Joy of Kitchens

I had the great fortune to do a shoot for Joy of Kitchens. She is a designer who specializes in transforming space in the home with the use of customized built-in cabinets. She has a great talent and is a true artist.

Strobist Info:
1 SB800 behind a shoot-through umbrella CTO'd and fired 1/4 power in front of and below camera.
1 Vivitar 285 bare CTO'd and fired 1/4 power above camera backward into the wall/ceiling behind the camera.

View my website at Stevenson Photography

Vacationing in Woods Hole, Cape Cod - Part II

The five photographs in Part I of this post further below were all shot using a mix of ambient and artificial light. As you know, my primary M.O. is the use of portable strobes to enhance the existing light or, in some cases, completely replace the existing light. The following six photos were all shot using only ambient light. This is feels unusual for me; it is rare I shoot ambient-only and even my post work seemed out of sorts. I hope you enjoy them nonetheless and perhaps I will try shooting ambient-only a little more often.

While I subscribe to the adage that a picture is worth a thousand words, it seems I often use a thousand words to describe a picture. Not tonight though - I am off to bed because I don't have the horsepower upstairs to write much more than I have already.








To see more of my work, visit Darren Stevenson Photography.

Vacationing in Woods Hole, Cape Cod - Part I

Liz and I have the good fortune to be on vacation as I write this. We are in Woods Hole which is a small village on Cape Cod, MA. The village is built around the MBL (Marine Biological Laboratory) and is full of science-y types and the mega rich who have upwards of a few million dollars for a summer home here.

Liz's family has been on the Cape for generations and own the small house pictured below. It was originally built in the 1800's as a barn for the house across the street. Over the years her family has gotten rid of all of the many properties they owned except this one. The property alone is worth about a million dollars.




Below is our bedroom - it is one of three upstairs where the hay used to be stored and thrown down through the chute for the horses below.



This is the back of one of the MBL buildings that houses research laboratories and many, many tanks with every manner of fish, urchin, ray, and crab.



These are a few of the dingies tied up at the shoreline for the many sailboats moored in Eel Pond.



Strobist Info:
All photos lit with an SB800 fired using CLS. Top 3 photos shot using CTO gel and camera set to indoor white balance. Bottom 2 photos shot using green gel and camera set to flourescent white balance.

To see more of my work, visit Darren Stevenson Photography.

Evilocity

Shannon and I had another great time messing around with lighting last night. He has appointed himself the made-up super villian 'Evilocity' for this photo.

We experimented with homemade strip lights and light-painting using a bare bulb of a Mini-Mag flashlight. We took turns coming up with ideas and 'painting each other'. The photo to the left was my idea and I did the light painting. The photo below was Shannon's idea and he did the light painting.

Strobist Info
2 Vivitar 285's inside homemade strip lights placed left and right of subject fired at 1/4 power.
1 SB800 high and behind subject camera-right fired downward through a 1/2 CTO gel fired at 1/8 power.



Please visit Darren Stevenson Photography to see more of my work.

Harder Than It Looks

Shannon is pretty consistently a good model - he seems to come up with something new each time the camera comes out. I do think, however, he walks the line between thinking it's fun and wishing his goofy dad would just get the camera, and maybe more importantly the strobes, out of his face for a little while.

Strobist Info
Two Vivitar 285's lying flat on the floor camera left and right fired 1/16 power.
One SB800 behind a shoot-through umbrella camera left also fired at 1/16 power.

After I took of few shots of him doing that pose, I tried it. Holy crap - see if you can do it. It is wicked hard. I'm surprised I didn't pull anything . . . (Thank You to Shannon for taking the picture below).



Please visit Darren Stevenson Photography to see more of my work.

Sport Towel

A client I am working with is currently creating new marketing material for a sport towel. I have taken many photos of this product and want to share two of them here.

The photo to the left is to show how small the towel is when rolled up. The picture below shows the towel in use by a young boy standing on a waterfall feature at a swimming pool.

You can see more of my work at Stevenson Photography

Rockstar

The hat says it all! ;-)

My little boy isn't going to be a little boy for very much longer. I ended up working on this project with my friend Paul Morton and our model sure was a good sport about it - letting us set up strobes all around him, tripping strobes in his face, changing his clothes, etc. But the deal was incentified with pizza, wings, and video games. A fair bribe I think.

You can see more of my work at Stevenson Photography

Headspace Carving

A close friend of mine owns Headspace Carving and he can turn any old piece of wood into an incredible piece of artwork. The horse head to the left is one of a pair that sits on either side of the front door of a downtown house. The carving was made using the wood of the tree that previously grew from the stump on which it now sits - this is true of both carvings despite only one being pictured here. Visit his site and support a local artist.

You can see more of my work at Stevenson Photography

Website is up, job has been quit, time to go

I have spent a little extra time this week working on my (other) site setting up a few galleries. While I recognize the need to continue improving and adding to the site, I am pleased with what I have been able to come up with so far (please have a look: Stevenson Photography)

Despite giving my resignation 8 weeks ago, I still find myself returning daily to the office. This has no doubt been the longest I have had to work post-resignation. So what does the photo to the left have to do with this post or quitting my job? Well, not so much - except I stumbled across it while looking for photos to add to my site and was surprised that I had previously overlooked it.

Enjoy, visit my (other) site, and return soon.

Ebony Carved African Bust

I think I have written at least once or twice in the past about the fact that Liz's parents have done a wonderful job of collecting fantastic artwork during the course of their travels. This is a bust carved of ebony and was an interesting challenge to light because it is black. I had to balance the diffuse reflections and the specular highlights in order to show detail and dimension.

Strobist Info:
Because I took this picture some time ago, I don't remember the power settings but I used 3 flashes in total. One was aimed behind the subject to cast a bit of separation light on the background. One was above subject aimed down and fired through a diffuser (printer paper), and another was camera-right also fired through printer paper.

You can see more of my work at Stevenson Photography