All right, school's done for the semester and I'm off 'til early January. I'll be doing some portraits of friends' kids and family. Here are some shots of my friends little boy Elijah. He possibly might be the cutest kid alive. You can't tell because you can't hear some of the stuff he says, but take my word for it.

"Does that thing have face recognition?"

It seems I link to Strobist in just about every post, but with the wealth of knowledge provided by David and all the readers, I feel obligated. I was watching an interview with Mr. Strobist himself, discussing the development and growth of the blog, and how the internet community has become enabling in ways the world has never seen. There is nothing between us and the information. It is all free.

I really can't imagine if it was 30 years ago, and I had picked up a camera and had to learn everything I've learned through school or from other people. On Strobist, and Flickr, I literally have the ability to communicate with tens of thousands of people who are willing to help and give advice. It really is amazing how much I've learned in the past year, and I wonder how much longer it would have taken me had I not had this gigantic communication platform from which to draw knowledge and valuable information.

That being said, technology doesn't do everything for us. Digital cameras are getting better and better, but it's not like you could give a monkey a brand new Nikon D2xs and expect great results. There is still some talent and skill involved. As I'm sure every photographer has experienced, someone sees your pictures and immediately remarks, "wow, your camera must be great!". This is somewhat off putting to say the least. Was LeBron James in the NBA at 20 years old because of his "super sneakers". No. My pictures don't look decent solely because of my camera's ability. As said in the interview, "a minimum of equipment is required to do the job, but the most important equipment is between your ears." Oh so true...

In one of my favorite analogies on the subject, David said
he used to tell his students something similar to the following when he taught college:
"Say you're in a valley, and on one hill there is a twenty-year old kid with an super-expensive automatic rifle. He has tons of ammo, but little know how or experience in marksmanship. On the other hill, there is an old man with a single shot bolt-action rifle, and he's been doing nothing but this for 20 years. Who are you going to be more afraid of?"

I just love that. Anyway, my super camera had this idea of stitching together 3 shots for a panorama of this nice church. I didn't get it at first, but it turned out pretty bitchin'.

TGIF

Here I am, doing a little holiday shopping, a little blogging. Wait till you see what I got you, you're gonna love it. Me? What do I want? Well, hopefully after this Christmas I'll have enough lighting gear to make the above shot more like this one, hint hint. Hey, they're only SB-26's. They're cheap on ebay. Cheers.

Weddings anyone?

A couple of dear friends of mine got married over a year ago, but didn't have a photographer. They rock hard, so I decided to take some shots of Danielle in her dress. We went out to Aldridge Botanical Gardens in the afternoon to try to snap off some keepers. It was funny, I had my umbrellas set up to provide fill light, and also overpower the ambient light on a few more dramatic shots (those are my favorite, but not as traditional). All the weekend photographers were out, taking pictures of their grandkids, nieces, nephews, and then stopping to stare at us before walking through my shot on their way to the pretty oak tree.



It was a shame we got there when we did, because by the time the light got really great with the sun going down, we were all tired and ready to call it a day. Thanks to Brett for letting me take pictures of his lady, you guys are champs.

Look

So, now I'm going to try to start posting more regularly. Having recently seen the work (and envious lifestyles) of Chase Jarvis, and the fine fellows at Bruton Stroube, I've been really inspired. Seeing the kind of commercial advertising photography of the aforementioned artists and the way they go about producing it, is amazing. They both do behind the scenes videos of their processes, and when I watch them I find myself thinking "wow, if I got paid to do that all day... I would really be livin' the dream." Photos like this, this, and this really light a fire under me to get out there and start making the best images I can.

This is my Dad's new frame. I was gonna do a cool shot of it to give to him for Christmas, but after I got this I had to show him. I took a long exposure and painted the bike with a flashlight.

P.S. - I really slacked on making some cool shots with my diy ring light, but I just don't have any hot babes with wind blowing through their hair at my disposal to make that happen. Until my girlfriend decides I can snap off a few of her, I'm outta luck. I'm afraid my Dad, and guy friends, just won't do for the sleek high-fashion look. I'll work on this...

The Ring

Armed with nothing but a free weekend and some Strobist determination, I decided to save a few hundred bucks and build my own ring light.

My main goal was to make a ring light that didn’t scream cardboard and paper “diy” construction (not that there’s anything wrong with that), and could be self contained and secure, without having to hold a loose speedlight somewhere around the ring. So, I started off with a trip to the local hardware superstore.
Total cost for materials: $27.29 (excluding an SB-600)

Materials used:
1. 1 pvc drain about 7 inches in diameter -- $13.98
2. 1 pvc drain about 3 and a half inches in diameter -- $8.55
3. Cheap foam tape - $1.98
4. Black spray paint for aesthetics*
5. 2 “L” brackets with screws*
6. aluminum foil*
7. gorilla glue and spray adhesive*
8. Laminating film -- $2.78
9. Transluscent paper*

*already had these around the house, not included in price

So, the first step was to cut off the square part of the pvc drain so as to make a ring. This proved to be quite a daunting task with a jigsaw and a dremel tool for touching up rough edges. The hardest part of the cutting was making the opening for the speedlight with the jigsaw. Next I painted both the drains black for a more dapper look.

The circumference of the second drain fit perfectly around the inside of the bigger drain. (I checked for drains that fit into each other at the store, this is crucial).

Then, I lined the inside of the big drain and the outside of the smaller one with aluminum foil using spray adhesive.

The next step is to glue the small drain (now just a ring) into the bigger one.

With the two L brackets fastened together, I screw one end into my tripod thing on the bottom of my D80, and on the other end screw in the hot shoe attachment for my SB-600.

I have the bracket with my SB-600 positioned so that my speedlight is pointing right up into the hole of the ring, firing light into it and reflecting throughout thanks to all the shiny aluminum foil.

After a few painstaking hours and pvc shavings and black paint on everything, I have my completely homemade ring light!!!!
The only things left were to fit the opening of the ring with foam tape so it sits safely and snugly around my lens, and cover the ring with laminating film and transluscent paper cut out into a ring to hide the aluminum foil and soften the flash a bit.

This is what the effect of the ringlight looks like, with a nice, even, halo effect around the subject. I like it.
I did a few other things that weren’t completely necessary, being a perfectionist and having a tendency to do everything the hard way.


Thanks to my dear ‘ol dad (pictured above) who helped a lot cutting metal and providing super ideas!
You can check out my Flickr page for example shots, along with more pictures of the process and finished product.

Oh, and if you haven’t already, check out Strobist.com for more do-it-yourself lighting mastery and really cool off-camera flash photography.


Update: light diffusion of the ring

My beautiful and too-awesome-for-words girlfriend got me these sweet old school cameras for my birthday, which was Saturday. The brown one is a Model 95 Polaroid Land Camera manufactured and sold in the late 1940s. It was the first "instant print" camera made. I know, how cool is that! They don't make film for it anymore, but it will be a great peice of memorabilia to have and place decoratively on a shelf somewhere.

The smaller black one is a Kodak Brownie, a very popular camera from the 1950s that takes really awesome shots from what I've seen. This one works and I have color and black & white film for it! I can't wait to play with this thing. When I do I'll scan the shots and put 'em up on the web.

My last birthday present, while less tangible then the first two, is probably the nicest thing anyone has ever given me. My girlfriend went to a local art gallery and showed the owner some of my work. Apparently she liked it, because they are going to have an exhibit of my photos sometime in January or February! I'm really excited about it. More details to come for sure, here's the gallery's website.