My name is Robert Benson, I'm a freelance photographer in San Diego and shoot mainly editorial and commercial stuff. You can write me at robert atmark robertbenson.com. Read more.My portfolio.
Here’s one of those paper tray liners with my work on it, the kind of liner that goes on top of a plastic tray that fast food restaurants use to serve their food. I saw a wad of them near the trashcan recently, and had to go steal a couple clean fresh ones for whatever…. here’s one of them. I shot both images at the same casino. One was in a makeshift studio (the image of him holding a cake), and the other was shot on the casino floor.
For the shoot I used a Hasselblad with a Phase One digital back tethered to a large flat screen monitor. Light came from Profoto octabanks and other gucci gear, lot of the stuff rented. But what’s funny is that the images which actually look the best were made with just the modeling light on a softbox in front of the couple, with all baffles removed from the softbox, and my DSLR, which gave me a bit more depth of field than the medium format lens. Using the modeling light only, I shot at about f4, which was a good balance for the ambient background light of the casino with the subjects, and just made for nice natural light.
After this shoot, about two months ago, I went and made a homemade kino-flo using Tejada’s design (I think it was his). I’m now in love with continuous cool light for indoor portraits, and will start using them quite a bit more when I want a certain look. I used it recently on a big budget shoot there, and the producer said “Rob, is that a new light, I dont remember you using that before.” I didn’t tell her it was a $30 Home Depot light…
LA Dodgers kicked-out-of-baseball-for-a-while-outfielder Manny Ramirez seems to be doing good. Shot him tonight in a little city called Lake Elsinore, in California, where he was playing minor league baseball with a team called the 66ers against the Lake Elsinore Storm.
He played as a designated hitter, was first to bat, and hit a homerun. The usually empty stadium was sold old, and people were tripping over eachother to get a look at the dreadlocked gangsta.
Here he is chewing a huge wad of gum mixed with a huge wad of chewing tobacco.
I washed a pair of pants the other day, put them in the dryer, and later found there were two 4gig flash cards in the pocket. I thought the cards were ruined and all images lost for sure – but I put them in the camera, and all the images that were on the cards were still there, and they worked perfectly! The discs were cleaner then before too!
So in a effort to draw readers to my blog..er… prove my point, I recreated the washing. Try it at home!
1. Grab your favorite compact flash card.
2. Wash.
3. Rinse.
4. Repeat.
Here's the disc in my camera showing images from a Padres game I shot the other day (they lost). That's the time on my Suunto watch next to it. Next, I take card out of camera and immerse in water.
Card comes out of camera, ready for the wash.
Going into the water
Soaking in water.
Soaking a bit more...
Two minutes in the drink.
Drying the card.
All dry, and with card in the camera again, images remain intact!
Did a business portrait the other day, and after shooting the “safe” stuff, decided to shoot into the light. Sometimes the flare and reflections and rim lighting is nice. Put a Speedo head in the empty square shape on the wall behind him, the cord running down to the pack behind him, and shot with slow shutter so ambient light filled in his frontside….
Dave Good sent me a link to this video of photographer Giuliano Bekor doing a fashion photo shoot in the old part of Las Vegas, using a battery operated small softbox, and a Hasselblad digital tethered to a computer. At a couple points in the video security looks like they are shutting things down, proving that for a photographer it’s always easier to shoot first, then ask questions later… Do you know you need a permit for a lot of shoots in public areas? Click on image to watch video.
This is an interesting video of dozens of people freezing in place at the same time for a few minutes, then just as suddenly, a few minutes later, they keep moving. Some sort of art project. Check it out!
Was in a hotel in Orange County recently and the tourist guide book had one of my Tiger photos in it. The other image was shot for local casino, and the portrait was made at the Wynn Hotel in Vegas for a magazine (Advocate, on news stands now).
I’m a large format junkie, and like reading about anyone’s experience with it. Photographer Mark Tucker (the Jim Beam Whiskey shooter…) does just that here.
