Friday, January 22, 2010

Meet Dr. David Shi...

Meet Dr. David Shi... President of Furman University and co-author of the popular textbook America: A Narrative History. Dr. Shi is retiring this summer after 16 years as President, and plans to write another book that he began taking notes on more than 2 decades ago about loneliness in modern American culture... There are days we could all offer him some notes...

It was a very cold and blistery afternoon, the day I was scheduled to shoot Dr. Shi. I had envisioned something outside on the campus, as it is beautiful, but elected for the boardroom next to his office instead. He was a very generous fellow, however I didn't want to consume much of his time. I planned on two similar setups, one with a long lens down the length of the table, and one with a short lens over the width of the table. Dr. Shi was to stop by twice, for just 2+ minutes each.

I used 3 Canon Speedlites and the ST-E2 wireless adapter: two kickers attached to stripboxes, and one with a reflective white umbrella as the key. I generally never have great luck with the ETTL, so I manually set each strobe. As promised, it only took a couple of minutes, though Dr. Shi was nice enough that I think he would have stuck around all day.

4 comments:

Unknown said...

Great post! thanks for sharing Patrick

Anonymous said...

Hey Patrick,

I love the time lapse videos! Quick question, what strip lights are you using here with your speedlights?

Thanks!

-Erik V

Patrick Cavan Brown said...

DIY strip lights, Erik. Fun stuff! I may post a how-to... or patent them... hmmmm....
Thanks for writing!
-patrick

Britton Felber said...

I have got to start video taping . . . these are awesome! I love it!