day 357 - high contrast

i'm using the silver disc reflector here, which i almost never do. it's interesting, very different from the white reflector sleeve. this gives a much more contrasty feel.... which is nice. i usually wind up cranking up the contrast in lightroom, but with this silver reflector i barely had to turn up the contrast at all. so that's something.

setup shot:

day 356 - blue menace

alisia got home as i was setting up for a quick shot. so i got her to model instead of me. it's better this way, trust me.

setup shot:

day 355 - abstract

i put electrical tape on the blue tube every inch or so, to get that striated look. waited until it was dark outside, then turned off all the lights in the living room and turned on the light saber. set the camera to a 2 1/2 second exposure at f 9.0, and kept hitting the button until i got one i really liked.

i really like this one. especially the purple glow on the ceiling. my only wish is that the bottom right corner didn't drop out of the frame like that..... but what're you gonna do?

setup shot:

day 354 - cathode portrait

cold cathode tubes again. this time i wanted to set up a portrait on top of the abstract, so i got alisia to stand in front of me, set up my 40" softbox camera right @ 1/4 power, and had it rear sync on a two and a half second exposure. pressed the button, waved the cathode around, and here it is. cathode portrait.

day 353 - cold cathode

 

i ordered some cold cathode tubes from newegg the other day. they're these small thin bulbs that are usually used by car geeks as ground effects, or by video game geeks to make their computers look "cool" with a transparent case. anyways. they run on 12 volts, so it's easy to put the camera on a tripod, wave one of these around, and get a cool abstract design thing.

day 352 - shadowy

i'm still digging this type of shot, you have to be careful about your black levels, though. it's easy to overwhelm this type of lighting with your black tones. usually i'm pushing up the darks in lightroom, if you push them up here it all goes to noise and blotchyness.

setup shot:

day 351 - squinty

oh yeah, staring off into the sunset, trying to remember how i got here.

setup shot: