Brooklyn-based Author Elizabeth Cline is writing a socio-economic book about fashion, Overdressed: The Shockingly High Price of Cheap Fashion. From what she tells me, it’s kinda like Fast Food Nation, but for H&M, Target, & Old Navy.

She was a great subject. We even played with swords. My friend Nick came over with some swords and a mask & we had a pretty rockin’ good time. See, Elizabeth isn’t just a beautiful and talented writer. She’s also the guitar player & singer in Mortals, an all female metal band.

So… the rest of these photos kinda make sense. 

For more photos of Elizabeth, check out this Photoshelter gallery.

For more photos of Elizabeth and Nick in a fight to the death, go to this gallery.

And if you wanna see some dark photos of Nick, BLAM!

Over the holidays, I went on a road trip with Mom, her husband, Rick, and Grandmommy from Atlanta down to — get this — Treasure Island, Florida! Yup. Such a place exists. And no. it’s not an amusement park. ha! Can you imagine Grandmommy at an amusement park? hahaha! …we did get her on a Segway, though. But that’s for a later post.

The photos on this post are a bit quieter. Aside from Treasure Island, we went to DeSoto, Anna Maria Island, Bradenton, St. Petersburg, and a few other places.

BOY! Doesn’t this post’s title sound cocky!?

All that means is Jen Rynda replaced me at the Patuxent Publishing Company when I quit last December. And In case you’re curious, she’s doing a great job.  She’s also putting a fresh new face on the Athletes of the Year photos — which, I suppose if I left a legacy at PPC, that would be it. …which was a legacy belonging to Fran Gardler before that. She’s pretty good at shooting sports, so, for some reason the powers that be assumed she’d be good at shooting the Athletes of the Year. I get the impression that expectation made her a bit nervous. So, she bribed me with a burrito last June to teach her how to use my old lighting kit (which was actually cannibalized by a few other staffers hahaha!). During our lesson, she made this cool, moody photo of me.

This This and This (specifically the flying lacrosse player) are some pretty cool examples of how she’s making the Athletes of the Year shoots her own.

So, earlier today (yeah! how’s that for a fast blog post turn around?) we met up for lunch and I started talking about lighting. ….y’know, one of those nerdy things photogs sometimes talk about. I mentioned using a Lastolite TriGrip Deflector silk to diffuse the harsh light  from Nikon my SB-900 in a photo I made of Melissa Golden eating pizza, and one thing led to another and BAM! — we’re talking about High Speed Sync/focal plane lighting. So, we went back to my place and I gave her a quick demo of what the new Pocket Wizard Flex system can do with a speedlight and D700 + 35mm f/1.8 at 100 ISO, 1/8000th of a second, at f/1.8 outdoors on an overcast, drizzly day.

Now, I’m not really a tech/gear blogger, so I’m not gonna go into a big technical explanation. There are a ton of blogs out there better at nerding out on gear. I learned about fp (focal plane) lighting from The Strobist, for example. So, if you have the time, do some digging.

All I’m gonna say about this shoot is that it took very little time to set up. 10 minutes, including set up, break down, and two location changes. I rarely takes me 10 minutes to set up the big lights.

I’m NOT gonna say the results are “just as good as using the big lights.” But they’re different than using the big lights. Obviously if I used two speedlights the light sculpting might be more impressive.

But, y’know… it’s my go to method for running and gunning a lit portrait. Below are a examples of how much light the SB-900 actually gave the shoot and what the set up looked like.no light (obviously).

Who needs a tripod when you have a bannister? …although, I wouldn’t mind getting one of Lastolite’s TriGrip Brackets, either.Indoors with the TriGrip. ISO 100, 1/8,000th, f/1.8 …the strobe was set to Manual at full (1/1) power and zoomed in to 24mm.

This is without the TriGrip at the same settings. …and yeah. Jen’s out of focus. That’s one of the problems you’ll run into when shooting at f/1.8. Aside from my focusing problem, I also think the lighting looks a little gross in comparison to the one above. Sure, the light is spread out, lighting the room a bit better, but the quality of light looks cheap. — in my opinion. There are just too many weird highlights and shadows. Oh. And I should say, I’m not sponsored by any of the companies I touted in the post. …but if Nikon, Pocket Wizard, and/or Lastolite wants to give me a call (gear, and money) I’m all ears (and eyes).

And just for reference, this is what the room looked like with the same exposure settings, sans flash.  dark, right?

For this post I wanted to showcase what Melissa’s condo was going to look like completely empty. After all, homes are only empty when they’re bought and sold. So, this day marks a big-deal chapter in her life. The next time it looks like this, that chapter will be closed.

A few other themes I played with in this shoot are adulthood, what it means to scrape by (the pizza) but still looking fabulous (I mean, look at her dresses! …and those shoes!).But while Melissa’s technically an “adult” she’s still full of life and fun. …and quirky. So, in some photos I tried contrasting “adult” and “young.”

…look at me getting all metaphorical over here. Although, I’m sure there’s a much more elegant way of wording what I’m trying to say. ha!

And, because she lives by herself in a one bedroom, I wanted to show a sense of loneliness as well. I live by myself and I know how still the air can get. And, y’know, being all grown up can be a little lonely at times …what, with you and sometimes only your responsibilities to keep you company.

Melissa joked around before I got there saying she was going to get me out of my comfort zone. …and I later asked what she meant.

She replied: No big lights. All ambient!

And I did set up my big light, too. But her place was just flooded with super-cool natural light. So, I broke it down. I only busted out my small light (sb-900) for the glamourous pizza eating photos.

So okay. lesson learned (which I’d been ignoring for a while) ambient light is also good for portrait work.

“Here’s to buying condos instead of cameras” as she knocks back the inaugural bottle of Tres Sietes tequila she won in a raffle.

After Geekfest was over, Todd Spoth, Monica Lopossay & I went to see the Colorado Rocky Mountains Monday, September 19, 2011. It was GORGEOUS!!!

This shoot was a lotta fun and it went exactly how I like em’ to go… a little crazy near the end.

If you’ve been following this blog for a while, you know that recently I’ve been lighting almost exclusively with, what I’m calling, my big dumb light — a Paul C. Buff Einstein 640, modified with an 86″ PLM. It’s a cumbersome thing, but MAN! does it throw a ton of nice light around.

I also designed their post card.…not too bad for a button-pusher, huh?

…some “behind the scenes” footage.Shadow cast from my 86″ Parabolic umbrella. Kinda cool, huh?

Kendrick is like a Snicker’s bar for mosquitos. …thus the jeans.

David was like” check out this crazy video!” and Kendrick was like, “shhhh! we have neighbors.”

Thanks David and Kendrick for letting me keep you two up for so late. I hope you didn’t get too too much guff from any of your neighbors!

So… I decided it might be fun if I turned the day into a photo shoot!

I used one light. …one, big, dumb, light: my 86″ Paul C. Buff PLM and an Einstein E640, cranked to 100%.

Tech note: my Pocket Wizard FlexTT5 and Pocket Wizard Plus ii Transceiver  were having a hard time talking to each other because Kyle and Christina’s super-cool-fancy-ass-pool used a remote control to do things like, turn on jacuzzi, start the water falls, turn on the lights, and probably get you a drink from the fridge. A word of caution to all you PW users who like to shoot by fancy pools… turn off the pool’s brain first.

Also, if you wanna see a much larger edit, check out the gallery over at http://mattrothphoto.photoshelter.com