St. Patrick's Day Dallas

St. Patrick's Day Dallas
Originally uploaded by d double u

Today I braved the (small) crowds and headed to Lower Greenville Ave to shoot some people on the street. Finding a location was tricky - my setup was some white seamless on a North-facing wall. I found a spot and that worked for about 15 minutes - a group of girls on bikes showed up and parked their bikes in such a way that my backdrop was useless. I moved on, but wasn't able to find another spot suitable.
Not exactly an overwhelming number of shots taken, but it was a fun little trip.

Cloak Bag

There is a lot going on in the world of David Wilson Photography, but I wanted to post about this new device - the Cloak Bag.
With this, you can (somewhat) secretly take photos while keeping your camera in a bag. I think this would be great for when you're trying to shelter your camera from the elements while shooting.

This seems like it could be really popular with photojournalists and tourists alike.

Snow Fair Park Planet

Snow Fair Park Planet
Originally uploaded by d double u

Last summer, I took a panoramic shot by the lagoon at Fair Park and turned it into a planet in photoshop. Today, Dallas is covered in a blanket of snow, so I thought I'd make another planet.
It turned out really well, so now I have a Fair Park planet for two seasons.

DeeJay CeePee

DeeJay CeePee
Originally uploaded by d double u

Whenever I can, I like to hang out with Chris Penn when he DJs. The owner and manager of Good Records, he has access to some cool music and usually plays stuff I request, which is cool.
DeeJay CeePee (as he goes by) 'spins' every Wednesday night. Tonight, I didn't really feel up to going out, but thought I should at least stop by and try to get a quick portrait of him doing his thing while I was there. I had an idea for a quick and easy setup, and it really was quick and easy - the results weren't half bad either, considering the time I spent on the setup.

Setup was a 580EXII at 1/128 power through a StoFen omnibounce between the keyboard and monitor and a 430EXII behind Chris at 1/64 power, pointed towards his head. Triggered by Radiopoppers (one can be seen just below the monitor)

Gear Porn

Pelican case
Originally uploaded by d double u

After carrying a video camera around for over 4 months, I came to love the Pelican case it came in. It made it so easy to carry the camera and all the accessories needed in a safe and easy to transport way.
I even took out the video camera and packed all my still camera gear into it for a photo shoot. After that experience, I decided to get my own Pelican case.
The case arrived while I was on the road, but today I picked and plucked the foam inserts and packed up my most-used gear. I have a feeling I'll be ditching the foam and getting the compartment inserts instead at some point in the future, but for now, it's nice to know (almost) all of my gear is safe and in one place.

from the blogroll

Just a quick note to point out some things I found on the blogroll.

First, from Robert Benson
I love the story, the subject and the photo.

Second, from Jason Janik
Some great band photos from the State Fair. I plan on asking him about his lighting setup on these - looks like a simple but effective one-light setup.

That's it for now!

Radiopoppers arrive!

As I talked about in a previous post, I had been waiting on Radiopopper to release their JrX models. Well, they finally became available last month and I couldn't wait to order them to replace the flash triggers I currently use.
I haven't had a chance to use them on a shoot yet, but that should be happening very shortly. The simple tests I've done in my home have me excited. I hope to have Pocket Wizard reliability for about a third of the cost.

More on this later.