He’s a pretty good sport

I was working out the kinks with my new flash and Sweetie was kind enough to sit for me for about ten minutes after working all day and teaching a computer class after work.

They say pets and their owners often start to look alike

Whaddya think?

Sweetie and Nina

Black on Black

This was a bit of a challenge and something I’ll keep working on: Shooting a black dog against a black background! I got a second flash (Nissin Mark II Di866) which I am now using as the master to the Canon 430 EX II.

Key light to camera left (Nissin) through white umbrella. Fill light (Canon) to the right of Nina with soft box above and behind her for rim lighting.

Technique Experiment

I used the same technique on these as I used on Maya’s photograph the other day. Both of these were processed in Nik Color Efex Pro, then brought back into Photoshop where I merged the Nik and original layers. From there I created a new copy layer to which I added the Gaussian blur filter. Using the erasure at 40%, I removed the blur from our faces and hair. Then upping the strength of the eraser to 85%, I focused on removing more blur from the eyes to make them stand out. Kinda fun.

You may recognize this photo of my daughter from the shoot I did in October.

This shot of me is a new one, just shot yesterday. More work on my portraiture lighting, I was going for a dramatic look. I think a darker background would have been better, but I was focusing on the lighting on my face more than anything and I was too lazy at the time to hang the backdrop.

Lighting Class

February 23, 2012. Taken during one of our early sessions in Jeff Ross’ studio. During this class we were learning how to light a wine bottle.

Vintage

My daughter got me a vintage lighting book for Christmas. I took a stab at Edwardian lighting today.

I put a soft box overhead to mimic a skylight, and diffused light coming from the living room window to camera left to open my face a bit more. I also placed a reflector card just to the right of me to throw a little more light at my back. I processed the photos in Color Efex Pro to give them a vintage feel.

You can see a few more at my SmugMug gallery.

Original color version of second shot

Day 332 – Antique Opera Glasses

Brad’s Grandfather owned these and we inherited them after his passing. They are in remarkably good shape, though I think I’d like to get them professionally cleaned. We also have another pair of Lemaire Fabt opera glasses, though not with mother of pearl as these are.