Portraits of 100 Strangers (Tyrone)

Well it's that time of year again. Spring has fineally arrived. Im back on my quest for portraits of 100 strangers. Today I would like you to meet Tyrone. I had gone down to the local library to scout the place out. tyrone approached me and asked if I was going to take his photo. Oh I jumped on the opportunity. Tyrone has been homeless for 10 years now. He moved to Murfreesboro from Florida where he lived the life of a gangster. Before joining the gang tyrone was a soldier in the United States Army. He was injured in an explosion and has burns on about 50% of his body. He said that the gangster life wasnt for him, thats why he left Florida. Oh and by the way, I did feed him lunch for helping me out.


Vivitar 285hv camera left and in front of the model, with homemade Gridspot. Vivitar 285hv behind model camera right with homemade gridspot and blue gell for rim light. I was going to illuminate the old crusty wall behind him but my 3rd strobe kraped out on me. Bummer!!!!


Please if you are going to favorite my work at least leave a comment of why you like it.

Ronnie Hilderman "Portraits of 100 Strangers" 3 of 100

Ronnie Hilderman was actually not a stranger to me. He didn't know that though. I actually met Ronnie at Publix back towards the beginning of the summer of 2009. I was working at Publix at the time.
Around 2:00 p.m. the sirens at the court house went off. We were under a tornado warning. All of the managers and employees at the store scampered to get all of the customers inside. Of course I had my nose all up in the window looking for this massive beast of a tornado.
The emergency broadcasting system was buzzing like crazy so, I knew that it had to be bad. Somehow I managed to weasel my way out the front door to watch for this thing. It wasn't long till I actually saw it making its way toward us over the tree line. Quickly I ran back inside and informed the managers. This thing was a beast.
Every one was instructed to go back to the back of the store and get into one of the coolers where it would be safe. The beast actually sounded like a freight train as it grew nearer. I was always told that they sounded like a freight train and, that it did. After about a minute or two it grew quiet again. Just like that it had come and gone. Leaving 23 miles of destruction and devastation in its path. Two lives were taken that day and hundreds of homes were destroyed.
Ronnie Hilderman was one of the customers in the cooler that day. I remember thinking to myself, boy id love to do a shoot with him. Well this week as I was out and about looking for my next subject, there he was. Sitting in the barbers chair at the local barber shop. I knew at this point that I had to go and talk to him and ask him if he would be my subject.
Ronnie replied that he had to get back to work and that he was on his lunch break. "I'll see if I have enough time after having this hair of mine cut," he said.
I was able to get about 10 minutes with Ronnie. Just enough time to get my lights set up camera adjusted and fired off a couple of shots. The wind was also bad that day so it made it hard to keep his hair out of his face, much less keeping my lighting from getting blown over. I'm hoping to find Ronnie again soon, when he has more time. Id love to do a good 30 minute photo session with him.
Yes I did use the my Exposure Card on this shot. It has given perfect exposure for my off camera strobes every time. However, I did take exposure down just a little on the first image of this story. Not much about .17 of a stop just because personally I wanted this image just a tad darker.

Exposure Card

Hey every one I am currently working on a new project. Its called the exposure card. Now I know what you all are thinking, just another gray card,but this is very different from a grey card. This little gem is used to aperture for off camera strobe lighting.
Forget paying hundreds of dollars for a digital light meter. The exposure card is intended for amateur photographers (strobist) who are on a budget. At the moment we are looking at around $35.00 U.S. dollars for this little gem. You wont believe what it can do. I have a prototype that i have been using for about a month now and it gives me a perfect exposure setting for my off camera flash every time. I was kind of sceptical about how well it would work at first and caught myself still trying to chimp on exposure. After a couple of sessions I learned to trust it. every shot on my blog has been metered with the exposure card and I have not had to do any out of camera exposure adjustment. Please leave me a comment on this post if you are interested in my product. I will send you a notice just as soon as I have the exposure card out on the market.

Thanks again,
James Strength Photography

Portraits of 100 Strangers Update

Just want every one that's viewing my page that I will try and have a new portrait up at least once a week. Please don't give up on me. This is a tough project and takes great skill in talking someone into doing a shoot with me, especially if I have just approached them on the streets. Thank you for viewing my page and have a great day.

