Carolina Gas Transmission

Most of you who know me know that photography is not my full time job. I work days as a systems administrator for Carolina Gas Transmission, a natural gas pipeline company and subsidiary of SCANA. Occasionally they ask me to shoot photos around the company for various uses. Today I traveled around the area with a couple of co-workers shooting some company facilities and rights of way. I was also commissioned to shoot environmental portraits of two of our employees.

The one above was one of my favorites. We found a spot of shade outside at one of our compressor stations and set up a couple of SB-800s on light stands. The key light was camera left with a Photoflex Lightdome XS softbox. The second was camera right and slightly behind with just a snoot. A reflector disk was held low camera right by one of my travel companions. Post processing in Lightroom and CS4.



This one was shot inside one of the compressor buildings. Same lighting set up but this one has a darker look and feel to it.

Oh and yes, it was hot out there today :P

Thanks for looking.

--Steve

All in a days work

Summer is always a slow season for portrait shooting, at least for me anyway. Last night the drought was ended as I shot three different subjects over the course of about three hours at the home studio. Each one was uniquely different and called for its own lighting and post production style.



To start off I had a portrait of a young girl to commemorate her first Holy Communion. For this I used my Alien Bees B800 with the large octo-box camera left as the main paired with a 43” white reflector disk for fill. This is a really good set up for a traditional portrait, nice soft light from the octo-box, soft fill from the reflector. I added a rim light, an SB-800 with a snoot, camera right just behind the subject and another SB-800 on the background. Both SB-800s were dialed down to about 1/32 power. Very minimal post processing, just a little WB adjustment and a little sharpening in Lightroom. The final prints will get a little more attention.



Next up, a sports portrait for a high school senior lacrosse player. This called for a more dramatic lighting set-up. For this I removed the octo-box from the AB-800 and attached the standard 7AB/R reflector and set it up on axis with my subject. SB-800s were used again as kickers left and right with snoots to avoid any spill. Post processing included the Topaz Adjust Photoshop plug in, plus retouching, masking and high pass filter in Photoshop.



Finnaly, a basic head shot for a model portfolio. For t his we left the studio and moved to the den which has french door style windows looking into the back yard. This was the simplest set up of the evening, just an SB-800 with a shoot through umbrella camera left for key. After a few shots a decided to add the reflector disk camera right. I used a longer lens for this one, an 80-200 f/2.8 and opened the aperture all the way in order to kill the depth of field. Minimal post processing in Lightroom, the final image will get a little more attention.

When this was all done I was pooped, but very satisfied. Not sure I could do this every day. Photography is hard work.

-- Steve

Topaz Adjust

Shem Creek Shrimpers

I downloaded some really cool software from Topaz Labs over the weekend and tried it out on some photos that I took while on vacation recently. The programs is called Topaz Adjust and it is a plugin the works with Adobe Photoshop. The program is very easy to use and can create some pretty interesting effects as seen in the photo above. It can also be used with restraint to render more subtle effect.

Here are a couple more that I played with...


Rising Storm at Shem Creek


Botany Bay Beach Tree

I think I am going to purchase this program when my evaluation period is over. At 49.99, it's hard to go wrong.

--Steve