Bob Randall Photography wrote:

Cam on a timer? That bad ass dude is you? I thought you were white.

Seriously??

Christopher Bush wrote:

are you saying i'm apparently-paradoxical-but-not-really?

Fuck, you're talking like me now! Argh!

Bob Randall Photography wrote:
Cam on a timer? That bad ass dude is you? I thought you were white.

Ransom-The Cheese-J wrote:
Seriously??

*giggles* That's cuz he normally uses a high pass filter on himself. Works like camo.

Ransom-The Cheese-J wrote:



Seriously??

Nah, but it made you laugh!

Bob Randall Photography wrote:

Nah, but it made you laugh!

LOL ass!

Bob Randall Photography wrote:

Nah, but it made you laugh!

Black I figured but you're supposed to be some old fart like me.  Too damn young to be that good.

Sita Mae Edwards wrote:
And now, to all the haters who have called me a liar when I've said that Ransom's pictures aren't that heavily photoshopped, I say:

I TOLD YOU SO!

That is all.

No no, let them believe that it's all photoshop.  Just proves to me that they must not be that good if they can't fathom how I get my photos to look that way without a shit load of PS work.

Jerry Bennett wrote:
Dude, you must be mistaken. That can't be how you do it 'cause all the experts here on MM say that White Lightnings and Alien Bees suck!

I guess it depends on if you plan on using the same units twenty years from now after dragging them on location, like I've been using my Speedotrons. :-)

I wasn't aware that people thought you used a lot of Photoshop in your pictures Ransom. They don't seem that PS'd to me. It looks like the stuff I used to shoot 15 years ago on Agfa Ultra 50 print film like this:

18+
http://ayola.com/aweb/girlrocks.jpg

I think it's your subject matter that's the original part of your work.

Brooks Ayola wrote:

I guess it depends on if you plan on using the same units twenty years from now after dragging them on location, like I've been using my Speedotrons. :-)

I wasn't aware that people thought you used a lot of Photoshop in your pictures Ransom. They don't seem that PS'd to me. It looks like the stuff I used to shoot 15 years ago on Agfa Ultra 50 print film like this:

18+
http://ayola.com/aweb/girlrocks.jpg

I think it's your subject matter that's the original part of your work.

Fine as lady there, Brooks.

Brooks Ayola wrote:

I guess it depends on if you plan on using the same units twenty years from now after dragging them on location, like I've been using my Speedotrons. :-)

I wasn't aware that people thought you used a lot of Photoshop in your pictures Ransom. They don't seem that PS'd to me. It looks like the stuff I used to shoot 15 years ago on Agfa Ultra 50 print film like this:

18+
http://ayola.com/aweb/girlrocks.jpg

I think it's your subject matter that's the original part of your work.

That's a kick ass pic sir.

Ransom-The Cheese-J wrote:
Ok so in regards to my "The "How Do You Do It?" guys... thread, i was given the idea to make this thread.  I'm going to go through my typical process for getting the look that i have on my pics.  I figure that when people hit me up to ask, I can just refer them to this thread, plus if anybody else has a picture or look that they consistently get questions about, they can also post a short tutorial in here to show how they did it.

First off, i like bright saturated colors and high contrasts in my pictures. (obviously).  Spectral highlights and hard shadows are also something that i like the look of.  So my style is tailored to that.  For my outdoor pictures (which is what i will be explaining in this thread) i tend to shoot bare bulb strobe with no modifiers, due to the fact that it will give me the harsh shadows, kick up spectral highlights and give me the high contrasts that i like. 


As far as equipment goes, I shoot with two or three white lightning WL-10000's because i like the durability, the color temp and the simplicity of them.  Most shots in my port were shot with the Sony DSC-R1 digital camera, so that let's you know what camera I use. 

The type of pictures that i take are only going to be as good as the model, the MUA, and the backdrop that you choose.  For this one I choose my favorite model, Victoria #133499, one of the MUA's that i use from time to time that i have such a lovely relationship with, and picked a location in the mountains on the way to Lake Mead here in Vegas.  It's a great little desert mountain location where some environmentally conscious people did me the favor of dumping all kinds of great shit to use as background fodder.

let's take the out of camera RAW image:



This was taken as f/11, 1/200, at a focal length of 14mm  with the contrast set at +1 and the color setting on Vivid.

The first bare bulb WL-5000 was about 10 feet to the  to the models left at about her 2 o'clock position.  the sun was my fill to the models right at the  her 10 o'clock and a had another bare bulb WL-10000  about 10 feet behind the model and boat as a rim light.  Both strobes were set to 2/3 power and are rated at 250 watts.


The first thing I do is open the file in PS CS3 and do any skin corrections (evening, smoothing out, dodging and burning)

then i duplicate the layer and go to Image>Adjustments>Selective Color



I normally will bump the blues in the sky to whatever look I want (I like a rich blue or purple sky myself) by adjusting the sliders in the Selective Color tool.

Then I create a layer mask and hide all so i can paint in my sky and bump up the reds in the boat without effecting the rest of the picture (which is where i want it to be)



After painting in the sky and boat, I'm pretty much done so i save the PSD file and then save a jpeg



here's the side by side.




