Here are some more behind the scenes images from a La Figa shoot. We did two different ingredients – apples (really really tiny ones), and Zucchini. Most of the lighting we have been doing lately has been very low key (in the technical sense of the phrase) – black or dark grey backgrounds, and very sparse shadowy lighting set-ups, usually with just a couple lights. This time we decided to mix it up, so I put together a very high key set-up. We used the white seamless paper, swept down to the floor, then up and over a table (actually two tables put together so it would be as wide as the 9 foot paper, to avoid creases).

There are four lights. Two softboxes just on the background, set to overexpose it to pure white. Usually when I shoot white paper I try to keep the paper visible – white, but not pure white, so this is a bit different. When the paper is visible you need to think about keeping it evenly lit, which can be a bit tricky. With it overexposed like this, you don’t really have to worry about it too much. The key light is a large rectangular softbox turned sideways and put about eight feet high in front. There will be a little bit of bounce coming back up from the paper as well. There is also a kicker/hair light up high and behind. Since one of our strobes is in the shop,  I used a Nikon SB-800 flash unit in SU-4 remote mode (so it slaves to any flash) here. This worked very well, and it had no trouble keeping up with the studio strobes. Since it is only a providing a little bit of highlight I wasn’t too concerned about whether the color temperatures matched.

Here are a few shots that show the set-up…

As usual, I am not going to show the final images we got, as those are being saved for publication in the book. However, here is a sample image that shows the results of this lighting set-up…

The next set-up – Zucchini Lingerie – was almost the same. The only difference was that we pulled the table out, and had two models standing on the paper. Here is Tiberio putting together the Zucchini Lingerie…

The first 2008 shoot I am going to blog about is my experience as one of the photographers working for Seeds of Compassion, during the Dalai Lama’s visit to Seattle in April. I shot eight different events over the five days – Dalai Lama events at the University of Washington, Key Arena, Seattle Center, and Qwest Field; the Dave Matthews / Tim Reynolds acoustic concert (with Death Cab for Cutie opening) at Key Arena; and various workshops and events around the Seattle center.

During most of the Dalai Lama events press photographers were generally locked down in one location, which was quite far from the action. I had a 70-200mm lens with a 1.7 extender, on a 1.5 crop sensor, which gave me an effective focal length of just over 500mm, but that was not nearly enough to get much good stuff. The exception was an event at Bagley Wright Theater where we crept down the aisles and got close enough to get some some good head shots of the Dalai Lama. But the fun of hanging out with the other photographers from AP/UPI, Time, Newsweek, Rolling Stone, etc. made up for it.

Photographically, I think my best shots were from the workshops and the general scene on the Seattle Center grounds, where there were no security constraints.

I shot about 2000 frames over the give days, and I have posted a gallery of 123 of my favorites over on my “friends and family” website… http://imageevent.com/pmattf/misc/seedsofcompassion