old picture

this is an old picture i never posted anywhere, i don't remember why. but i still have it, and i still like it, so i thought i would post it here. this is my friend corrina and her daughter. shot this in a park in eugene at sunset, i was standing on a bench to get the angle right, and the sun was setting behind them, giving that warmed up backlight glow.

i think this is the type of setting i'm going to have to start aiming for..... less in front of a wall, more outside with colorful things out of focus in the background.

i have a trash the dress shoot tomorrow, so i'm getting everything i'm going to need together. camera? check. softbox? check. light stands? check. smoke bombs? check. it's gonna be a good one.

white seamless

so, i just bought some white seamless paper to use as a background, and this is my first attempt at doing the white with no detail thing. i think it went pretty well.... i didn't pull out quite enough of the paper, so i caught a bit of the light meant for the background on my face and clothes, had to do some dodging and burning in photoshop to even things out, but all in all it came out really well. tomorrow i'm getting a roll of charcoal seamless in the mail, that should be really sweet.

a pre-photoshop image:

hard light addon

so, i'm usually trying to kill the ambient light in my pictures. however, i think that's something that i'm going to start moving away from.... move from all flash to a mix of flash and ambient. in this picture, it's almost all ambient, with a kicker flash, hard aimed at my face to wrap some dramatic shadows on me. camera left we have an open window, with grey skies outside throwing in cool light, and camera right we have an incandescent lamp throwing warmth up into the wall and ceiling.

i think it's a pretty good balance.... without the flash, my face is complete shadow. with it, i suddenly have ominous features and definition.

more to come.