"Portraits of 100 Strangers" 2 of 100

This weeks portrait is actually through a contact that I had made last week. As I was out on my daily walk around the square in Murfreesboro, trying to find my next subject for this project I spied a sofa in one of the local shops. This thing just reached out and grabbed me. It was avocado green with white star bursts. How 70's Retro! I loved it and absolutely had to have it in a photograph.

Without hesitation I ran into the salon and asked for the owner. The receptionist told me that she was in a meeting and asked if she could be of assistance.
Well maybe, I'm out in the field working on this project. I then proceeded to let her in on what I was doing. Talk about a strange look from a stranger. The look that I received from her was, "BOY YOU GOT SOME BALLS". Just going around asking people that you don't know if you can take their picture. The receptionist said that she would give her manager the message.
I didn't have time to waste waiting around for the manager to get out of a meeting. Who knows how long that meeting was going to last. Instead I told the receptionist that I would be here on the block for a while today and that she could call me on my cell if she was interested in helping me out.
Back out the door I went. I continued to scout the streets downtown for another prospect for about another hour. Not having any luck I decided to pack it up and head home. "forget it the salon owner isn't going to call me back".
A couple of days had passed and I had forgotten all about asking the salon owner to call me on my cell. Wednesday afternoon my phone rang. I assured and low and behold it was the owner of the salon with that Beautiful Retro green couch. I briefly filled her in on what I was doing and before I could even finish she said sure come on down and we can shoot. We set the date for Monday September,22.
Monday morning had arrived and I was so ready for this shoot. I called Valery the store owner to confirm. She said that she wasn't dressed for taking photos today and didn't want to participate. Oh well I thought to myself, another one down.
However I do have my little 15 month old with me and you would be more that welcome to come and do a shoot with him. Wow I thought!! OK I'm on my way.

I used a process on the image above called loom. It simulates the effects of a lomo camera. For those of you that don't know what a lomo camera is, Its a very inexpensive Russian made camera. The poor quality lens of the camera actually causes vingetting around the frame of its photos. It also causes very high color saturation and blown out whites. I thought that this process that very fitting with the old green couch.

Lighting: 2 Vivitar 285hv's bounced out of a reflective ubrella left of camera. Big bay window on right for some fill. It was a cloudy day out so the light coming in from the window was nice and soft.

Portraits of 100 Strangers

Over the past two days I had continued my search for Portraits of 100 Strangers to no avail. Rather than not post any thing at all this week I will make a posting about my shoot with a coworker and good friend (Brittany).

Brittany and I had arrived at Murfreesboro Battle Grounds 8:15 a.m. Monday morning. Eager to start shooting I grabbed my things from the truck and headed to a field of wheat grass, with Brittany right on my heals. Once we arrived at the location where we were going to shoot, I made her wait while I checked for snakes and trampled down some of the tall grass where we would be shooting.

I began setting up my lights when I was approached by the park ranger. "You guys aren't doing a commercial shoot are you"
No I told the ranger. "Just some work for my portfolio".
The park ranger proceeded to inform me that if we were doing a commercial shoot that we would need a permit. I assured him that it wasn't commercial.

He also proceeded to inform us that the grass that we were going to be shooting in was full of chiggers. I didn't care. I had had this spot in mind for months. I was only waiting to find the right person to be my model for the day. Brittany definitely fit the scene. I asked her if she minded if there were chiggers and she made it clear that she didn't mind. Brittany was a real champ. I think she ended up rolling in the chigger infested grass for about 30 minuets. "YOU GO BRITTANY"!!!

Below is the lighting diagram for the above shot.

My light source was 2 Vivitar 285hv's bounced out of a silver umbrella.

Camera Settings: ISO 100, F/10, Shutter speed 1/100

I used a gray card for an ambient light reading. I bumped the shutter speed up 2 stops to cut back on ambient light and make Brittany pop just a little.

Thank you Brittany for making this shoot possible.

My Apologies

Just want to let you all know that I am sorry that I havent made any posts in the past couple of days. I have a full time job with my little one and a part time job at Publix. My next post for Portraits of 100 Strangers should be this Monday. I am also hoping to make another post on Tuesday as well. Im am going to put a full day in on this project on Monday and hopefully I will get more than one stranger to work with me. Keep your fingers crossed for me anyway.