Last night we had our Inland NW Photographers Assembly (INPA) meeting where it’s always nice to talk to people who enjoy the minutiae  of photography as much as I do. Afterward a few of us headed  in to downtown Spokane for a photo safari. We started taking pictures of the normal downtown things (hence the trash can hand warming shot). We were across the street from the bus depot and I saw some interesting people hanging out so I grabbed Shane Savage (who volunteered to be my voice activated light stand) and headed over there to make some portraits.

LIke my business card says, I shoot people. I really enjoy the interactions with people, asking strangers if I can make a portrait of them is a lot of fun for me. When the results are great, I enjoy it all the better.

I wasn’t sure what I had but when I got them on the computer I was really pleased with how they turned out. Hopefully you’ll think so too.

Big thanks to Shane, Jon, Lacey, & Tyson for the invite and a really fun evening

As usual, click the thumbnails to see the photos.

P.S. The officer was fine with us taking pictures, even of him, and didn’t try to stop us at all. He and his partner even did some joking around with us.

This last week a group of us got together to take pictures of a band. The location was the parking garage at the Museum of Arts & Culture (MAC) in Spokane’s Browne’s Addition neighborhood. Here are some of the shots—including 2 of the other photographers standing in while I was setting up my lights.

This was a good exercise in visualizing the shot I wanted and getting the lights set up accordingly (except for the great pattern on the floor which I didn’t notice until I shot a few).

The lighting set up is as follows. A flash with a blue gel on it sitting on a stand behind subjects at camera right shot through a metal grate and kept from bleeding all over the musicians by the truck that was parked in some of the shots. A flash with a grid on it camera left. A flash with a grid on it camera right (or below the camera in some of the shots). I used radio triggers for the flashes.

A photographer may not need flashes/lights for every photograph, but I’d like to see a “natural light” photographer get these shots.