The light, the jaws and the studio photography addiction

What follows is all about being hooked by those small portable lights, that give you enormous creative possibilities.

We had some boring days in Madrid. Outside is snowing and inside (my chest to be precise), is cold. Darn cold. I mean, I have a cold that could slam a horse to the floor. Yeah right, for once that I have the chance to go out and photograph some beautiful white snow, I'm jailed into my own hose.

Well, to get the best out of the situation, after swallowing a couple of Ibuprofen pills, just to get back to life for a couple of hours, I start putting together the circus to start the light(n)ing session. One flash here, another one here below, one behind ... no, let me change that ... a tad higher and a tad closer and so on. The options and countless, the results can be numbered in thousands, but eventually, even for a complete dork like me something comes out.

Here, the main light (SB600 at 1/8 through umbrella) is on camera right, a tad higher than the jaw. This is placed on top of a translucent sheet with another SB600 lighting from below: this flash is set at 1/32.

For this take I didn't use anything else rather than the above mentioned lights. This is basically the outcome from the RAW image with just a bit of sharpening

In this second image we used a reflector on camera left to fill a bit the shadows. Still the outcome of the RAW image with a bit of sharpening

Eventually here we have an edited version of the second image, with a B&W conversion and a more menacing look.

Setting up the "studio" takes time and it can be a bit of a drag, especially if wife and daughter arrive home a tad too early than expected. Yet, once you start working is tough to quit. This is quite an addictive thing, and even more for somebody like me, totally new to the game. When I did this session I could only count on 2 SB600, now I have a third one and a Metz 54 and I think I'm getting closer to the proper minimalistic lighting bag.

PETA and the Sea Kittens - Editorial in Sport Fishing

For those guys who don't read Sport Fishing, I tell you you're missing something. This is the editorial that Doug Olander, the Editor in Chief wrote in one of the latest issue and I think is really worth reading.

Thanks Doug, keep up the great work!

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STROKE YOUR SEA KITTEN TODAY!

I just love PETA. No — I really do. (That of course is the group People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, though I know a few anglers who insist that they belong to a different PETA -- People Eating Tasty Animals). Those folks are just so zany and entertaining, and we can always use a good laugh these days.
I mean, I was still chuckling over PETA’s recent campaign to persuade major ice-cream manufacturers to substitute human breast milk for cow’s milk (as Dave Barry likes to say, I am not making this up), when along comes a campaign to “Save the Sea Kittens.”
Being a typically uninformed ravager of the sea like me, you’re probably wondering what a “sea kitten” might be. True, it’s not exactly intuitive. “Sea kitten” replaces that archaic term for the finny things we pursue — formerly known as “fish.” (No, I’m not making this up, either.)
Why? Turning logic inside-out in its typically quaint fashion, PETA explains the need to stop using the word “fish” because that “name can also be used as a verb that means driving a hook through [a fish’s] head.” (I don’t know about you, but that pretty accurately describes all the fish I catch.) “Who,” PETA asks, “could possibly want to put a hook through a sea kitten?”
Who, indeed? If you want some nice tackle, cheap, see the ad I just posted on Craig’s List for all my rods and reels. I had no problem mindlessly slaughtering fish by the hundreds, as of course all fishermen strive to do, but now that it’s come to hurting poor sea kittens ... my God! What sort of brute do you take me for?
PETA’s website describes, for example, a poor sea kitten that spent years “watching her friends and family being hooked through the mouth and dragged into a harsh, alien world.” The upshot? Watching that “have [sic] driven her mad with grief.” Think about it, you swine: How many fish have you driven mad with grief?
And PETA points out that the name change will ensure no one buys fish to eat ever again. Eating fish is bad enough, but who in his right mind would order a fillet of sea kitten? (Just as well, since PETA reminds us that, “All fish flesh today is contaminated with heavy metals and other toxins.” In fact, “fish flesh is just about the most polluted thing that humans put into their bodies”! Maybe that explains my recent green glow in dark rooms.)
And for you spiritual anglers, note that PETA suggests you can still get right with God by giving up your evil ways, as it is “un-Christian to torture and kill fish” (if you practice any other faith, you’ll need to consult PETA for a ruling on torturing sea kittens).
In four years, we might have a sea kitten in a large tank occupying the White House — with any luck. After all, says PETA, sea kittens are “cuter and smarter than the president of the United States.”
I now call upon my fellow sea kitteners who still insist upon catching poor marine felines to at least stroke them before setting them gently in the fish box — sorry, in the sea-kitten box. Why? Well, duh! “Like their surface-dwelling cousins, the land kittens [not including a couple of Siamese cats I know], sea kitties enjoy being petted. Their lack of arms makes it difficult for them to pet back, but they often gently rub against each other as a sign of affection,” PETA informs us. Sure, I love to stroke freshly gaffed wahoo as much as the next guy, because I know how that pussycat with razor-lined jaws appreciates it. And now I can better appreciate gazing starry-eyed at scads in a livewell, rubbing and purring in their big love fest that, in my ignorance, I somehow failed to notice all these years.
It’s time you started to realize how adorable all sea kittens are. “Sea kittens talk to each other through squeaks, squeals and other low-frequency sounds that humans can only hear through special instruments. Most ichthyologists — scientists who specialize in sea-kitten biology — agree that this is just about the cutest thing ever.” For example, last week I watched a mako shark bite off the tail of a swordfish, disabling it and dooming it, and then swim off. That was so darn cute, I just wanted to reach out and pet that little mako sea kitten!
Trust me, fellow sea-kitten chasers, this is going to spread and change our sport forever (no less than, for example, PETA’s campaign has changed all ice cream from cows’ milk to breast milk). For example, just one fisheries management official, Spud Woodward, who is Georgia’s chief of marine fisheries, says he’s figuring on proposing an Interstate Fishery Management Plan for Atlantic Coast Sea Kittens. “I want the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission (ASMFC) to be the nation's leader in protecting our valuable sea-kitten resources.” Woodward acknowledges that may mean the ASMFC dropping other plans, but Woodward says the importance of managing sea kittens renders separate management plans for species like striped bass or red drum “insignificant.” And who could argue with that logic?
So there you have it, my fellow sea-kitty lovers. Hug one today. And by the way, don’t look for Sport Fishing magazine on the newsstands starting next issue. We’re now, proudly, Sea Kitten magazine. Thanks, PETA!