Alright.  That's how i do it.  It's the best i can do as far as explaining it without actually having you there to watch me work.

hopefully this helps some people, and other photographers add in some tips and tricks of their own.

Awesome stuff, Cheese!

Brooks Ayola wrote:

I guess it depends on if you plan on using the same units twenty years from now after dragging them on location, like I've been using my Speedotrons. :-)

Also, my WL's are older than some of the models I shoot.

Daguerre wrote:

Awesome stuff, Cheese!

You flatter me sir.

Daguerre wrote:
Awesome stuff, Cheese!

Ransom-The Cheese-J wrote:
You flatter me sir.

I do not-- your galleries are regularly scheduled stops of mine.  Like most I admire, your setup is simple, but deadly accurate.  And that is as good as it gets!

Ransom-The Cheese-J wrote:
Alright.  That's how i do it.  It's the best i can do as far as explaining it without actually having you there to watch me work.

hopefully this helps some people, and other photographers add in some tips and tricks of their own.

Thanks.  I'll be taking some of those pointers and adding a few of my own. 

Bob Randall Photography wrote:
Cam on a timer? That bad ass dude is you? I thought you were white.

Ransom-The Cheese-J wrote:


Seriously??

Bob Randall Photography wrote:
Nah, but it made you laugh!

Lawl!!

ixxxix wrote:

Lawl!!

Hate!!

Daguerre wrote:

Daguerre wrote:
Awesome stuff, Cheese!

I do not-- your galleries are regularly scheduled stops of mine.  Like most I admire, your setup is simple, but deadly accurate.  And that is as good as it gets!

Well thank you sir.  You already know you've been int he favorites list for a loooooooong time.

Ransom-The Cheese-J wrote:
Hate!!

P'leez...

I hear that shit said about me so often that it's refreshing to hear it directed at someone else.  Even if only in jest.




The Cheese's Lighting Tutorial for Dummies is plenty helpful though.  No hate there at all...

Marko Cecic-Karuzic wrote:
BTW, kudos Ransom. You need say nothing further when people ask, if you ask me.

Apparently this is NOT the case Marko.

Ransom-The Cheese-J wrote:

These were my first strobes! They were very lightweight and worked great! There is no way to put a softbox on them but that was just fine with me since I couldn't afford one. I used a plastic see-through shower curtain stretched on a frame made out of PVC pipes.

Good times!

Jim Ewing wrote:
I have to ask...how did you power the strobes?  I have 2 Photogenics 320Bs (rating of 320 w/Secs, battery pack operational), but can't seem to over-power the sun.  I wanted to take out my 2 Solair 500's or the 1000 to really underexpose the noon sun.

I can normally get off a full 4 gig card (200 shots) off of one full charge.  I wouldn't suggest the average person use one of these, as i have a master electrician for a father should anything go wrong with my strobes.

But with two of my coffee cans on full power with no diffusers i can overpower noon sun.  At f16 it'll look like dusk/evening.

Fotticelli wrote:

These were my first strobes! They were very lightweight and worked great! There is no way to put a softbox on them but that was just fine with me since I couldn't afford one. I used a plastic see-through shower curtain stretched on a frame made out of PVC pipes.

Good times!

The WLPA is the speedring adaptor offered for our retired line of White Lightning 5,000 and 10,000 Series Flash Units. The WLPA may be used to attach our softboxes (SB2436, SB3240, and SB3060) to the faceplate of your WL 5,000 and/or WL 10,000 Series flash unit(s). The attached silver pole (included) fits through the WL Series built-in umbrella hole, tightening into place, while the poles from the softbox fit into the four holes found on each side of the adaptor.

The WLPA may additionally be used with the Photoflex Litedome and Multidome softboxes, but it may not be used with the Halfdome of Stripdome softboxes. Furthermore, as the WLPA only has four holes for fitting the poles of a softbox, it may not be used with our octaboxes (OB35 and OB47) or with any other manufacturer’s octaboxes.

BYS wrote:
it's great to see a good photographer sharing
well ,no surprise Cheese is The Cheese
thanks bro to make that forum more decent
tb

I do what i can Thierry!

Ransom-The Cheese-J wrote:
Now THIS pic had a lot more PS work involved than most anything else in my profile (aside from the rainy day London pic) and it's still pretty close to what came out of the camera.  Just a lot of dodging and burning and a little cloning of the fire.

your work is amazing...I do wish you spread out the cloning of the fire though because I picked up the doubles right away...  Even with that said, your work is so flawless in the WAY its done.

Kudos to you....lovely work.

Ransom-The Cheese-J wrote:




I can normally get off a full 4 gig card (200 shots) off of one full charge.  I wouldn't suggest the average person use one of these, as i have a master electrician for a father should anything go wrong with my strobes.

But with two of my coffee cans on full power with no diffusers i can overpower noon sun.  At f16 it'll look like dusk/evening.

Don't these things beep incessantly when they are on but not plugged into a wall? Have you just gotten used to the noise or have you modified it in some way?

BTW, thanks for sharing your technique. I admire your work greatly.

Danny