I’ve been working a little more with my one light setup and my dog Tupper. This session was fairly easy for him. All he had to do was lie on the bed and listen to me whistle at him once in a while to get his attention back.

For the previous set, the light was closer to Tupper than it was to me, giving his far side a deep shadow which makes for a dramatic photo. This time around, I had the light positioned fairly close to me, thus throwing more light on the other side of his head and opening up the shadows.

Next time out, I’ll be trying a 2 light setup and seeing what sort of results I get. Better stock up on the milkbones!

I’ve been working more with my off camera lighting lately. After a certain point, taking stills of my son’s toys gets old. For a real challenge, I thought I would try working with my 9 year old collie, Tupper. While you may think he is cooperating, a lot of the time isn’t. He’s good at staying in the general vacinity of the camera, but he won’t always keep the position you put him in, or look where you want him too. At least I can afford his modeling fee. A handful of treats is all he asks for.

I was using a one light setup that gave me a fairly dramatic look to the images. I don’t think this would be a usual setup for me, but once in a while, it’s nice to go bold. And being the hairy beast that he is, I like the look.

I had to work quickly. Even with the treats, he has usually had his fill after about 20 minutes and is looking to escape!

Every year we include a picture of our son in the Christmas cards we send out. The picture above is the one that went out this year. It was taken one weekend in December when we were outside playing in the snow. That wasn’t the plan. I wanted one using an off-white backdrop, a tree, and maybe the dog. I wanted to do something with my off camera flashes now that I knew how to use them. My son had other ideas…

Below are some shots from the planned shoot. Unfortunately, my son wasn’t really interested in having his picture taken that day. It had been awhile since he was in the basement. He was more interested in his truck and my Rock Band guitar and drums. He’s used to the camera, he’s seen it since he was born. He’s been smiling when prompted since he was three months old. But today he had other interests.

Sometimes you just can’t get a toddler to cooperate. As I had left this to the last minute, there would be no second chance, if people were to get their cards before Christmas. Rather than try and force it, I called it quits and went in search of a recent picture I already had, as my wife and I weren’t really crazy with any of the shots that I managed to get.

Next year, I’ll get started earlier, so I have more than one attempt at getting my shot.

A couple of weekends ago, I was off to another lighting workshop. This one was courtesy of Don Giannatti. Somehow I stumbled across his Lighting Essentials blog about a year ago, and have been following along ever since. It was 2 full days of all out lighting, 8am to 5pm. Funny how the time flies by when you’re having fun. It was an intense weekend of learning. Don covered everything from studio lights and small flash, to umbrellas, bounce tools, light meters, beauty dishes, and working with models. I’m sure I’ve left something out. Don has been doing this stuff for a long time and has a vast amount of knowledge. He even ended the weekend with a session on ‘going pro’ if you were able to stick around. So Sunday didn’t end at 5pm, it was more like 8pm. Did I mention it was a long weekend? I learned a lot and am ready to start putting it to practice.

I have posted a few photos from that weekend. I will probably post some more once I have had a chance to sift through them all.

A couple of weeks ago, I had the pleasure of taking another course with Harry Nowell. It was a custom course, which was great because it gave Nathalie Madore and myself plenty of time to ask questions and try out different things. While it’s impossible to learn everything about lighting in a single day, Harry gave us a good base so that we would have the confidence to start shooting and building our comfort with studio lights.

The first part of the day covered a bunch of technical stuff including strobes, light meters and hot lights. The second part of the day had us setting up a couple of scenes to shoot photos of some models he had arranged to come in to the studio for us.

Though the time flew by too quickly, it was a fun day and I learned a lot. It was definitely a good start to kicking my fear of flash. Thanks Harry!

It’s not precise. It’s not meant to be. But it will allow me to quickly setup my flash to get decent results quickly. I can then concentrate on playing with minor adjustments to tweak the lighting for my photos.

By using this piece of rope, I will also reinforce visually, the distance at which I am setting up my flash from my subject to produce my exposures. Do this enough, and I will start to engrain the setup process in my mind, to the point where I am able to eyeball my flash setup and get properly exposed photos with relatively minor tweaking. Sounds familiar? Then you’ve probably been visiting the Strobist.

Now that I have built my low tech light meter, it’s time to get to work and start using it. I hope to start posting some results shortly.