Maldives, an image or two

I haven't wrote that much about my latest trip to the Maldives. It has been OK. Nothing spectacular but we had some decent jigging and nice popping as well.

Few images for you of this November's Safari, I will be back there in February and I hope I will have more stuff to show

This is my friend Albert showing a decent size Barracuda caught on a jig. The fish pulled hard and fooled me into thinking it was another beast. At the beginning we all said "Doogtooth" because the drag was screaming pretty loud and the line running fast, but the lack of stamina of the fish put our hopes down a bit. A nice fish nevertheless. Many people hate Barracuda and I think they're quite good fun critters

Eugeni in a tough situation, A GT took his lure and is heading back o the reef. The heavy drag settings are very tricky to use, especially when there's no gunwale to support your knees.

Snappers are always among my favourite fish to shoot. Then storm helped creating a bit more of atmosphere.

A bit of hard work near sunset. A small atoll in the distance reminds us we are in the Indian ocean, at the Maldives.

Another snapper in daylight. The red color in contrast with the blue sky really makes for a dramatic contrast. There's a main light on camera right, a Nikon SB600. I exposed for the sky and the flash filled the subject probably at 1/4 of power

The local band playing at night, around the campfire in a desert island

The studio craze

Thanks to an amazing flue I had last week, I managed to spend some time working on my brand new insanity: strobes!

This time I tried to do something related to my main occupation. Most of the time I shoot my daughter's teddy bear, some flowers, a tomato or an oil jar but this time I wanted to try some kind of product shot.

The result is more or less crappy. I don't know if I have screwed the lights, the background or what but I barely come to appreciate it. Thus, during this long photo session I managed to understand few more things about this though and challenging work. each and very day I pay more respect to the guys who are able to present us things in such great ways in the mags ads, and books.

This image has been shot with a strobe lighting the background (SB600), one main light on camera left around 45/60º through a soft umbrella.

This shot shows how the lack of a reflector darkens some areas in the lower part of the reel

This shot has been done with a reflector (camera right) and many of the shadows have come to live

Whatever the results I enjoy a lot what I do in my improvised studio. Is a great way to spend the cold winter.

What happened here?

We have been scouting one by one the passes of the atolls we cruised by, all the best, with the proper tides. The quest was for the big Dogtooth Tuna (Gimnosarda unicolor), an animal that can grow in excess of 250lb and bite a jig with rage. We sure hook some of them but none of us was able to bring it to the boat. Several monster strikes all burnt in few seconds. Broken lines, bruised leaders, hooks pulled. This is how fishing can be at the Maldives.

