Yesterday, legendary climber Kurt Albert died. Although I didn’t know him personally, I’m shocked and very sad. And it also got me thinking about seizing opportunities when one gets the chance. A couple of months ago, Kurt Albert did a presentation in Munich and I originally planned to contact him beforehand and do a quick portrait session with him. I’d been shooting a lot at the time and I felt tired and lazy, so I ended up not calling him, postponing the whole idea. Now I’ll never get the chance to do this, and -more importantly- I’ll never get the chance to meet this man. These are selfish thoughts, I know, but it’s a lesson I want to learn and live by. To go for it. Not tomorrow, next month or when there’s time. Now.

Hi everybody! I’ve got a little personal project planned for next week and I thought it might be interesting for some of you to follow along as the shoot develops. The basic idea is to photograph climbers after a bouldering session, when they’re tired, sweaty, chalked up and wasted in general. The shoot will be at Munich’s new bouldering gym, the Boulderwelt. I’ll be shooting in front of a light-blue seamless, you can view a scetch of the setup below.

I want to light the climbers in a simple and clean way, so I’ll put one SB900 through a Sambesi 60x90cm softbox, shooting from in front and above of the subject. Depending on the subjects face, I might put the light a little to the side in order to create a more dramatic look. The shot below I made yesterday at fellow photographer Bodo Mertoglu‘s studio. This is what I got with the SB 900 as the sole light source.

As you can see, this works quite well for the subject, but without any further lighting, the background will fall off fast and be far from the bright tone I want to get for this shot. So, for the background I use an SB 600 shooting into a big white styrofoam, which softens the light and reflects it onto the seamless. This works surprisingly well and even the rather weak SB 600 only has to run at 1/10 of it’s full power to light up the background. The next shot is Bodo with an additional SB600 shooting into a white styro positioned behind and to the side of him. The SB 600 fires into the big white surface, which reflects the flash as a bigger and softer light onto the seamless. For next week, I’ll probably increase power on the SB600 a little, depending on the exact tone of the seamless.

That’s all there is to it, really. More info to come, stay tuned.

Oh, and for those of you living in Munich, feel free to come by next Tuesday, September the 14th, between noon and midnight at Boulderwelt! I’m looking forward to seeing you there!

Gear list:
⁃ Nikon D90
⁃ 50mm 1.8
⁃ 85mm 1.8
⁃ SB 900 flash
⁃ SB 600 flash
⁃ light blue seamless (2,70m / 8 feet)
⁃ Manfrotto 420b boom lightstand + sandbag
⁃ Sambesi 60x90cm Softbox (for SB900)
⁃ white styrofoam
⁃ Calumet Background Support rig
⁃ small lightstand + umbrella holder for SB600 (no umbrella)