A few weeks ago, I was assigned to photograph the USC men’s water polo team for a feature.
Because of the weather forecasting a severe storm, the coach and my editor both offered to reschedule, and most photographers probably would have done so. However, I figured shooting them in the rain would actually make more interesting pictures, so I stuck with the challenge and I think it worked out for the better (see all the photos here).
The three players I was shooting, Arjan Ligtenberg, Ryan Cummins, and Jovan Vranes, were surprisingly reluctant to stand out in the rain, and they surely weren’t willing to go into the pool. But after a couple of minutes and seeing the photos, they began to have fun with it.
Technical Notes:
To highlight water, or in this case, falling rain, you have to use sidelighting. So, I set up two flashes as rimlights behind the players both to light the rain and to create more dramatic highlighting that would outline the players. For my main light I had wanted to shoot through an umbrella to soften the light, but the high winds forced me to use direct light instead.
As for waterproofing the flashes and my wireless transmitters, I simply rubber-banded clear Ziplock bags over the tops of them. They’re still flashing, so I suppose the makeshift rain covers were effective.
The full moon last night was supposed to have been the biggest in the Northern Hemisphere in 15 years, and over 30 percent brighter and 14 percent larger than other full moons this year.
The moon above the Los Angeles skyline as depicted above is not actually how the scene appeared. In reality the moon rose about 30 degrees to the right of the skyline. I didn’t have enough time in L.A.’s evening commute to relocate to a new location where the buildings and moon would converge, so I figured I would rediscover an old trick I learned back in the film days.
The photo above is actually a multiple exposure, in which two sequential frames are overlapped in the camera. The illusion was created without Photoshop; in fact the deceiving technique has been around long before the existence of Photoshop. Back when I was using my old manual film camera, I would take a picture, press the film release button, and cock the shutter without actually advancing the film. This would allow me to take two (or more) pictures on a single frame.
NOTE: because the photo has been manipulated (despite the use of Photoshop), I would never consider the image for journalistic publication.
Here’s another try from a different angle.
Here are two of the test pictures, one of the moon only and the other of the skyline only. The photo of the moon was taken with a 300mm f/2.8 + 1.4x extender. The photo of the skyline was taken with a 70-200 f/2.8.
This summer I had the opportunity to live in China for 70 days, and boy, was it an experience.
Perhaps it was challenging locals at the Temple of Heaven to games of xiangqi (Chinese chess)…
Of course there was feasting with Chinese government–yes, Communist–officials…
Maybe it was chatting with the engineers who manufacture the world’s PS3s, iPhones, and Wiis…
It could have been living in an apartment only to find a family of strangers sleeping over one night…
Or perhaps it was 18 hours on a train with seven of us squeezed into a row of hard seats designed for five…
All I know is that with a little bit of curiosity and open-mindedness, I felt right at home.
Here are some snapshots from my summer in China:
Art lessons in Zhenjiang, Jiangsu Province.
Gardening in Zhenjiang, Jiangsu Province.
Skinning living frogs for dinner in Suzhou, Jiangsu Province.
Basketball and ice cream on a hot Saturday in Suzhou, Jiangsu Province.
More pictures to come…
See the full gallery here.
