Hans (25/100)

In addition to being a fabricator and sign maker, Hans is a very patient fellow. I approached him on the street and mentioned the Strangers project to him. He agreed to a photo, so I positioned him and went about getting ready.

 

Started by taking a meter reading on the background and adjusted the flash to about where I wanted it. No problem. I was thinking a vertical orientation would work best. But when I rotated my camera, the autofocus stopped working. In fact, the camera seemed to be largely dead. That was weird. Turned it off, then on back on. Again, it was fine until I rotated it to the vertical orientation. My camera, a 5D2, has a battery grip on it. Every now and then the knob that secures the grip to the camera body loosens enough to make the connection intermittent. But that wasn’t the problem. Tried a few other things, with no luck. Horizontal, fine. Vertical, not so much. At this point, Hans must have been thinking I’m an idiot. The thought occurred to me as well. Rinse and repeat was clearly not working and I could tell that my lovely lighting assistant (wife) was starting to lose her patience. What I hadn’t noticed was that the little recessed switch on the grip that activates the shutter button on the grip had somehow been turned off. So when I rotated the camera vertically and tried to use the shutter release on the grip, nothing happened. That’s one I won’t forget.

 

Thanks to Hans for being part of my strangers project, and for being so patient. Find out more about the project and see pictures taken by other photographers at the 100 Strangers Flickr Group page www.flickr.com/groups/100strangers/.

 

Strobist info: 580EXII through a shoot-through umbrella camera right, triggered by a PW.

 

Done