Shoot the Umbrella

I'm still practicing with my speedlights for Vegas. I read somewhere that to understand the amount of light spread in the umbrella to shoot the umbrella and see for yourself. Clever!!

To get the most light spread in my umbrella, I need to use the zoom feature. The left is 105mm, the right is 14mm. Since I almost never use my flash, I never even used the zoom feature. Now I get it.

I shot my shoe on my bed for a test. As a photographer you'd think I could do a fancier test. But I'm a lazy photographer at best. In one image, I couldn't even bother to remove the umbrella bag. That's lazy.

The left is 105mm zoom, no modifier. The middle is 14mm zoom with a silver umbrella. The right is 14mm zoom shot through a satin umbrella. It's amazing how the highlights change and how the color shifts. But now I have a better idea how to use my flash and accessories. Once it stops raining, I'll test it all outside in full sun.

And of course, I had to do more self portraits. Most of the people I shoot won't have a plastic sheen, so I wanted to see how it all worked on skin. The satin umbrella is probably my favorite, but in order to light less of the room, the silver umbrella works best. Honestly, straight flash on 105mm will spread the least amount of light, but the shadows are way too harsh.

Texture

I love adding texture to photographs. I love it even more when photographs have their own texture. Thanks to Michael for showing me this dumpster to shoot in. It is nothing but texture at every turn.

This photo, from the same day, did not have it's own texture, I added it. And I also used horror lighting for this shot. My gridded light is pointed up at her face from about 1 foot away. "They" say never use horror lighting (especially on beautiful women), but sometimes it just what the image calls for. Christina knew just how to work the light to make it work. I find it very useful to tell the model where the main light is and what you are trying to achieve. If they get it, they work it!!

Caught in the Act

It's been a while since I shot one of these. There are not many people interested in this series. I had more people interested in the Lonely Road, but I think I sold that more to people as part of a shoot package. I haven't done that with this series. I'm waiting for people to come to me.

Jessi came to me with the idea of fleeing the scene and I came up with the location. On one of my photo walks around Rossylyn, I found a spot where I could shoot from above. It really does help to go on location walks. You see spots you would otherwise miss.

Since it was dark by the time we shot, I had to bump up the ISO to 6400 and even that almost wasn't enough. I usually hate noise, but I don't mind it in this shot, it adds to the mystery.

Another Self Portrait

My model flaked on me today. So I decided to practice using my speedlight since that's all I be taking with me to Vegas. And I used the only person available, me.

I feeling pretty comfortable using my speedlight even though the recycle time takes a while to get used to. I think I'm ready to go to Vegas now!

Underwater Camera

Over a year ago I bought an underwater camera. I wanted to use it on my trip to Key West. I never really got to use it there as I didn't go in the water much. Finally, I got to play with it on vacation with my niece and nephew. We had a ball taking underwater pictures.

It's harder than it looks taking pictures underwater. I probably should have used goggles. And I can't hold my breath that long. But it made us laugh a lot, so who really cares what the pictures look like because they bring back great memories.

Self Portrait

I'm traveling to Vegas in a couple months and I wanted to test out my travel lighting. Since I have portable power, I almost never use my speedlite. I would hate to arrive in Vegas unprepared, so I got out all my travel gear and ran some tests. The image below uses one flash with a silver umbrella and a self timer.

Now all I need is a light stand that will fit in my luggage and I'm ready to go. Of course, that is all I need. But I'm also getting a travel softbox because I love softboxes. I'm trying out the Cheetah Qbox 24. I'm looking forward to the challenge of using only a speedlight for all of my shoots. And maybe even some natural light - what a concept!

I'm impressed that I don't look my age in this shot. It's a combination of the lighting, narrow depth of field and the angle because there's very little post-processing done on this one.

Dragonfly: A Lesson in Aperture

I was taking pictures of a golf course from the sand dunes when a dragonfly caught my eye. I quickly turned to get his picture when he landed and I got this:

I was horrified! My aperture was set to 13 and the angle of my shot made him blend right into the background. As luck would have it, the dragonfly decided to stay on that stick just a bit longer so I was able to adjust my aperture to 6.3 and try again. I changed my angle a bit to get more of a profile and I got this:

I didn't have my macro lens on my camera so I could only get so close. But that dragonfly stuck around for a couple minutes and I was able to get about 10 shots before he flew off. I'm surprised that I reacted so quickly and was able to change all my settings to get a decent picture. I'm not a nature photographer at all, so I feel quite lucky.

I like the shot in black and white because he stands out more from the background, like this:

It reminds me of something I read a long time ago that has stuck with me which was that in order to get the picture you have to be there. Which to me has translated as get off your butt and get out there with your camera! That's exactly what I did that morning. When I looked out from our front porch and saw the beautiful clouds over the golf course, I quickly got dressed and ran out with my camera. I got more than I imagined that morning.