He’s been playing around more and more with artificial light…and I remember when I first dabbled with off camera flash and strobes. I remember it being overwhelming; even though I had a pretty good grasp of lighting of the natural variety, a lot of things went over my head. What sort of lights do I use. Where do I put them? How far away do I position them from the model? How many lights do I use. How do I trigger them? What are modifiers?

The fact of the matter is a lot of these questions will never be answered definitively. There are so many different combinations and possibilities that there is no one right answer.

Anyway, my cousin started telling me he heard about this thing called “the Triangle.” He was told it was a pretty basic lighting set up and that he should learn it.

It’s true, in glamour photography, there is a staple. A go-to lighting scenario, if you will. It’s no secret: you see it everywhere in glam mags…and the best glam photographers use this set up in different variations…but it’s essentially the same. This is what I believe the Triangle is, in its basic form…

The idea is to sandwich your model between two light sources by placing your lights opposite of each other. For instance, imagine a box and your model is standing in the middle of the box. You position your lights across from each other like so…

And if you happen to be using one light and the sun, you would position your model so that the sunlight hits the back/side of the model at a 45 degree angle…and then you would position your key light diagonal from the sun.

The other day, I had a fun beach photo shoot and here’s a perfect example of the Triangle light set up…

During this location shoot, I used two lights: my key light was a strobe into a diffused white beauty dish on a boom arm, and my accent/rim lights were the sun to the left of the model and a strobe to the right of the model into a bare reflector.

I find that accent/rim lights add a little something special to an otherwise boring/ordinary photo. They key is using rim lights correctly. But, I’ll save that for another blog post when I share some of my photographic pet peeves. :)

Good stuff.

I talk about a few of the podcasts, blogs, and other sources that I routinely check out….

[audio: gettingbetter.mp3]

Or download the episode here.

The links:

• Chase Jarvis’s Blog
• Zack Arias’ Blog
• Nick Onken’s Blog (didn’t talk about it in the podcast, but has some very valuable and practical industry info
• Kelby Training
• D-Town TV
• fstoppers.com

And many more!!

I spent a little time this afternoon installing a mobile WordPress theme on my blog today…so if you’re on the go and out and about as much as I am and want to keep up with the nonsense or look at pictures of beautiful girls, then you can definitely do so. It’s totally easy to follow the blog, my Twitter, and to leave comments too…so I definitely think you should. All the cool kids are doing it. :)

Hope you enjoy the mobile theme…I have to admit, I think it’s pretty sweet. :)

http://www.apple.com/ipad/

The folks over at Strobist.com had a couple of very cool blog posts on lighting (I mean, aside from their usual posts on lighting. lol)

But seems they took the idea out of my head. :)

For months, I’ve been meaning to talk about lighting options in the podcast…seems the question that most people ask me is what type of lighting I use and what type of lights are the best.

There is no right or wrong answer to this. Every type of studio light out there has it’s pros and cons…and there are reasons why some are better than others.

You have to decide.

But it’s good to know what’s out there and what each one does.

Check out the articles…and stay tuned for some podcasts in the future that will probably repeat some of this information. :)

• Strobist: Choosing Big Lights: AlienBees
• Strobist: Choosing Big Lights: Profoto

I mean, I maybe know like two hot girls that sport the iPhone…the rest are Blackberry gals.

Hot Women Sport A Blackberry, Not The iPhone » ZiggyTek » Blog.

Equipment is man-made…and like a lot of things…it can break, get lost, stolen, etc.

When your storage solutions are down and there’s no way of working on your images, it can really throw a monkey wrench into your plans and really put life at a standstill…especially if you have to repair, restore, etc. It’s funny how we depend on our gear to get us through the day.

With good storage solutions, a proven workflow, and playing it safe, you can minimize your downtime, stress, and make sure you client is always happy knowing that you are taking precautions to keep your most valuable assets safe: your images.

[audio:storage-ep004.mp3]

Or download the episode here.

Except, she upped the ante a little bit and went bikini shopping right before she came out…and she showed up with this hot little blue Diesel bikini. So…I took pictures of her in it:

Also, we took a little video as well.

Photo shoot with Kaitlin from Aaron Riveroll on Vimeo.

Now, I guess this place is as good as any to mention my new toy…I’ve had it for a couple weeks, but only been able to put it to the test most recently…

Upon the suggestion of my best friend, Brian…I went out and got a Flip Mino HD.

Now, if you have no idea what I’m talking about, the Flip is one of the world’s smallest camcorders. About the size of a cell phone or iPod, the Flip fits in your pocket. I totally agree with the thought that the best camera is the camera that’s with you…and with the Flip, you can always be ready to roll video.

Ahem…HD video, to be exact. It records in 1280 x 720 video resolution. The one that I have holds about an hour, or 4 GB worth of video…perfect for snapping clips here and there. And it encodes video in H.264 MP4 format…ready for editing, or uploading a quick clip directly to YouTube.

So far….I LOVE it. I carry it with me all the time. It’s great to have in my camera bag too for impromptu moments during photo shoots. Still getting used to motion and getting smooth video…but it takes practice.

And, so far I’ve talked two of my friends into getting one…one being a pro photographer…and the other, being a pro HD videographer. Once he had it in his hand, he said it felt great…and the quality was just enough for those short, quick moments.

So there is my product endorsement. If it’s good enough for a pro HD videographer…the Flip is good enough for me. It’s gets the job done…like Bacardi and Cola.

Anyway, enjoy the photos of Kait…more soon!!

Brian posted this little ditty on his blog yesterday…

And then I found this very interesting little video for photographers and how important SEO is for their web sites and their business.

There are a lot of key points in that video that people don’t realize or understand…and a lot of misconceptions as to what makes a web site work to its full potential. Definitely interesting to check out.