I’m pretty happy with this shot of my wife with her parents and best friends Jeff and Wendy. To make it, I used my new FourSquare lighting system, held high above my head while I clutched the D3 with the other hand and snapped this about 30 minutes after sunset. The colors in this one make everything else on my site look washed-out. Wow.

Soft Boxes are nothing new in the studio. What makes this one so special is its portability. Equipped with a couple of Nikon SB-600 flash heads purchased on ebay and triggered with an on-camera SB-800, I can throw a heck of a lot of high quality light into a scene. Setup takes about 5 minutes, and the results speak for themselves.

If there’s anything not to like about these shots is that they look like they’re faked. Sort of like a cheesy Sears portrait against a photo backdrop. I can assure you — these are real.