Maybe It Stands for "Like!"

I'm driving home doing the Bop and Sway butt dance in my car listening to the Dead Weather. It was another long day, so the car feels like freedom and I'm busting out the lyrics super loud. I might have even thrown in a cool guy rock move here and there. Whatever, my car makes me invisible so I do what I want.

Yabbut, hold on. At the light I am next to a car and it seems my inviso screen is failing a tad. I can feel someone looking at me. Hmm hmm! It's a youthful gal! I bet she's super-impressed that I am secure enough in my manliness to sing with such gusto in the car. Yes. What's this? She seems to have a very serious look on her face. She's not sure what to make of Mr. Car Singer. She's... no wait, she's raising her hand up to the side of her face. She's extending her index finger, now her thumb. Boy she looks serious. She's... Oh wait, that's the L for Loser symbol, nevermind.

Green light! I'm out!

But screw her, the Dead Weather are cool. Im not stopping.

Questions from a Stranger

So, I took the day off work and went to the Flash Bus Tour yesterday. Interesting seminar, but mostly I enjoyed getting out of the house and routine for a bit. Quick review: Hobby was a better teacher, McNally seemed more interested in showing off how cool he was and how many shots he could nail. But damn, could he nail shots! He pulled people from the audience, lit them each in different ways in minutes and snapsnap: the results were on the wall 20 feet high immediately. He'd adjust and reshoot to solve problems, but it was such a crazy pace that it became more theater than instruction.

Anyway, I get there and the seating is wedding-style. We sit around tables with strangers and during the breaks and after lunch we make small-talk with each other. So the guy at my table and I start chit chatting a bit.

First question he asks: what kind of photographer are you? Uh, I'm not really. I'm just some guy. You're not a pro shooter? Hunh. This fact, which I hadn't really considered before was made very obvious during the course of the day where speakers were baiting the crowd with comments like: "Yeah! We are crazy photographers! We love this and we do this and that and we think about it all the time!" Big cheer from everybody else but I'm like Errr, not me, dude. In fact, I still secretly harbor my painter's prejudice that photography isn't a fine art, but more of a craft.

So what are you doing my table-mate wants to know? Well, I guess I want to communicate things to my friends and family and this is sort of a language for that. I like images and work in the field of graphics, so I guess it's not that weird. But am I a photographer? Not really.

That said, what's going on here? Well, Hobby's preso was kind of about lighting in layers. He talked about additive light and the different kinds of light typically used in shots. Although no one really said it, the whole seminar and every example was about shooting people.

So I thought I would take some snaps this morning and take it for a drive. The one above is a single light shot. I'm just standing in my living room. at 1/250th f5.6 the ambient is black and all you see is the things the flash hits.

So, to see the other side some you add a second fill light on very low power. That's below. You have to play around a bit to decide how much drama you want to trade off for visibility. I'm using a ring flash to spread out the light on camera right so it isn't so obvious. Oh, and they gave us these colored gels as a freebie at the seminar, so I put a 1/2 orange on the main light to warm things up.
So I played around there for a while and then I thought I'd try to bring some background in with a third light. I liked the thing with the corks the other day, so I used that same BBQ tray on my final flash and used it to light the venetian blinds behind me. This is also on very low power but it goes a long way.
I liked the background texture, but my friend Marie commented on the sexy blue color on those shots and that made my think I should switch the orange gel for a blue one.

And that's where I ended up for the morning session. I dialed back the fill light on this one to go for the creepies.

Quick Corks

In the cork snap in the previous post, I failed to mention that I was using a grid. The shot is basically the corks in a rocks glass on it's side. There is a flash to camera right as before, but this time I velcro'ed a grid to the light to make it more directed. This, plus the texture of the rocks glass gave the light more drama.

I liked the effect so I thought I would try a little more with it. The shot above I just dumped them on the white paper and shot through the g

rid again. But since a grid is basically a square with a bunch of holes in it, I thought I would further the effect by putting a metal grid up there as well. One of those metal trays with patterned holes that you use to grill veggies.

I like the drama, but maybe too much

So, I took the grid off the flash and just shot through the bbq tray. The next step is to monkey around with the distance the flash is to the grid. The closer it was, the more pronounced the holes. Look at this shot and the one below. The grid pattern in

the background is softer and further because I moved the flash around. I should have also moved the bbq tray around now that I think about it.I wanted to show a little more of the dark side of the corks so I added a second light on camera left with the power turned down very low. I also put up a piece of cardboard so the light would only fall on the back side of the corks.

Or at least that was the idea.

I think it was partially successful.

Flashes are flexible and cheap compared to pro lights, but it can be hard to visualize the effects and then evaluate correctly the impact. Remember that on the counter this just looks like corks on a piece of paper. In fact it looks like this:

There's the bbq tray leaning against the coffee maker. Fancy, no?

Spring forward

Lately Notes from the Road has been more like Notes from the Living Room. I've been working long hours and on nights and weekends I've mostly got head space to pick away at chores and zonk out. And that's been about it.

