to promote vicarious vintage, the newest line being carried at cloth, i helped shoot short series of lookbook/promotional images.  the fashion show and launch party was happening at apartm3nt, and since its such a cool looking space, the promo images were also taken in the interi0r of apartm3nt.

while its definitely a nice, dark space (i love dark, moody interiors), the metric ton of black ceiling surfaces, black carpet, and black velvet walls tends to wreak havoc on E-TTL flashes and cameras.  even the smartest cameras are fooled by the dark, light-absorbing interior of a place like apartm3nt.  i dialed everything in manually, and besides the usual assortment of umbrella-ed strobes, ringflashes, and cardbounced strobes, i also did a lot of work with a simple, manually zoomed and configured 580EX II.  if your camera and strobe are trying to properly expose black velvet and subsequently they are blowing out your subjects, well…expose everything for your camera and strobe and go full manual, yo.  i loved the moody, contrasty, vignetted, sort of amateurish look that the single snooted strobe yielded.

it was a fun, old-school, manual type affair.  i liked the results, and i hope you do too.  keep an eye on cloth and vicarious, i expect many great things from these two names in the very near future.

-a

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