8/52 - Medal Winner

This last week I got my very first flash in the mail (along with a full Strobist, single flash, kit).
So, I spent some of the weekend and first couple of days this week playing around with it. It seems so simple to use off-camera lighting when looking at other people's pictures, but actually trying to put it to use yourself is a lot more difficult. I've done a lot of reading about off-camera lighting, looked at a lot of pictures and studied examples of how other people are using it. But, the first time I turned the light on and popped off my first shot with it, I was sadly disappointed in my 'natural' abilities.

I had Paige sit in for me so that I could try to figure out flash output, distance to subject, angle, shutter speed, aperture, etc. I also played around with using a shoot through umbrella versus bare bulb. While she was patient with me, it got boring for her to just sit there, so I had to try using the timer and get in the shot myself.

It takes a lot of work to get a shot just the way you want it, and even at that, there's always something that you could do to make it better.

I know that I'm brand new at using off-camera lighting, so I don't expect to be all that good at it right away. It will take a lot of practice, but I'm excited to get into something new and excited to see some of the results that I can get.

Paige's brother was in town over the weekend and the first half of this week. Last weekend we ran an 8k trail race and he ended up getting 3rd place overall (6 minute/mile split over 5 miles of hilly difficult terrain!). He got a medal and got to stand up on the podium and everything. I thought it was pretty cool, so I wanted to try to get a few pictures of him with his medal.

This first shot I took, I wanted to get a little more dramatic lighting that just kind of highlighted his profile and showed a little more emphasis on his medal. I shot this one with a bare flash, angled down so that the focus of the light was on the medal and the light feathered up slightly towards his face. I had the flash zoomed to about 50-85 mm so that it would be tighter and not spread too far. I also wanted to keep the background pretty dark and didn't want any light spilling back.



The second picture is more of a typical 'portrait' style shot. This was done with the umbrella on the flash to give a more even, softer light across his whole upper body. I had the flash zoomed out to about 35mm, which filled up the whole umbrella to create the softer light. I tried to take the background a little darker in post processing, but didn't do a great job, so he has a slight halo around him where I didn't fill properly. I'll fix that eventually and get the final picture posted in here.



All in all, it was a fun time. I got a few other pictures that came out pretty well, but didn't have time to mess with them and get them uploaded on here.

Thanks to Chad for posing for me and congrats again on killing it at the race.

Let me know what you think.

T.

7/52 - DIY Ring Light

OK, well, let me start off by saying that I know these pictures aren't great...technically speaking. This week, it was more of going for an effect than trying to make them great.

I'll try, over the next couple of weeks, to get better pictures using the same effect, but I wanted to at least get something posted for the week.

I've always really liked the look that you can get using a ring flash. Typically, ring flashes are used in close-up portrait photography or macro photography because they tend to give a nice, all around light with very little shadows. Also, when you're shooting portraits with them, you get a really cool, circular, catch light in the subject's eyes. You really tend to notice it when you see it and it always caught my attention.

Since ring flashes are typically very expensive, I looked around on-line a lot on how people made their own DIY ring flashes. One method I came across wasn't even for a ring flash, as much as a constant circle of light.

Using a Circline Fluorescent light bulb, they were able to get much of the same effect, for considerably less money ~ $10-$15 versus $300-$450. The down-side to this is that the light isn't nearly as powerful as a standard flash, so you have to get much closer to your subject to get the same light power, or slow down your shutter way too slow. Also, lugging around the light bulb versus having the flash attached to your camera is a bit of a pain as well. But, for $300 savings, I figured I could make it work.

So, I set about getting and building my own ring light this weekend. I got the bulb, which came along with it's own ballast, starter and light socket connection, then built a small cardboard reflector to attach it to (in order to use as much of the light bulb's own light as possible). In the picture of Paige, you can see where I attached the bulb to the reflector using black zip-ties. As soon as I get some white ones, I'll swap them out, so they'll be less noticable. Granted, you can fix all that in photoshop, but if you can fix it before you shoot it, you might as well.

So, that was about it. I'll keep playing with the light going forward and try to get some new pictures to add. But, as far as achieving what I was going for, I was really happy with the results. In the future, I'll look into getting a bigger light bulb, so I'll get a bigger circle as the catch light and less shadows in the picture, but for now, the one I have will work. I'm looking forward to using it more and seeing what I can get!





Let me know what you think.

T

6/52 - Scrounging for pictures

OK, so I'm not going to lie...I didn't get a picture for this week.

I traveled all last week, spending 20+ hours traveling via airplanes (when I could have driven in 16 or less), then got home and decided to remodel the kitchen. I had Friday off, so thought I'd try to get a lot of work done around the house with the long weekend. I did get a lot of work done, but it literally took me the entire weekend. I spent more than 30 hours between installing new counter tops, cutting and laying quarter-round on the baseboards and installing and grouting a new tile back-splash.

The good news is that it looks like we have a brand new, modern, warm kitchen versus what we had before. Check out the before / after picture.

Kitchen Before/After -

The bad news is that I had no time to do any shooting this last week. So, I don't really have any new pictures to put up. I've got one that I took a few weeks ago that I'll include.

