Going back in time...

My good friend Garth Ratliff is quite a character. He is a man who's creativity knows no bounds and is always one to come up with fun, nutty ideas.

Recently, one of the things that came out of his fertile, creative mind, was the character Frank E Delmonico. Mr. DelMonico is a lounge singer who sings your favorite songs of the 40's, 50,s and 60's and is essentially a one man band who is HIGHLY entertaining.

I got the opportunity to step back in time and photograph Mr. Del Monico at the Beacon Supper Club in Ventura CA. If you were to drive by today, you would see that it is now a Methodist church, but back in the day, it was a happening place where the elite would get together and socialize.

The following pictures were made trying to simulate stage light with a spot light on our entertainer. Since no real spot lights were available at the church, er... "club", a snooted SB-900 was placed on a light stand at a height of approximately 10 feet and pointed slightly down at Mr. DelMonco. (see diagram below) This added a beautiful rim light giving our subject a nice separation from the dark back ground. All other lights in this shot are simply ambient light from the stage lights.

I used the popup flash on the D700 in Commander Mode and set it to send no exposure. The only flash coming out of the popup was the "pre-flash" signals to the SB-900.

Camera Settings were 200mm at f/2.8, 100th of a second at ISO 1600. Using the Nikon CLS ITTL flash compensation, I dialed the flash to a setting of -3 Stops.