Winter Olympics 2010 Day 9: Portrait, Portrait Portrait.

Shot a portrait of gold medal Olympian Kristi Yamaguchi today for ZUMA press at the P&G Family Home.

Since time was limited, I enlisted the help of a Boston Globe video journalist and our liaison from P&G beforehand to aim my strobes and dial in the settings so we would not waste Kristi's time.



Trying to step up the portraiture here, I decided to use a David Honl speed grid on from the back over the balcony on a second 580EX to add a nice rim light - in front I used a 580EX with an Omni-Bounce to add the front light and diffuse. Shot it with a 50mm f/1.2 at f/1.6.




Olympic gold medal figure skater Kristi Yamaguchi, spokesperson for the "P&G Thanks, moms" program, during a portrait session at the P&G Family Home in Vancouver at the 2010 Winter Olympic Games. © Patrick T Fallon/ZUMA Press

While the lit portrait was nice, I also had the advantage of being able to shoot on ambient light as well, which was perfect when I was getting set up and Kristi started laughing naturally with some fans greeting her on the stairwell to our right.


Kristi laughs as some fans chat with her before the start of our portrait session
This was my favorite frame of the whole shoot because it was natural, rather than cold or staged - I like shooting candidly whenever possible, so I was happy to have the balance in my take between the two.

Shot with just the 50mm at f/1.2


Had a great time working with the P&G Family Home staff, they got a great setup for the athletes and their families, hope to return soon to do some more portraiture.

Winter Olympics 2010 Day 6: Portrait In The Rain

Didn't get to shoot much today, had to handle a lot of image editing from photographers and work here in the Main Press Center. However this evening I was able to shoot the press conference for two time gold medal winning snow boarder Seth Wescott.



Seth won the gold twice now for Snowboard cross - out of the two years it has been an Olympic sport. The press conference was a normal presser - but he was cool enough to let me take him outside in the light rain for 2 min. for a quick lit portrait behind the bay here. Awesome to work with and totally fine with getting a little wet.


Seth was lit by a single 580EX II strobe with a 1/4 CTO gel and Omni-Bounce - shot on a Canon 1D MkIV @ 6400 ISO. The blue lights from the International Broadcasting Center made for a great rim light and a splash of color.


The beauty of using speedlights, being able to shoot quickly, even in the rain, without causing any trouble or hauling a lot of gear around like big strobes.

Tomorrow should be an early start, but more shooting hopefully and if I get a chance, I will start working on my multimedia project about Canadian fans.

Winter Olympics 2010: Day 5 - On Assignment - Hannah Kearney Portrait Shoot

After getting back to the MPC from shooting the Finland - Russia women's Ice Hockey game last night, my editor gave me a last minute assignment - a portrait session with the first team USA gold medalist, Hannah Kearney. I left the MPC and made my way up 6 blocks to the Team USA House on Seymour.



Hannah was super cool, totally happy and excited about her win in the moguls skiing. However, she has been swarmed since her win with press, interviews and excitement from her Gold medal win, so not much time to make some pictures and only a press wall or the lobby of the Team USA house as available portrait locations.



I ended up borrowing a 50mm f/1.2 and a Canon 5DMKII from my editor Ruaridh, this was a perfect combination with a 580EX flash off camera with a 1/4 CTO warming Gel. USA Staffer Garrett Hubbard was an awesome lighting assistant holding the flash off camera for me [I returned the favor after]. We only had about 3 min. to do the shoot before she had to get another interview - but the setup was great and Hannah was a lot of fun to work with. The medals are really cool, each an individual piece of artwork unique to every medal.



Days have been pretty long - going to bed at 3am, waking up just a few hours later and hauling around a huge pack of gear the entire time, but this experience has been awesome so far and continues to get better.