On Second Thought....

... maybe I do like the beach after all.

I was coming out of a friends house this evening and saw an awesome sunset developing. But I'm 6 miles from the coast through traffic, I don't have my camera, and it looks like the sun has maybe 20 minutes before it goes below the horizon.



I ran home as quick as I could, grabbed my camera and tried to head to the beach. When it was clear I'd never get to the beach in time, I opted instead for the inland water way that seperates us from the Gulf of Mexico. A nice little park right in town, with lots of birds that have been tamed by human feeding and contact.



This guy was kind enough to pose for me.
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Fall Has Fell

For the life of me I don't know why I live near the beach. Never have been fond of it. My house is 5 miles from the most beautiful part of the Northwest Florida Gulf Coast and I could count the number of times I've been to the beach in the last 10 years on one hand. Something about the sand and salt that just doesn't appeal to me.

My wife and I claim we are mountain people and often joke that we should pull up stakes and move. Of course that isn't going to happen any time soon, but it's fun to imagine.

Of course, the Gulf Coast does have it's natural charms but one thing that this part of the country definitely lacks is Autumn character. Most of the trees that we have here are green year round and those that aren't don't really go through much of the glorious change that is evident in other parts of the country at this time of year.

This shot isn't in the mountains. Far from it actually. This was shot in Lawrence, Kansas about 5 minutes after sun up. I had scouted this spot out while visiting my grandson and carefully watched the weather and sunrise times. After several days of heavy overcast, it seemed as if both would come together at just the right time so I got up early to be here about 15 minutes before the sun rose above the surrounding trees and started shooting.

The sun had just fully emerged from the tree line that is back over my right shoulder. I was fully expecting a glorious show when the sun hit this Fall foliage and I wasn't disappointed.
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The Giant Softbox

When you've been bitten by The Strobist bug, you sometimes get wrapped up in all the equipment and such. So much so that it's easy to forget that at it's core, The Strobist philosophy is really nothing more then thinking about and controlling the direction and quality of light.

So after you've shot a large number of frames using off-camera flash and modifiers like umbrellas and softboxes, you can start to think about and appreciate how to get the same effect when you don't have that gear available.

And there is no better soft box than the big, giant one in the sky that you get with a thinly overcast sky. No flash needed. Just get the directional light positioned for a bit of rim or back light, expose for nice, saturated colors, and fire away.

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Shooting On The Run

Learning and using off camera flash, ala The Strobist, is a great way to really ramp up your photography skills and results. The downside, if there is one, is that once you get used to the outstanding results as compared to bare, on-camera flash, you never want to go back. But that presents some real challenges when presented with a "shoot on the run" situation like you might encouter during an event like a party or reception. You obviously can't run around with a set of stands and umbrellas and then ask people to stand there while you fiddle with the gear and set the exposure. You've got to be able to shoot quickly and move on.

I was presented just such a challenge recently when my new grandson came for a visit. I wanted to have the camera ready and be able to fire in an instant, but couldn't mess with hauling all of the Strobist gear around.

So the night before, I rigged up a DIY bounce card, which consisted of a 5X8 index card, with a few large holes cut in it. I flipped the flash head straight up and attached the bounce card so that most of the light went up to the ceiling, with the perforated bounce card catching just enough residual light to provide some near-on-axis fill. This is a fast improvement over ceiling bounce alone, which tends to create some darkish shadows around the eye sockets and under the nose and chin.

I also bungied a Cybersync flash trigger to the flash so I could hold it off camera at about arms length away. Getting the flash off the lens axis gives a little more form and depth to the light, rather than that typical harsh, washed out look that bare, on-camera flash results in.

To finish the prep, I spent about an hour experimenting with various aperture, shutter and shooting distance combinations to come up with an optimal set that would let me shoot from about 7-8 feet away without having to make any exposure adjustments at the camera. Any minor discrepancies were such that I could fix in post processing.

Now I was ready for Hudson's arrival. Although I shot a lot of typical candid group shots during the week, the two shots in this post were my best keepers and speak volumes to what you can do to get the best of both worlds with a simple set up - namely the beauty of off camera flash and the flexibility to shoot and run.

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A Room With A View

The third Strobist Boot Camp assignment is to shoot an interior residential space. This is the den in my home. The wood floors were installed by yours truely a few months ago. This was a tough room to shoot. The fireplace obviously needs to be the focus of any shot of this room. Getting lights positioned so they aren't actually in the frame or flashing hot reflections off the glass in the doors was the first challenge. Second challenge, totally self imposed, is I don't have a wide angle lens. I would like to have given this a little "grander" feel with a wider view but this was as wide as I could get with my equipment.

My food product shoot got one of David's "Good job!" remarks. Although I didn't make the top 10 finalists, getting a thumbs up out of a group of 800+ was still pretty cool for me. If I do as well with this one, I just don't know what I'll do with myself.

Update

No joy from David on this shot. I was a bit luke warm on it myself but I found this to be incredibly difficult.
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An Instrument of Praise

Gena is a dear friend and neighbor. She plays piano at our church and we've lived right around the corner from her for about 15 years. Our kids grew up knowing each other and hanging out together.

Gena has been teaching piano in her home for many years. Her brother is also an accomplished pianist and recently decided to "upgrade" his instrument. This Yamaha baby grand was his piano before his recent purchase. It now graces the front room of Gena's home and her students have a really outstanding piano at which to sit and learn.

This was a challenging shot because the room that the piano is located in is quite small. The piano occupies at least one half to two thirds of the floor space. The location of windows and other things in the room further restrict the possible shooting angles. And the distance from the piano to the back wall is very short, making it somewhat difficult to control the light on the background.

The back wall is also just a plain white painted surface. I wanted to spruce things up just a bit so I placed a blue gelled flash down on the floor in the space between the piano and the wall and shot it downward into a large white reflecter, resulting in the blue background.
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An Unexpected Compliment

Strobist blogger David Hobby gave out the second assignment for the 2009 Strobist Bootcamp II about a week and half ago. This time the assignment was a food product shot.

I must confess that I didn't warm up to the challenge very quickly. Product photography and still lifes have never held much interest for me and I spent most of the week arguing with myself as to why I wouldn't bother with this one. But guilt got the better of me on the night before the due date and I hastily tried to put something together.

Based on what I saw of the other submissions, I thought this was pretty lack luster and while I wasn't embarassed by the end result, I also didn't think it demonstrated anything particularly noteworthy.

Low and behold, I'm looking at my Flickr account and my submission got one of David's "Nice Work!" postings. As he did on the first assignment, he goes through all 700+ submissions and any that he thinks are potential candidates for the final round get a "thumbs up" comment from him on Flickr. Needless to say a "thumbs up" or "nice work" from David Hobby is a pretty big deal to an aspiring amateur photographer and new Strobist.

I'm keeping my fingers crossed that I'll also get one of the highlights in the final results posting on the Strobist blog. But even if I don't, I'm more than content to get this nod of approval.
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