I just recently finished a photoshoot downtown and I feel that I’m getting a good grasp on off camera lighting. What I love most about it is that there is minimal photoshop on my end.

I have every model hold up a grey card for me and I use that as the custom white balance which helps get the correct color in the camera. That way I save time editing the photo to the correct color and applying it to every other photo. Grey cards are relatively cheap and there are different kinds where the accurate ones are more on the expensive end.

My main, and only, light source is a vivitar 285 on a light stand shooting through a translucent umbrella. Attached to it is a pocket wizard synced to another pocket wizard on my camera. The flash is set to 1/4 and 1/16. I’ve often relied on the vivitar more than my canon flash. It’s just awesome with a sweet price tag. My next purchase will be a second flash head and pocket wizard.

Thanks to Taelur for modeling and Mae for doing the wonderful makeup.

I had the pleasure of working with Tina Ontiveros from Model Mayhem, #735403. Shes a young beautiful woman just getting into modeling. I contacted her a week ago ask asked if she would be up for a photoshoot downtown and sure enough, we planned it. For this shoot I used a Canon 5d, 24-104mm and 50mm lens. I brought my strobe out, Vivitar 285, shooting through an umbrella. This was my first time shooting all manual and the results made me happy. If there is anything that I would improve on with this shoot it would have to be the amount of poses I knew. I never knew that I’d have to know posing in order to get my creative idea out there. I may look foolish but it’s the model that will bring out the quality of the shot.

You can see more of Tina by viewing my flickr page