Author: travel67

Corporal Bermudez United States Marine Corps.

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It would have been much better timing if I’d posted these images a couple of days ago. The US government had just announced changes to military regulations  that would allow women to serve in frontline combat positions. (It has been pointed out that many have already been doing this for years.) These portraits are of Corporal Bermudez of the United States Marine Corps. It should be noted that while there have been numerous photographs of fictional fishermen, lumberjacks and brawlers, Corporal Bermudez is a very real Marine.

In the Studio – Nina

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Nina’s from Miyako Island, but now works all over the world as a model. She’d just spent several months shooting in India, and was back home for a few days in Okinawa, before flying out to more jobs in Australia. Luckily, she had a free evening so she came over to the studio to get some new shots for her portfolio. With minutes rather than hours to work with, we only had time for one makeup look, and two outfits. Slightly different post-processing added some variety to the images.  Have fun in Australia Nina!

Off Camera Flash Workshop

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Pete Leong and I had a fun weekend teaching the off camera flash workshop on January 19th and 20th. We covered pop-up flash, on camera speedlights, and off camera flash with TTL cords. Then we threw off our creative shackles, went wireless, and started to modify our lights. By the end of the weekend we were on the beach with our model Jovi practicing what we’d learned. A huge thanks to Keith, Bernice, Alex, David, Jessica, Lian and Ana for being such great students. Thanks also to Jovi for modeling and Summer Johnson for makeup. And a final thanks to Pete for sharing his knowledge with us all.

Recycling Seamless Paper

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Seamless paper is a long wide roll of paper that photographers use to give a  plain even background to their studio images. When mounted to a wall or stand, it drops down then curves out along the floor creating a seamless background. I usually order my rolls from Amazon Japan as the shipping to Okinawa is free. This is particularly important as shipping items that are 2.72 meters long would normally result in extra shipping costs. Rolls usually come in two sizes 2.72m x 11m and 1.36 x 11m. There are many different colors to choose from but I stick with plain white and charcoal grey. I also have my portable plain black velvet background for karate master portraits. Some photographers use patterned muslin backgrounds, but I find they make images look very dated. Colored seamless backgrounds have their place, and Japanese studios often use pale pink and pale yellow backdrops, but I stick with white, grey and black. Gradations in tone can be created by aiming a light at the paper. As the background is …

Aika Wauke Portfolio Images

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A fantastic portfolio shoot with model Aika Wauke. I photographed four different outfits, and kept with a grey or black background throughout, as Aika already had enough white background catalog images. Summer Johnson did her usual impeccable job with makeup and Aika was great to work with. This was my last shoot with the new 645D 90mm macro lens that I had on loan. After the final pics were taken, I sent the lens and some sample images back to Pentax in Tokyo.  I also photographed the session with the new K5IIs which produced excellent results. A blog post with a  comparison of images taken with the 645D and the K5IIs will appear at some point in the future.

Keith’s New Hobby

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It was only when he arrived at the bonsai class, did Keith realize he’d probably bought the wrong equipment. Pentax 645D with 55mm lens Lighting – Charcoal background. Gridded Beauty Dish powered by Profoto Pro-7a as the main light . Square softbox front and low as fill. 2 medium size strip softboxes behind that were adding rimlight (powered by Profoto compacts). Strobes triggered with PocketWizards.