When we got to the southernmost atoll of our cruise, during a slow jigging session outside the main pass I had a strike of a large fish. The fight lasted few seconds and then the hook pulled. Sad news I thought, another one is gone. Yet, while retrieving the line I felt some weight. Then some pressure and finally the line started peeling off the reel at a quick pace. John, the skipper, quickly motored the Dhoni to the open seas, in order to keep the fish off the coral, and once in deep waters I started to fight the fish.

At the beginning everything was normal. The fish would take some line and I would get some back but at one point everything turned into a dead weight lifting. Boy, that thing was heavy but it was unable to steal any braid now, while I was suffering to retrieve every single inch. When we finally saw the fish under the boat we exploded with joy, they have been fooling us for so long that this was like a sweet revenge. To our surprise the fish was foul hooked on its flank, close to the pectoral fin, and this explained the odd fight. I surely missed the estimated weight by a great deal, it was 30% less than I though but hey, who cares, it was a nice fish and a great one to photograph

Bermuda: new jigging paradise?

Is probably too early to say but the first clues have been quite impressive. We have just spent 5 days of fishing in the waters of this beautiful island and every single one of us has returned home excited and happy with the result. It was an exploratory trip, but the bases on which it was put together were strong. Bermuda holds 3 or 4 IGFA world records for both kind of Amberjack (Dumerili and Rivoliana). The biggest Greater Amberjack ever caught around the world comes from here, and if you put in the mix the abundance of Yellowfin Tunas, Groupers, Wahoo and many other different species, the landscape looks pretty bright.

Let me spend a word about the island itself first. It simply is a beautiful place. Neat, tidy, coloured, warm, peaceful, not polluted, green, blue... Again, a small and remarkably amazing paradise. People are nice too. Our captain, Peter Rahn, his wife Leslie and the boat's mate Steve are wonderful people, as well as many other inhabitants that we met and spent some time with. Lodging and dining is not the cheapest around, yet with the current value of the Euro compared to the Dollar is still doable.

Talking about the Captain and his fleet I have nothing but good words. Peter worked hard on something that is quite new for him. Jigging is a technique that requires a specific knowledge and thanks to his vast experience on the local reefs, he managed to constantly put the boat in the best spots. Theres many banks and reefs around the island, and not all of them are prooductive, yet he seemed to always know where to put the boat, and even if sometimes the tides were playing big time against us, when the fish turned on again, we were on top of them.

The first day we fished with the boat that we booked, a 41' Custom Express. But once returned from our fishing we noticed a super jigging boats moored near the Overproof. It was a 36' lobster boat, just arrived from Maine, and o boy, that was perfect. From day 2 we fished every day on the Son Rae, 5 guys in a row jigging elbow to elbow, or not even that because there was room to spare, without a tangle or a problem. The Son Rae is just the perfect jigging machine and we took full advantage of it.

One of the highlights, unexpected to be true, has been the variety of species we caught on jigs. I don't know if ti was 20 or more but every day we would catch 4 or 5 new critters. The mix of the subtropical water with the warm current of the Gulf creates a perfect environment, where fish from more moderate latitudes meet with other more typical of the tropics.

The amount of fish we caught has been quite impressive, I still wonder if Peter was expecting this result or if he was a bit skeptical. Millions of small Almaco Jack where ambushing the reefs. Even during the deadly tides you would manage one of them to bite the irons and I'm pretty sure that, because of the abundance of those smaller critters, we found it more difficult to hook serious contenders.

The big fish didn't participate too actively to the party. We hooked few of them but for a series of reason we only landed one, a 40lb Almaco jack. Thus, they are there, I don't have a single doubt about it, and for this reason I want to come back in May, when the summer starts and the migratory species are more likely to show up. Peter told me that the Yellowfin Tuna stay deep on the drop-offs, and that he can see them in the sounder. Quite a good change for a target fishing like ours: can't wait to get rid of the winter.

Bermuda was also a great lab for my photographic experiments and I have learnt few more things. The most important is that I don't have to clean the sensor myself, and the second that I need to buy a GOOD tripod.

You can see more images here http://www.caranx.net/bermuda_report_2008.htm

Painting with flash

Last week I was in Bermuda, what a beautiful island and incredible fishing ! It is also plentiful of photo opportunities, and I spent a lot of time behind the viewfinder of my D80. By the way, before my departure, I made the mistake of cleaning the sensor myself... I wish I have never done it ! Since I started working on the images I spent more time cleaning the photos rather than editing them.