When looking for a new picture to take, I saw a lot of self-portraits head shots that people have taken of themselves and I thought they looked cool. I wanted a picture that was just of my head and face and pretty much cut everything else out. I also really liked the B&W processing that I did on my pictures of Paige, so I decided to apply that to this image as well. I just wanted it to be a very basic image. I really like the specular highlights that a lot of people get in these images (the light reflected in the eye or something like that), usually either from a flash or window, so I wanted to try to capture the same kind of thing. Since I don't have an external flash, I had to try to capture one using daylight and a window.

So, I headed down to our big front bay window and started snapping away. Trying to get the correct focus at f/1.8, shooting a picture of yourself is pretty tricky, so it took me several shots to get my left eye as the focal point and get the image I was looking for, but I was really pleased with how it came out in the end.



P.S. I'm sure some of you will be happy to know that I've since shaved off the grungy beard...I was several days past a trim / haircut when I shot the picture, so it looks extra dirt-baggish.

Let me know what you think.


T

5/52 - Love is hard work

Since it was just Valentine's Day this last week, I think that a picture of our wedding rings works out pretty well.

I was trying to think of a good title having to do with love or wedding rings or something sappy and I came across this quote, which I liked a lot.

"People usually talk about wedding rings being a perfect circle, with no beginning and no end. But, in reality, these rings do have a beginning. Diamonds are dug up from the earth, silver and gold are liquefied in a furnace at a thousand degrees. Hot metal is poured into a mold, cooled, then painstakingly polished. Something beautiful is made from raw elements.
Love is like that. It's hot dirty work. It comes from humble beginnings and is made by imperfect beings. It's a process of making something beautiful where there was once nothing at all."

I came up with the idea for this shot from a picture I found on-line where a wedding photographer took a very simple photo of the wedding rings on a glass. He had the bride's ring upside down, resting on the diamond and the groom's ring was square, so it stood on its own, next to the engagement ring, pretty easily. I didn't like the idea of the bride's ring being upside down and not being able to see the diamond, so I tried to change it up a bit. Since Paige has 2 wedding bands, they worked out really well to hold my ring up (since it's not square or flat), then I could put her engagement ring in the middle where you'd be able to see the diamond. And for the stand, it's just a wine glass flipped upside down. I like how it kind of looks like a glass pedestal. I held up a white plastic cutting board behind the rings and aimed a flashlight at them to give them a little sparkle.

In the end, I really like the way that it came out.



Let me know what you guys think.

T.

4/52 - D.O.F.

I'm a full week late on getting this picture posted, but, to my credit, I actually took it last week, but didn't get it uploaded until today. I've been traveling for work and just didn't get a chance to upload it before I left last week.

I wanted to try to get a picture this week with a very limited Depth of Field. I wanted to have a repeating pattern or structure in the picture to really show off just how shallow it was. I really wanted to be able to isolate one object within the whole picture.

I shot this with my 50mm f/1.8 (nifty fifty), which, with the very wide aperture, really helps you achieve the limited focal area.

I set this shot up at night, so all of the light that is illuminating the railings is from the moon coming in our big front window. I tried it a few times, using the house lights, but just couldn't get a very interesting look. I really like how the light is all coming from the side, giving a really nice contrast to the opposite side. With a quick conversion to black and white, I was all done.

I think that it turned out pretty well!



Let me know what you think.

T

3/52 - Floating Lillies

Well, I'm late again this week getting a picture posted. This picture is kind of weak sauce, but I figured I'd post it anyway. I tried shooting these flowers about 30 times and didn't get a picture that I really liked. I just couldn't get the light to work and my white background wasn't coming off as white and I was just having all kinds of problems. So, I stopped for a while, came back to it a while later and shot a few more frames.

I ended up getting this picture and liked it more than the other ones I shot. I'm still not crazy about it, but it'll do for now.

To get this shot, I used two pieces of white poster board for the background and a white piece of plexiglass for the base. I took two pieces of white wire hangers and cut them to make little stands for the flower, to get it up off of the ground and look like it was floating in the air. Later, I removed the stands in Photoshop.

I had the flower in front of a window, which I thought would give it pretty good light, but since the window isn't big enough, it was casting shadows on the white background and making it uneven. So, I put the whole set up in the middle of the kitchen counters and just shot with a long exposure to blow out the white background and make it look a little more uniform.

So, that's about it. Nothing too exciting.

Let me know what you think.

T

2/52 - B&W Model

Well, it's only week #2 and I'm already running late on posting, so this isn't looking promising!

Actually, I got these pictures done really early in the week, just didn't get them posted until today.

I've seen this style of pictures a lot lately and I really like the way that they look. I like the bleached out skin against the black background. It kind of gives a kick to the typical black and white picture.

These were both just shot in the bedroom against a black sheet for a background. The lighting set up was far less than professional as I was using a utility work light that has two lights on it facing right at her in front of the camera. But, I really like the way that they turned out.

It's nice having someone that is willing to pose for me whenever I feel like "trying something new".

So, thanks to Paige for indulging me and letting me experiment on her!





Let me know what you think.

T