But this week was Spring Break, the work week was easier and I have a short week next week. I'm taking Thursday off to see McNally and Hobby speak in Dallas about small flash work. I'm taking Friday too just for the hell of it. This pressure respite coincides with the change in weather. And as someone reminded me, this weekend was Holi.

Holi as you likely know is an Indian holiday that I don't really understand. But it seems to be a Spring time transitional thing. Holi, Lent, whatever: it's time to clean house and bring the good stuff in.

My friend is moving as well and it's interesting to hear a different perspective on the move. Some things are the same in our situations, some different, but it reminds me to keep busy at it.

So these are more macros in the series. Same set up as last post.

I'm getting more comfortable building light levels.

Things like this that don't move or get impatient are good subjects to learn around.

Somehow things that seem obvious and banal when you say it come as sort of a surprise in practice. Like: you need more light to light dark things. Oh, well.

The techniques I'm playing with (off camera lighting with small flashes) is the subject of the seminar I'm going to next week.

Curious to watch folks solve problems and set stuff up on-the-fly.

These are coming out ok. I might get a new tripod. A clasp on the old one stopped closing, so you have to tape it in place or it collapses. THey are so spendy though.

Ah, whatever: it's time for new stuff. Spring forward.

The Brian Currier Alternative

More of these high f-stop macros.

I think I've started to solve the cranberry color issue.

Using less light helped.

I like these kind of shots because they don't seem like me.

Yellow is Healthy

Some more shooting this morning before running chores.

Same set up as the last couple posts: f45 at 300mm macro 1/250.

I've taken a 17x19" piece of art paper, set it on the counter in my kitchen and curled it up against the wall for a backdrop.

I'm using two flashes off-camera.

The one on camera left is pointed straight up. It hits the bottom of the shelf in the kitchen and bounces back to provide overall light.

The flash on camera right is very close to the subject and firing through a diffuser dome.

The flashes are on manual power, so you can play around with how much you give the two different sources to affect how lit. In the past I've used TTL (which is kind of like "automatic") and made +/- changes based on that to balance my light. Lately I'm moving away from that; especially in situations like this where things aren't changing on-the-fly much.

Anyway: the point is I wanted to shoot the fibery item above. I took a few shots, but the color always runs to cranberry instead of the rich burgundy it really is.

After about 6 snaps I espied the item below and switched subjects

Any sense of what it is? Looks woody, right? Kind of: it's the bottom of a dried mushroom.

I liked the model-city look that the hard light and high aperture gave it, so I kept shooting for a while.
Afterwards I was thinking: this is about the third or fourth thing in this color family I've shot recently. Not that I care one way or the other, but in my Art Theory and Criticism class we were trained to always examine our reactions and isolate the personal portion. It helps strengthen your critical muscle and teaches you about yourself.

So what's with all the yellow?

I think it's a sign of healthiness.

I don't entirely believe in Chinese Acupuncture medicine 100% but I've seen very strong results from it, so I pay attention. In the 5 Element school I am the Earth sign: yellow is my color.

Heck, as a jaundiced baby I was even born yellow.

And I am starting to turn the corner on the move. I still feel like I'm on a business trip, but it's coming around. I'm getting more active and less exhausted (although there is still a lot of that).

I think things spiral up and spiral down, so I'm trying to put more in as I'm on the ups. Do more, shoot more, go out more get active.

So basically: I like a yellow, creamy color.
On a side note: that cranberry color infected everything it touched. You only see it zoomed way in, but it was on this guy too. I edited those shots out

Prepone It

One of the vendors we work with was unable to attend a meeting I had scheduled on Friday. She sent me a note proposing to move the time a couple of hours earlier. So, like 11am instead of 1pm.

Her text requested that we kindly prepone the meeting.

Prepone? Ah; the opposite of postponing. I suppose that makes it just poning if you don't do anything.

Well, it wasn't the dumbest word I heard that day.

My counterpart supervisor was talking about this restaurant she had been to where the (female) waitresses and staff were all dressed very provocatively. It came as sort of a shock to her.

Later, I was in a separate conversation with other folks about differing BBQ places in the area. I mentioned the restaurant where the girls dress slutty. Everyone knew immediately what I was talking about: oh that place. That's a breastaurant.

A what now?

Breast-aurant. Apparently that phenomenon is pretty common here; they were all able to rattle off half a dozen of them. Oh, brother.

Anyway. I don't have much to report.

These are some snaps I was working on earlier.

I spent some time trying different lighting and aperture combinations to see what would happen. After a while, I had something I was amused with and started setting new arrangements. The brussel-sproat looking thing back there is one of those vase-fillers you buy at Target. I was happy with the sharpness falloff I was getting on it, so I was looking forward to editing them. Imagine my sadness when I saw that I had captured all the little ugly tears in the surface and sloppy glue trails that held it together.

Should have looked closer. Instead I preponed my editing and ended up with a smaller set of things to choose from. Even the "keepers" I'm showing you here you can see the glue amd stuff.

Bleagh