Flowers make for beautiful and very patient subject for your studio photo sessions. They don't move and have that inner (and outer) beauty that just need a bit of sensibility to come out and fill the frame. Thing is that I’m not a flower photographer, at least not one of those that ravenously search fields and botanical gardens, I’m rather one of those that when there’s a flower at home grabs it and put it in front of the camera. I’m also the one who usually brings the floral gifts so at least I can pick those I think can make a nice subject too. 

Photographing flowers for me means soft light, soft images, and mostly a low key shot, well at least now, maybe tomorrow I’ll go hard and high key, truly don’t know… My set for this session was based in two lights, one for the flower and the other for the background. I didn’t use any reflector pursuing my quest of a light gradually fading and leaving an area into a certain degree of darkness. The light for the background carried a blue gel, in order to create a color contrast with the subject and also because I love blue background, they’re way classy!

The main light for all shots was one of my SB800 through a Lastolite EzyBox on camera left, while the other SB800 was gridded with a Honlphoto grid pointing at the black background. For each one of these three shots I was looking for something different and I hope it shows. Details, lighting, point of view and depth of field and of course, there has been a bit of work in Lightroom to come up with the final image. Water spray was used to enhance reflections and textures in a couple of flowers, and I think it is a good plus. Hope you like them, if you need any further information please drop a comment

The Black Pharaoh

Have you ever met a Black Pharaoh? Neither do I but I’m sure I met a descendant of the inhabitants of the Kingdome of “Kush” as the Egyptian called.

The Nubians where established in the northern part of Sudan and southern part of Egypt and their history reverts as far as 2000 B.C. First conquered by the Egyptians for their mines of Gold, the Ivory, cattle and Slaves, they got their freedom back around 700 B.C, not only chasing the Egyptians away but also gradually conquering the south of the country, founding the dynasty of the Black Pharaohs that will later unify and rule the whole of Egypt.

Well, I met my new my friend Negrashy, a true Nubian, on my latest trip. We were floating on some sort of fishing boat, scouting a new area in the south, and he was the man in control of the local burocracy and logistic. Is a great guy and we had a jolly good time together, but the real reason why is here in my blog, friendship apart, is because an early morning I took a nice picture of him.

Nikon Flash SB800 shot through a Honlphoto Grid. Nikon D90 with the Tokina 11-16, not the most flattering lens for a portrait, yet quite successful here, with this “tight” close up, as tight as a such wide angle allows.