Sunset "portraits" - strobist style

Packed the strobist stuff and went out with a friend and fellow photographer (sorry to say he shoots Noink) to shoot some sunset "portraits" strobist style. We happened to find a super spot with the sun setting in the background. C&C is welcomed as always

The result:

IMAGE LINK: http://flickr.com/phot​os/chaos2/2636215204/

IMAGE LINK: http://flickr.com/phot​os/chaos2/2635388695/

IMAGE LINK: http://flickr.com/phot​os/chaos2/2636210500/

IMAGE LINK: http://flickr.com/phot​os/chaos2/2636210172/

I love them! The dual is very cool. You are very brave or there was absolutely ZERO wind... those light stands are *so* close to the water!

AndreaBFS wrote in post #5847383
I love them! The dual is very cool. You are very brave or there was absolutely ZERO wind... those light stands are *so* close to the water!

Thanks Andrea

There was just a light breeze, but we were wondering if we would shoot without the umbrella or not. We chose to go with the smaller one (85cm), and it worked out well. You're right they were a bit close to the water, but we tried weighting them down with a tripod each... it worked out quite ok And it was great fun!

I like the duel a lot too. I hope he didn't hurt you with his f/2.8

p.s. did u have a tripod? I guess how else would u get that shot..

Sfordphoto wrote in post #5850667
I like the duel a lot too. I hope he didn't hurt you with his f/2.8

p.s. did u have a tripod? I guess how else would u get that shot..

Thanks Hmm, let's just say we both lived, though that f/2.8 was a lot heavier than my f/4 :P

We used a tripod and remote (2sec delay) for the shots where we're both in the frame.

Nicely done.

Very enjoyable

No sandbags or weights on the lights? I'd be messing myself!

Well... we put his 055 tripod as a weight on the light-stand with the umbrella, and that made it very stable (these were Elinchrom light-stands, and they were pretty sturdy to begin with). Then we first put my 190 tripod on the other light-stand to weight that on down... but when we needed to use to tripod, we put two smaller light-stands as weights instead. It worked pretty fine to make them steady... but at some point, sandbags will be a good investment

i like this series...I would however like to have seen lighting more evenly on #1. Your upper torso is light nicely then the bottom half is quite darker....
I love the concepts here!

Very funny, indeed! I always wanted to have a showdown on a dock during a sunset with lights. That's great!

1downfall wrote in post #5852973
i like this series...I would however like to have seen lighting more evenly on #1. Your upper torso is light nicely then the bottom half is quite darker....
I love the concepts here!

Thanks And you're right about the first one where he (I'm the guy in the darker t-shirt) is standing on the pole. We had actually set up the light for standing on the pier... but then he thought he would try standing on the pole for a few quick shots, and we didn't change the light for it. I actually think he's shading the part that is in shadow with his arm.

Looking at the pics at home, I started thinking of different possibilities, like putting a third snooted flash to give some emphasis the camera. The funny part, we had 5 flashes with us in total, but no snoots (I forgot mine at home), and in the end we used only two flashes.

SuzyView wrote in post #5853373
Very funny, indeed! I always wanted to have a showdown on a dock during a sunset with lights. That's great!

Thanks Suzy We had a really good time, just taking out some gear to try out different things. Shooting just for ourselves reminded me of why I started with photography. Usually the "fun" is taken a bit out of the equation when you shoot for clients