DC Strobist Meet

For those of you who don’t know about strobist: Strobist is a movement made popular by the site http://strobist.blogspot.com and it is all about using off camera flash. The movement has become soo popular that “clubs” or “groups” are forming all over the country. Since I am in DC for the summer I had the opportunity to hang out with the DC Strobist Group (they have a group on flickr so go look them up… better yet go HERE).  Anyways this meet up was unlike anything I had done before. A lot of the photographers were quite a bit more experienced than I and many of the other photogs make at least part of their income with their photography.

So I found the meet listed in the groups flickr page and decided I would check it out. By the time I had found the information the meet was pretty much set. It was held at the Coast Guard Picnic area which is very close to where I live. They had about 8 – 10 models and about 14-15 photographers set up. The event was scheduled for most of the day. In addition to the photoshoot this was to be a meet and greet with a good ole BBQ! This community really amazes me in the friendliness and openness of all the photographers involved. I didn’t know anyone showing up to this event and yet I was greeted with open arms and even taught a thing or two.

The models were also amazing. They came ready to work and were very professional. Before this meet I had limited experience shooting models. Ok… so I had NO experience shooting models but it wasn’t so bad. I had shot friends and family before so I wasn’t too worried. I was nervous about how patient the models would be. I didn’t want to have to do as much experimentation with them to get things right as I have done with friends and family in the past. All the models that I worked with seemed to be very patient (maybe I am not the only one who takes a while to find “the look”). I got more relaxed as the day went on and I think you can see it in my pictures. They get better toward the end of the day when I started to take more time to set up and became a little more comfortable with the models.

It didn’t help I was plagued with equipment failure and breakage throughout the day as well. First a lightstand was about to blow over into the BWM.  Luckily I was able to grab it before it hit the car and did any damage but the jolt combined with the wind ripped the top of the lightstand right off. Then I had my wireless transmitter for my flashes break right off my camera. Still not sure exactly how that happened. I wasn’t blending it or yanking on it too hard (or so I thought). Lastly one of my flashes decided to quit working. I am thinking now that it might be that my rechargeable batteries are at the end of their lifetime and maybe I should invest in some new ones. So as the day went on my lighting setup got simpler and simpler. Next time I will bring some non-rechargeable batteries for backup. We were able to rig the lightstand up so it still works but the top section will not extend. I got the wireless triggers to work by running a wire from the trigger to the sync on the camera. Luckily I had brought a 40D as my xTi does not have this port.

In the group there was a lot of talk about props that we could use during the shoot. In addition to the wonderful location it was arranged for a BMW convertible to be on site as well as a motorcycle. People also brought umbrellas, sunglasses, champagne. The models all brought different attire to suit the different sets that we had talked about. One of the ideas was to have a female and male model pop the cork of a champagne bottle. The setting was going to be they were escaping to be alone in the woods, etc etc… Well while we were setting up for this shot the model was taking off the foil around the cork when the cork decided it was coming off on its own. The words “That was anticlimactic” generated this photo…

All things considered I had an amazing time and if any of the DC strobist group reads this “thank you” for putting on such a wonderful event. I hope to attend more of these in the future. I was exhausted when I got home but it was a very worthwhile experience. Please click on the photos to see larger versions

Tasha MM#152352: TajaLy_MM#152352.zip (41MB)

The whole photo set can be downloaded HERE. 419.1MB

Finally here are a few more: