Rockbridge Men's Night for Frances' fight

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The other day my Friend Summer Duffie called and told me about Frances Carmichael Reynolds. She is battling her second round with breast cancer and Summers and his friends at The Rockbridge Club hatched a plan to shave their heads as public show of support for their friend. By the time I had listened to the heart rending story of Frances and the desire of these good men to show solidarity with her, I was ready to join in and have my pate shorn as well. That was not what Summers had in mind, he needed, as he put it, a ‘sho-nuff’ photographer to document the spectacle. I was only too happy to oblige.

Frances Carmichael Reynolds

This was a special event, and I wanted to capture it with a touch of flare. I knew that an event like this would call for on-camera flash, as I would be moving around a good bit shooting not only the cutting but some of the large crowd that would be there to watch. On-camera is fine for this sort of thing, but I wanted to do something to add some pop. I had no idea how they were going to set up, but I knew that the men would be stationary while having the locks removed. This means that there is an opportunity to use off-camera flash.

I came up with a plan to use a second strobe on a light stand with a CTO warming gel as a back/rim light. This would add some shape to the subjects, particularly as the roundness of their heads was laid bare, so to speak. The warming gel would imitate the early evening setting sun and make for a natural look while adding some contrast. Fortunatly everything took place in pretty much full shade, which meant that I could have full control of the light.

The tricky part was how to trigger the second flash. I could have relied on optical slave as my SB-800s strobes have this capability built in, but I knew there would be other people there taking photos for themselves. Their camera flashes would be firing my strobe, not a good thing. Radio trigger is the only option in this scenario, and I have a set of Paul C. Buff cybersyncs that do a great job of this. One problem though, if I was going to use on-camera flash then there is no place for my shoe mount trigger. Fortunately my Nikon D200 has a built in PC socket and I was able to use that with the trigger. I connected the trigger with a PC cable and used a Wein hot shoe that I had from my early days of shooting with sync cords (I still carry this stuff in my bag as a backup). I was using my Custom Bracket CB Junior for the on camera strobe with a Nikon SC-28 TTL cord. The SC-28 has a nice flat top the camera side connector so I attached the Wein hot shoe using Velcro. Not a perfect set up but hey, it worked. And I was able to pull this off on short notice with the gear I had on hand. The group photo above was done with this setup. I moved the gelled strobe to a potition behind the men and made the shot using the on camera flash in TTL mode. I was quite pleased with the results.

Here are a few of the men having their heads denuded...

Summers Duffie

So, what did I learn from this. Well for one, always consider how off camera light can be used to make better images. Two, be ready for anything and think outside the box. I had to stretch myself to come up with a setup that worked with the gear that was already in my bag and I did it with very little notice. Three, photography is hard work. By the time this one was over I was sweating like a mule.

Aside from the satisfaction of pulling this off, I must say that I was very touched and inspired by this whole event. I should also give a shout out to Great Clips for providing their expertise in head shearing. This was an awesome example of a community coming together in support of one of their own.

--Steve