Inspired by the Nick Turpin street portraits (that have been inspiring a whole hell of a lot of us lately) we at N Maxwell Lander Headquarters set out to find a cheap boom arm option. i had read that a lot of people took apart light stands to create a quick boom, and that some people used painting extensions poles. After investigating the extension pole, we just couldn't figure out a way to attach a flashgun to the end that didn't involve purchasing specific tools. the light stand however, didn't require anything beyong a drill (and i know some light stands just need a screwdriver.) I bought my light stands from vistek a few months ago and got the SLS Medium for the price of a small ($28). The other costs associated with this project include $2 for a pack of 4 rubber leg tips from a canadian tire, and $11.99 for the bicycle grips from a local bike shop (Urbane for torontonians, who were totally open to helping us figure out what would fit and brainstorming ideas). You could even cut the costs of the grips and buy 75 cent Plumbing foam, but we wanted it to be a little bit more badass, which it totally is! other than that, you need hairspray, and a way to attach your flash to the end of light stand (whatever you prefer). So here is, the DIY 9.5ft Boom.

Step 1 - Supplies

SLS Medium Stand, Rubber Leg Tips, Mini Ball Head w/ Flash Shoe, Rubber Bicycle Grips, Hairspray

Step 2 - Drill out the Rivet at the bottom of the stand (the only step with tools)

Step 3 - Remove Center Pole of Light Stand (find something else to do with legs) 

Step 4 - Hairspray Grips and Pole, Slide on Grips and Leg Tips.

the guy at Urbane told us to do this, i had no idea how well it works. Get right in there, it acts as a lubricant until it dries. Position the grips so they are comfortable, most likely at each end of the section. 

Step 5 - Done! 

you now have a totally badass boom arm for $40!

Minimum Height - 33", Maximum Height 114" 

Yes Yes i know, i'm supposed to have this technical blog thingy that i update with stories about my technical process thingy, but i've been too busy doing the technical process to update! i am as of right now 5 shoots behind on updating the site. 5 shoots! and have done 6 shoots in the last little while. so i am going to try to catch up, and hopefully there will be lots more where this came from. 

Notes on Having a Religious Experience

The new set! found here. This one is a couple weeks old. it's taken me some time to find a good rhythm for working on shots and getting them polished and done, specifically with these where i committed my self from image 1 to manually photoshopping each photo. In my last set, cupcakes, i did most of the editing through an action (which if you don't know what that is, it's a neat little function that records what you do to an image and applies it to other images) and then tweaked where needed. not this time! and am i ever glad. i have discovered the beauty that is a tablet. specifically the Wacom Intous3 6x8 tablet. i will never go back. between this piece of equipment and the ABR800 Ringflash, along with some good ol' nikon flashes,  i feel pretty fucking set in my abilities to complete most of the scenarios i want to right now. that isn't to say that there isn't always more gear to drool over, but i'm pretty happy with my set-up (if you want to know more about the lighting equipment and set-up, go to my flickr page, where i share all my secrets!)

now back to the tablet. OMG, i can paint on my friggin' images!!!! i know that might not sound like a super great time for people who don't paint and who chose photography cause they think they can't draw, but for me, this is the greatest news ever. i can't wait to see where familiarity and time with this tablet takes me. for these series of images i did almost all of the highlights and lowlights by hand painting, and although it is time consuming, i love it. i thought that there would be an adjustment period with the tablet, the thought of using a pen instead of a mouse intimidated me a little, but brushing with it feels more natural and intuitive than any other photographic processes i've tried. it was a fucking religious experience, and yes, it will help you find jesus (or at least the hot red-headed naked version, which really, i think we all prefer...)

Improvisation Station

You know that light that you see bursting out from behind the chair? i would love to tell you that it appeared naturally, emanating from beauty and purity of Heat, but in actuality... it's a cheese grater. Zeebo and i were trying to be ever so creative with the background, attempting to shoot the flashes through a number of shapes and at a number of angles, and nothing was pretty. and then, in his infinite wisdom, Zeebo went to the kitchen for inspiration (which for me, always involves some sugary ingestion) and came back with a cheese grater! we did some tests, loved some of the light it gave us, and promptly tore it apart! it took us a ridiculous amount of time to get the flash to shoot at the right angle and the right distance, but oh boy was it worth it. i'm so impressed with the effects that can be created by stuff hanging around the house. pretty wicked eh?  i think i will probably use it again, but next time i wont tell you and see if you can guess what light modifiers i'm using, and see if you come up with anything i haven't thought of.

An End Thought On Digital Photography, Inspired By "Painting" On A Photo

i feel like there is a trend happening in photography that, for me at least, makes it feel like a more artistic process. and that trend is digital. i know, i know, digital has been around forever now, right? right! but we are only now starting to see everyone and there best friend working in Photoshop (not just the geeks), only now is it becoming standard to understand what a raw file is, what HDR is, what tonemapping is, and most importantly, we as a culture are only now willing to see the places that digital photography can go. for example the photo above, which for all intensive purposes was tone-mapped, desaturated, and then dodged and burned to shit, does not exactly feel like the most artistic or digital process in the world, but it is. this photo could have gone any number of ways - it could have been colour, oversatuated even, could have been blurred or sharpened, stretched, warped, filtered, drawn on, cropped, and the list goes on and on. When there are literally hundreds (maybe thousands) of choices associated with processing an image, every step away from that file your camera makes is an opportunity for a personalized creative fingerprint to be added to that image. I often find myself (and know you do sometimes) looking at an image i like and saying "i could do that", but i didn't. and that's what matters. 

i'm going to think on that more... i feel like i have more to say... for now i will keep in tradition and end with a photo of Zeebo from the shoot (i've threatened making a gallery shoot out of all the photos i get of him standing in for me...)