First shoot with my penny pinching strobist set up

I've been playing with flashes for a while now, and have been buying bits and bobs from ebay. The kit I have so far includes three Minolta AF4000 flashes (costing about 15 each), generic radio controllers from China (brand name - 'Nice'! - again about 15), and a flash stand (I ended up spending more than I would have liked on this as I needed one quickly for a proposed shoot - which ended up being cancelled).




I also have a couple of white umbrellas and a honeycomb grid, again cheapies from ebay.

I had put out an advert for a model simply to help me get used to using this kit, and after a while with no response, I was contacted on Thursday night by a model/actor called Tomasz looking for a shoot the following day. He lives in Nottingham and I was struggling to think of a location, but he said he was interested in shooting in some sort of derelict industrial place.

As luck would have it, I had found just such a place a matter of hours before he contacted me! On Thursday evening I had taken these shots at an old wireworks:







I showed them to Tomasz and he loved the location, and agreed to meet me there the following day.

It turned out he needed to get underwear shots to send out to an agency. Luckily I was so involved in setting up the lights and shot set ups, that I didn't have time to get embarrassed.

I shot with my K10D and Tamron 17-50, and Pentax F 35-105mm. Generally I used two stobes either side, one above and slightly to the front, one a tad lower and slightly to the back. I used a Sony NEX and lens turbo adapter and Pentax K 135/2.5 for available light shots.

I'm very pleased with the shots! A selection are already up on my Smugmug account (see here) & I'll no doubt post some here for C&C from our seasoned studio / flash photographers. But I'll end on one of my favourite shots from the day.

Cracking set Will, I love the braces shot

I wish I could find a location like that up here but as soon as they become derelict the barbed wire goes up or the bulldozer comes rolloing in

Thanks Brian! I knew this place from when I was a kid - we used come to collect sweet chestnuts in the woods behind. I couldn't believe you could actually still access the buildings. Some require a bit of work to get into, but others you can just walk right in.

Some interesting graffiti in there:




(That shot was available light, but on the K10D that time.)

Great shot well taken and great location

Great shots - I like them a lot. You have a good eye.

Think you have done the shots very well, on a shoestring too

Thanks everyone. Shaun - this one's just for you:

Excellent Will, that last one is really funny, no doubt more so because of your ironic comment!

Regards
David

LOL great colour pop there will lol

Love the colour pop

Its a fabulous set Will

I think Tom decided that last week's shots were just too tame, so requested another shoot this week, bringing along more props and several cans of household paint. I brought some powder paint.

Did you have a portable shower with you too Think #3 wins it, well done.

Cheers Stan... we had a woefully inadequate quantity of water and paper towels to clean up

I was envisaging a few bottles of children's poster paint - not this:




I think the colour pop works okay, because he has some of the yellow on his glasses, so your attention is still drawn to the face. If the yellow was just on the wall, I don't think it would work so well.

Not my sort of thing at all, but I love that last shot.