I convinced my youngest daughter to sit for me for a few minutes. I mostly wanted to try to capture her eye color but I really liked how she looked in this one. It seems to capture who she is.
Strobist: One strobe at 1/4 power bounced into a silver umbrella at camera right.
I haven’t been able to spend the time I’d like on lighting techniques or photography in general. One of the things I need to do is take my camera with me everywhere. Already I’ve seen a few things that I wanted to shoot and realized that I was out of luck because my camera was sitting at home on my dining room table. I threw together a few shots today just to keep my feet in the water. I think they can be improved, but I’m not interested in staying up until midnight to figure it out. I’m hoping to devote more time in the coming weeks to taking photos.
Strobist: One strobe at 1/16 power to right of balls and slightly above. Shot through white fabric to soften and white foam-core on right to bounce the light back.
This is a cup and saucer set that was my grandmothers. I was looking for something to shoot and my eyes landed on this.
Strobist: Strobe through side of macro studio at 1/16 power just above the base. I wanted to try to get some of the detail to pop out.
Sort of a strange title considering I don’t post a self-portrait every day. I took this in the foyer. I figured it was time for a daytime shot with something other than a black background behind me.
Strobist: Ambient light coming in from rear camera left. Flash at 1/4 power through softbox (ok, really it’s my macro studio box over the flash) from camera right.
Our magnolias are blooming, the first sure sign of spring. I had to capture them before I missed my opportunity.
Strobist: Vivitar 285HV at 45 degrees behind the flowers at 1/4 power (I think)
Here’s my self-portrait for the day. I’m feeling especially strong and good about myself after a fantastic lesson in tae kwon do.
Strobist: One Vivitar 285HV fired from directly above at 1/16 power. I tried to soften it by shooting it through a few layers of tracing paper. I really need to get a softbox and/or white umbrella, ya think? Sent through PS to black out the background.
Strobist: Nuked with one Vivitar 285HV at 1/16 power placed slightly behind and level with the flower about 3 feet away. Sharpened slightly in photoshop, and fixed the background. It was a velour type material and the light raked it badly.
This was mostly an experiment to try to get the best focus and sharpness out of my kit lens. I’ve been struggling with finding the sweet spot, and I realized that I’m going to have to do a little sharpening in PS to get the results I’m looking for.
Given that I managed to get back into the 365days thing, I thought I would do a more arty type self-portrait.
I’m sitting on the floor with black foam-core behind me. I have one Vivitar 385HV strobe shooting at 1/16 power through a snoot a bit in front of and to the right of the camera, mounted about 4.5 feet high. I did some PS work to get rid of blemishes and try to tone down the shine. I tried using a reflector to bounce light back at me to give me some separation from the background, but either I couldn’t get the angle right, or I really need another light/flash in order to accomplish this.
I got my strobist gear and I’m already hooked! Here are the two best results from shooting today:
Unfortunately, I managed to amputate a toe on the first one, and I think the lighting works better on the second one. If I could have the first one better composed and with the lighting of the second, I would be thrilled. Overall, I’m very happy with the results and can’t wait to see what I can do with this new gear and information.
Here’s the lighting info: One Vivitar 285HV set at 1/16th power, ceiling height about 6 feet in front and roughly 30 degrees to my left (to the right of the camera). Reflector on my right but not sure it was positioned correctly to bounce enough light back. I wish I had more time to play today, but alas, the in-laws are coming for dinner, so the house must be attended to.
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