day 365 - last day

so, here it finally is, the last day of the 365..... it's been a good run. i've learned a lot, made a lot of mistakes, figured a lot of things out. it was a great learning experience, that's for sure. one of my rules for this was that i was going to keep things limited to lighting..... no crazy photoshoppin, no texturing or even dodging and burning of the images..... i wanted to get really great at lighting. and i think i have. i feel like i've really mastered my equipment at this point, i know what's going to happen if i put this umbrella here, and that reflector there. there's a predictability now that i never had before.

so what's next? well, since i've barely touched photoshop in so long, i probably need to re-up my game there. i'd like to start doing more composited type pieces, maybe start to work in some graphic design stuff on top of or behind my photography. and really start thinking in terms of concept more, and execution less. get back to my art school days, to try and make things that are solid conceptually, from beginning to end.

there are so many different types of things you can do in photography, and i want to get into all of them, really.

i'm really looking forward to shooting other people again. that'll be nice. not spending hour after hour staring at myself will be a welcome change.

i'll probably continue to put things here on this blog, but probably not as regularly as i have been. so that's it. see you people around.

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day 364 - mirrored light paint

i started this one out thinking i would do it all up in camera again..... the idea was to take a picture of me waving around the light saber, and then using the nikon camera effects, duplicate the picture, flip it horizontally, and then overlay it it back onto the original version.

but, apparently nikon didn't think anyone would ever want to flip a picture in the camera, because that's not an option. so i had to do it in photoshop. i kept it quick and dirty, got in and got out, and that's it. the reason one half of the image is darker and less contrasty than the other is due to differences between how my camera handles raw files and how photoshop handles raw files..... i could've fixed it, but i kinda like the asymmetry in all that symmetry.

day 363 - flower

alisia got some flowers, and wanted me to take a picture of 'em, so here it is. i did two setups, one natural light, one lit with a softbox. she liked the natural light one better, i prefer the darker, more mysterious softbox lit one. but anyways, figured i'd post 'em both. did a crazy gradient/vignette on the natural one, just to pop the center out some.

my choice probably just reflects a prejudice to lit photos. so prejudiced.

day 362 - overlay

did this one in-camera, if you can believe that. i just found out my camera has a multiple-exposure mode. i knew some nikons did this, but i didn't know that mine did..... it's not in any of the shooting modes, it's down tucked away in the image adjustment menu.

anyways, having found out about it, i wanted to try it. so i set up and took the usual picture.... big softbox camera right, 32" trigrip bouncing light back up into my face.... the usual. shot a bunch of those. then i went outside, put the camera into manual focus, put the lens as out of focus as it would go, and took a bunch of pictures of all of our neighbor's christmas lights.

came back inside (it's cold out there) and used the "image overlay" feature on the camera to drop a bunch of out-of-focus lights on top of my super-in-focus portrait.

it's cool, it takes me back to film days, when you'd click the shutter and not know what you got until you got back to the darkroom..... there's a certain mystery to it, and when you finally get your test print you're either elated or saddened by what you did or didn't capture.

i guess this brings what feels like an element of chance back into things. i could do the exact same thing in photoshop, with much greater control over it, but it's more fun this way.

day 361 - zoo

at the zoo. no setup shot, just alisia's surprised happiness, and a handheld sb-28 @ 1/64th into an sb-3 camera left. got the exposure set to catch the christmas lights, and that's it. a quick picture with a lot of lights in the background.

day 360 - warmed

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day 358 - light saber

i am interested in using cold cathode tubes to create a reshapeable light source.... so i could set up say eight white cathode tubes like spokes in a wheel and use them as a ringlight or a light halo. the cathodes put out a surprising amount of light for how small they are, i was able to shoot this at 1/160th of a second, f 1.8, iso 800....... and this is just one blue and one red cathode. eight white ones would be at least four times brighter, probably more since white is going to be brighter than the colored tubes (they're just white bulbs, with blue striping painted on them to make them blue, or red for red)..... i don't like working at 800 iso, but nik noiseware does a decent job of knocking sensor noise down to manageable levels. see the setup shot for noise levels before noiseware was used.....

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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.

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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.

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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?

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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.

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day 351 - squinty

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

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day 350 - warm flesh

this picture looks to me like a "allright, bye, i'm going to work honey!" kind of shot. i like it, but that's the only feel i get from it.

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day 348 - somber suspicion

lately i've been feeling this main-light-only-grazing-the-subject setup. using a reflector to provide fill makes it a very simple setup, and there's a good degree of difference between the "raw" light and the reflected light.

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day 347 - big smile

i was trying to get a convincing smile out of my recalcitrant model. finally started fake laughing, and then took the picture as the laughter stopped, but the smile hadn't faded yet.....

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day 346 - like a star exploding

all my batteries were being charged, so i challenged myself a bit to do up some one light type things. this one's allright, i like the super brightness in a dark room effect it has.

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day 344 - subtle skien

been going for this subtle mysterious type light for a bit now.... i keep getting closer and closer to what i want to see. this one's allright, dark but not too dark.

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day 343 - window blinded

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day 342 - second coming of tim

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day 341 - action jackson

yep, pretty dynamic pose there. no setup information.... guess i forgot to type it out. you'll just have to figure it out for y'self.

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day 340 - if you're gonna do it

if you're gonna do it, do it a lot. and think about what you're doing while you do it. think about what effect it's having, think about what's working and what isn't. do it again. compare new results to old. ask if it's better, or worse. ask why it's better or worse. then do it again. and again and again and again. look and think and look and think and try and try and try. then do it some more. you have to grind to make those little steps that other people think are so easy to take. figure out what works. then throw it away and start over. figure out something else that works, then throw that away and start again. this is style of no style, this is responding to what the concept requires. it sucks, but it's the only way i can think of to do it.

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day 339 - says

nothing.

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day 338 - full length

did this one up with the idea of going full length on it, which i almost never do. i look really tall in this picture for some reason.... weird.

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day 337 - flaming lips shirt

i like how it looks like wayne is trying to escape from my jacket.

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day 336 - track jacket

an odd angle, trying for something new in the living room.

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day 335 - up and down

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