilities of shooting above your sync speed. The topic came up of the method I use and it’s feasibility without adding more lights to the mix.

You can see the results here.

What is interesting to me is the dip the exposure takes when shooting at 1/4000th and 1/8 on the flash. I’m not sure if this is an anomaly, an error in the test, or the way the flash is working but it definitely through off the pattern seen in the rest of the exposures.

You can read the discussion here