Deese Photography

This past Sunday was the big Baltimore area Model Mayhem meet and greet held at Patapsco State Park. These are generally more socializing and networking events than actual shoots, but we always manage to get some shooting in regardless.

Always a good time and usually a good chance for me to work with “one light” setups as we are constantly on the move. And to top it off, David Hobby (the creator of strobist.com) stopped by to chat and shoot. Great guy, and definitely my inspiration for using off camera flash as much as possible.

Here are a few from the day (all shot using one light):

And one of the main reasons I attend these events is that some of my awesome friends (who are also photographers) are in attendance and fun to hang out with.

Looking forward to the next event in October!

Brande received a call from a family friend who we have shot for in the past asking if we could do a shoot on short notice. As it turns out, her horse Whisper, who is 32 years old does not have a lot of time left and she wanted some portraits with her and “the old man”.

Lighting a horse is something I have not done before, and always willing to help out a friend, we were over there two days later.

Here are a couple of preview shots from our time there.

It was a bittersweet shoot, but we are certainly glad she loved the photos and has some to remember him by. And he was as great for the camera.

Recently, myself and a photographer friend held a small lighting and head shot demonstration together with one of our more reliable models Lacey.

He started off by showing the effects of a hot light shot through a large diffusion panel and how the light and shadows fell as a result. Here is a shot of mine using this setup:

Afterward, we left the diffusion panel up and I demonstrated a one light setup, using an Alien Bees AB800 in a softbox with the diffusion panel acting as a large reflector:

All in all, it was a great session. We both learned a lot, walked away with some fantastic shots, and gave Lacey more portfolio fillers. Win-win for everyone.