Leeds Strobist

No its not some form of martial art, or a weird religious sect - although to be honest in some cases it's not far off! Strobism is basically using cheap (relatively, this is photography we are talking about!) portable lighting rather than huge studio set up's to light photographs. One of the best things to come out of Photocamp Bradford for me was the chance to have a go at this and I loved it - Steve of course was thrilled that I came home with yet another long list of "must have" kit!! I now have a soft box, light stand and triggers so can light you up!

Leeds strobist met last night by the river just down from the station, surprisingly salubrious to be honest lots of very smart and more importantly visually interesting buildings. I only took a few photos as the rest of the time I was in training for West Yorkshire's next top model - thank god I am getting over my utter loathing of having my photo taken and can even accept that looking really awful in a photo isn't necessarily a bad thing, not sure that it's good but its not the end of the world is it? Was working with Neal, Dafydd and Joel - strobists tend to be rather techy blokes!


This is Dafydd and I have to say I am really pleased with this photo. At this point I am supposed to tell you that the camera settings were 1/60, F1.8, ISO200 with a 430ex with orange gel set at 1/8 shot through soft box camera right and rim lighting is coming from a 580 with blue gel shot through a snoot. But would you care? No thought not! For me the nicest thing about this photo is the "bokeh" thats the bubbles in the background caused by out of focus lights, its much sought after in photography and I take every opportunity to get some in my pics!


We moved then to the front of the building out of the wind - its heart stopping watching a light stand and soft box crash to the ground when you took your £300 flash gun off only seconds before! There were several large shiny metal columns and I decided I wanted to throw some light onto them, behind Dafydd to create a sort of back light to see what would happen with the reflection.

As I was lining up the shot above I realised that if I could get the building in frame as well it would be even more interesting - I didn't have the lens for the job so Neal lent me one of his (note to self, add to shopping list!).

This was the result of switching to a slightly wider lens - much more interesting. The lights on the building phased through green, blue, pink, purple and I really wanted to get this shot with the lights on pink but like most models Dafydd was a bit tempermental and I didn't want to upset him by making him stand around for ages!


And this is Neal, lighting expert, lens lender and snoot maker!