day 232 - big color lens flare

i was getting ready to supergel things, and i thought i would try mixing that with some flash into the camera stuff. it came out allright, i used a honl grid to prevent the flash into lens from going all over the place. not a bad turnout.

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day 231 - working big

i usually work really close, with an umbrella or diffuser or whatever literally inches from my face, just outside of the shot. i figured for this one i'd work a bit bigger, turn up the lights and give myself a bit more room to move around in.  it doesn't look any different because it's still an up close kind of shot, but it's bigger, trust me.

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day 230 - future bright?

still rockin the hard blue light versus the soft white umbrella. it's a good look for me, but i'm wondering what psychological buttons it's pushing..... does it feel like it's in a hospital, or some other clinically sterile room? i think it feels a bit like the future..... like tokyo in 2045 or something. very future bright or maybe dystopian. it's too early in the movie to tell.

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day 229 - v3

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day 228 - v2

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day 227 - v1

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day 226 - on camera diffuser

still have the flash on camera, but this time i've got it aimed into a diffuser above the camera. moved the background light to the side for more of a gradient thing, i think it works pretty well. getting a bit of an ugly shadow back there, but it's acceptable.

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day 225 - gloww

still on camera. still pointed at the ceiling. this time i lit the background also, to get that silhouetted feel. it would be really easy to blow out the corners and sides of this picture and make it look like a full white seamless shot. but i left it at the glow, i kinda like the glow.

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day 224 - above and below

so this time i took the on camera flash and pointed it at the ceiling, then pointed the main off camera flash at the floor. this is getting closer to the type of thing i like. got some slash lighting going on camera left, and that's it.

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day 223 - off ceiling

still attempting the on camera flash thing. this time i'm attempting to bounce it off the ceiling for a more diffused feel.... it's mostly working. filling in some shadows, but not others. i dunno. maybe i just need to take this idea outside during the day for it to be effective. maybe my living room is just too dark to rock this look at a low enough level.

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day 222 - on camera

here i wanted to do a strobist/ziser on camera flash fill thing. i've never had any luck with this setup.... seems like i can't get the flash into the right power settings. with this one i threw the diffuser on it, and popped a dark green gel on there. it did cut the light enough, and filled in a few dark areas, i think.

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day 221 - soft brown

yep.

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day 220 - ubmrella

i know i misspelled up there, but i like the way it looks. and ub-mer-ellah just sounds cool in my head. so here i've put away the softbox (i know, it's an addiction for me) and got out the 60" umbrella. it's one of those things where as soon as i use it i'm asking myself why i don't use it all the time?

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day 219 - hi kee

this is my white seamless attempt without white seamless. i really need to sack up and buy some, i just haven't gotten around to it yet. i like this pose..... makes me look a bit fat, but it's worth it. and i know i'm cutting off my hands..... but like i said, i like this pose.

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day 218 - the subtle slice

this is the type of lighting that i've seen other people do, and not been able to figure out. and i'm not too sure i've figured it out here either. two largish light sources on either side of the face, leaving a shadow area down the side of the nose and mouth..... i dig it. it's picking out textures without blowing anything away. it's more subtle than i can usually manage. i'm usually more of a high-contrast blown out look guy. this is more delicate.

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day 217 - gold gel

one of the colors in my strobist gel pack is this gold gel, i threw it on the flash intending to use it like i do the others, to color in some shadows and make things extra color tweaky, but i quickly realized it was doing excellent things for my northern european / haven't seen sun in weeks skin tones. so i flipped things around and used it as my main light, and the ungelled softbox as my backlight.

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day 216 - 10 feet tall

looking up!

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day 215 - cerulean blue

here i was experimenting with uplighting using a cerulean blue gel.... i think it adds a bit of color contrast that wouldn't ordinarily be there.

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day 214 - lace and things

alisia has these old pieces of lace something.... they look like shawls or wraps, but they're just aged lace. so i took one and set it up with a light projecting through it onto the background. i think it adds something, even though it's difficult to tell exactly what's going on back there.

it kinda makes my wall look like a muslin background.... which is weird.

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day 213 - old masters

simple shot, using the softbox and a trigrip for a bit of bounce. this is kinda the style i've been gravitating to over the last few months..... sort of an "old masters" lighting setup, with just a bit of light touching the back wall, and soft directional light on the subject. wrapped in shadows and all that. it's a good style, you don't see it all that much these days, but maybe it's time for it to make a comeback.

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day 212 - greyscale conversion

i made this video for this picture, to show my lightroom workflow, and how i do custom lightroom greyscale conversions. here it is (click the little tv to go full screen):




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day 211 - fogged window

 

figured with the fog, i'd see how the window blinds played. i switched lenses to the 35mm for the wide open aperture / out of focus background, and fired away. i think the fog is very subtle here..... but it adds a bit of ethereal type feel to it that i'm not sure would otherwise be there. so not bad.

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day 210 - fog plus color

 

there's still fog here, but now it's more evened out. i threw some gels on the background lights to see how the colors would pick up in terms of tinted fog. it worked out well. no setup shot, but the setup is similar to day 209's in terms of light placement and strengths.

day 209 - fog machina

yeah, i chose this shot because i liked that lens flare right there on my forehead. but now, looking at it, i'm not so sure it's helping. the fog does look really cool, though. this one was taken early in the fog process.... while the fog was still mostly behind me, and hadn't quite gotten all around the room yet.

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day 208 - threefold

this is like a triangle of light. one soft, two hard. no gels.

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day 207 - burnt umber

so, in this one i've still got that pink gel on the main source, but it works a bit better here with the dark red/orange background. and the ungelled hard light from the rear looks pretty solid on the right side of my face.

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