Elaine Lancaster's Birthday Party The Forge MIami Beach

Elaine Lancaster's 24th Birthday Party

Ms. Elaine Lancaster, Miami's socialite and greatest diva, turned an unknown (she can tell you) age last evening

and I was there at the Forge to catch the event in Photoz.

Technical: We used three lights- an on camera (Leica V-Lux 1 my new favorite light game camera) flash set to

-1.5 under, a profoto Acute B 600R attached to an 

acute B head and hand held by pal and miami paps photographer craig talkington and another

pack and head of same profoto ilk hand held in the left hand by me, yer photographer.

Camera snapped in right hand.

I was able to slave the packs to the teency on camera flash and therefore avoided that particular garish on camera/on camera bracket flash look by cranking the camera flash down to minimum fill status (-1.5).

Shooting in the dark at parties requires a few things set up in advance as well as of the camera:

1) a great autofocus sensor with IR distance seeker

2) a hot shoe for when your assistant hand hand holds the remote flash a

greater distance than the slave can handle or for when you need to go to wizards set on private channels if

many other snappers are roving around in the dark and setting your flash off

inadvertently.

3) A commitment to manual exposure! Get it off automatic anyway most always.

4) And a commitment to a predetermined fairly low or midrange aperture setting (mainly due to portrait interests) and therefore a specified distance from subject for the handheld flash(es).

The Leica Image stabilization seems to handle my handheld speeds down to even 1/4 second. The noise has always been a problem for Leica sensors to date unless you restrict yourself to shooting at ISO100, in which case the cameras are very sharp and noise-free. Well, relatively.

This is really a kicking system and I love the profoto light from their new acute B road warriors- we just sling the packs around our necks off a comfortable shoulder strap and coil up the extra wire in the same hand as the one that holds the head. Tons of room to get creative and edgy! I hold mine as key high and get Craig to shoot me a vignette light on the wall behind, or hold mine lower and get craig to get closer and shoot a rad key from way off to the side, or bounce it off the

back of their head, etc. etc.

 I look at this kind of shooting as being as 

much fun as watching images appear in the developer bath in days passed. It's just late for an old guy! And the girls I wanna shoot look at me like hey daddyo, why aren't you in bed yet?

You're never entirely sure what you're gonna get which adds to the fun.. But you will always get some good stuff if you set everything up right.

Craig and I talked tactics through but I know he needed to take matters into his own hands when it was just too crowded for instance to get the right distance away. If 

he were too far, he'd need to spin the dial and crank up the flash pack output... How far? 3 clicks? 8? Fire in the hole!

From this perspective, it's really great to work with the same person/people as much as possible.

With a little luck, some cool gear, a great birthday party at a great location, we were able to get some cool stuff.