Back to the photos, very close to shore there was a subject that caught my attention and I wanted to portrait in various manners, a wooden boat. Among the exposures I took, my favourite came out at night, slightly after dark. I put the camera on the tripod and choose an aperture of f8. I could have opened even more but I'm not too happy with the CCD results with the too long exposures (a lot of noise) and also, since it was just an experiment, I didn't want to keep waiting 15 minutes before closing the shutter. So 185sec was the right time, it came out after a couple of tests and I was happy with the way it looked. The Sigma 10-20 allowed me to place the camera very close to the boat and yet have a lot of background in the image. I also put the WB setting to Tungsten to achieve that deep blue sky, and since I was going to use the SB600 to paint my subject, I put a CTO gel to warm up the light and counterbalance that specific WB. During the time the shutter was opened I hopped around the boat flashing the light 1/64. I wish I could have excluded completely the grass to make the boat stand even further, but I couldn't. Next time.

If fishing can go wrong it will go wrong

Figure that! Three days of shooting in Fuerteventura, Canary Islands. Big Fish is the name of the show for the Italian Satellite TV Sky program Caccia & Pesca. Last year, same dates together with some Japanese anglers we caught 3 Amberjack over 70lb and Pink Snappers in the 30lb range. Perfect deal for the show. We have new moon, great tides, wind and the best skipper. Sound awesome! Unfortunately things are not as bright as they seem.
Fish don't want to cooperate. No bites. Plain dead. Day one welcomes us with heavy winds, too heavy maybe even though I favour them to flat calm at least for fishing. The crew is affected by the waves. One guy spends the rest of his time lying on the floor. The others do a bit better but due to the lack of action, happiness is not exactly what you feel in the boat. Tomorrow is another day!
I spend some time in the evening trying to grab some decent images around the beach. Not a great result though. Tomorrow is another day!
Day two. Fishing wise it gets a little bit better but nothing to rave about. We had probably more bites but anything is better than 2 in my accounting. The skipper, a very good fisherman, beats my ass. I save my day with a decent Bonito. The wind is lower, sea more bearable. A frigate mackerel decides to commit suicide to serve as a great sashimi, readily fixed and served in the cockpit. Tomorrow is another day.
Day three, last chance. The crew has lost their hope. I still believe we can sort out something good. I know the big cows are there, is just a matter of finding one in a bad mood. We're jigging. Solely jigging with heavy irons and short rods. I have a good bite. Spit the hook, one more jerk and hits again. Solid hook-up, heavy headshakes and then a heavy dead weight coming up. Uuuuhm, I know what this feels like. Grouperish I'd say and in fact the animal comes to the surface and shows its hefty body. Maybe a 20/25 pounder, not enough for the show yet a precious catch for these waters. I can smile. Same exact moment, Jose, my fishing buddy from the Island, has a furious strike. Short fight. Too short. The fish pulls the hook and I'm sure it was a good one, maybe the one we were looking for. The drag cried loud.
Day 4, I fly back home. Lots of work to do and another trip in 7 days time. The day after they return to the water with Jose and enjoy the best day of fishing. 6 or 7 fish and yet no giant.
Kudos for Victor, the smiling skipper that never gets out of ideas. We'll come back, I know they are there....

Tungsten WB and CTO Gels

I finally managed to try the tungsten WB setting matched with a CTO gel during a fishing trip. I red about it some time ago in one of Scott Kelby's book and found more information in http://www.strobist.com/ but never really put it into practice for good. The opportunity came during a very early morning fishing session in the Strait of Gibraltar, south of Spain. I was there with my friend Francisco Martínez in his game boat, chasing the Bonitos (Sarda sarda) with top water plugs. Unfortunately, due to the wind I couldn't use any of the soft umbrellas I had with me, and the light is a bit harsh, but I like the final result, even though, being the first one, it can sure be improved.

Nikon D80, Sigma 10-20. Manual exposure, f 6,3 x 1/30 sec. Iso 200. Center weighted.

Put a Leica lens on your camera!

If you are a Pentax owner, there's a small internet shop based in Barcelona that gives you the possibility to use a Leica-R lens on it. Check out their kits, they seem pretty easy to use to me and they are now working on adapters for other major camera manufacturers. http://www.leitax.com/

The web page is in english