Inspired by Joel Grimes

As I’ve said in a few posts lately, I’m really inspired by the work of Joel Grimes.  To become a better photographer, I like to “try out” the shoes of the greats out there, see how they do what they do.  So, after watching many hours of his videos on YouTube and on his blog - I set out with my son yesterday to do something in his unique style.  I have no desire to use steal this look from him – again, it was an exercise to see what goes into it.

The adventure began around 3:00pm yesterday.  Nick and I took off in search of a good looking track to shoot.  We went to his high school first, but Pinkerton Academy was digging up their track!  Ugh.  Security also came to make sure we weren’t sticking around.  So, we headed over to Manchester Memorial – as I knew their track was good looking and open to the public.

I shot three exposures with my 18mm Zeiss (review) at -2,0, and +2.  The above photo is at normal exposure.  (Notice that the lights are not on in the field.) When I got home, I put them together in Photomatix to give it a little more mood and atmosphere.  I didn’t want to go crazy with the HDR – I wanted to keep it under control, the same way Joel does.  Once I was happy with it, I grabbed Nick again and put him on the seamless.

We shot several poses with the Zeiss 35mm (review) and played a bit with the light.  I have just two speedlights to work with – the SB600 and SB700.  My beauty dish wasn’t giving enough light for this, so I shot both speedlights into umbrellas, about 3′ from subject.  I need to work more on this aspect.

I next brought it all together in CS6, popping Nick from the background and dropping him into the HDR background.  Some dodging, burning and saturation later, we got the final result.  All technique was from watching all of Joel’s videos.  Tell me what you think!

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