Yellow daisy shot using a Orbis Ring Flash in the background and a Lumiquest Softbox III as main light







Today I had to take some studio shots and at the end of the session I stole one of my wife's flowers and had some fun. While taking some pictures of it with the Orbis Ring Flash I had the idea of using that very light modifier as a background, centering the flower in the black hole that is commonly used to stick the lens.

The how-to... Lumiquest Softbox III
on camera left, Orbis Ring Flash
as background



I adjusted the camera on the tripod to have the flower exactly in the middle of the black hole and did few test shots. The ide was cool but I needed an extra light to bring up the flower a bit. All that backlight couldn't do it by itself.

So I added an extra SB800 with a Lumiquest Softbox III and..voilá

Sensei Ryan Lobo. Learning from a photojornalist

During my last trip to the Andamans I met this young talented Indian photojournalist named Ryan Lobo. He was there to shoot a week of fishing in a different way, far different from what people like myself, who do this for specialist fishing mags, do. The images he took of myself with the Yellowfin Tuna where so radical that he said to me: " I don't think you will have these photos featured in a specialist magazine." In fact, the director of an Italian monthly confirmed that:"Nicola, I'm a photographer myself and I love these shots but I don't think our audience will understand them." Thus, I have learnt from Ryan many things: how to use the foreground, how to be more creative and escape the rules, how to zoom the flash, how to blur. Blur is cool :-)

I'll always be grateful to Ryan for the time he spent with me those days, and for me it has been an incredibly rewarding experience to be able to actually share some time with somebody experienced. http://www.ryanlobo.blogspot.com/