How I Spent my Sunday, Part 2

Daughter came over to help me with my lighting assignment – portrait using a continuous light source and a flash/strobe. On the advice of our instructor, I shot her with a much longer lens than the previous week. I’m quite pleased with the results.

Ali doing her best Blue Steel and trying not to laugh. See “Zoolander”

Lovely!

And one in black and white . . .

And here is the best of the motion blur effect I tried to replicate. Given the ambient light in the room, it wasn’t as strong as I’d hoped it would be. Still, it has a bit of an ethereal, Mona Lisa quality to it. This was shot at 100 ISO, 1/13s at f/3.5. After pressing the shutter I zoomed in to create the blur and halo around her face. Next time I’ll do this in a darker room. I did not block off the windows as carefully as I usually do.

Speedlight Class

We had fun today! We moved all over the Nevada Museum of Art with our models. This is Tony. we were on the fourth floor. Speedlight to camera right shooting through white umbrella. White reflector providing fill to camera left. The lovely gleam in the elevator doors was from the window directly behind us.

Can you take good portraits with just a single speedlight? Yes, you can.

Tommy

Jacey – by the beautiful window in the lobby (to camera left). Speedlight through white umbrella to camera right for fill.

Darius – also by the window (camera right) with reflected light from speedlight to camera left for fill.

Darius and Jacey

On the roof with sunlight at back of our models.

Spencer

Tony and Viola. In open shade with speedlight through white umbrella at camera left.

Can I recreate this at home?

I am pretty sure I can. I’ll find out on Sunday. I’ve got the lights, the shower curtain, and the ability.

From Wednesday night’s portrait class in Jeff Ross’ studio.

36 photographs

Back in September 2011, I fell into photography. Back story: I wanted to take some classes at UNR (University of Nevada – Reno), and I figured it would be a snap. After all, I had a degree and had therefore met the prerequisites for most classes. Or so I thought. Because of my student status (Graduate Special), the school would not evaluate my transcripts to determine if I’d met the prerequisite for taking a class. So here I was, admitted to the school, but my hands tied for taking anything that required that I’d even met the barest of requirements to take a class! But there was a class I could take while I got everything straightened out: ART 141, Introduction to Digital Photography. And so I signed up.

Our first assignment, designed to get us used to using our cameras in manual mode, was to shoot 36 images in a row, as though we were shooting a roll of film. That meant, NO deleting, and no editing beyond converting to black and white. Here is my project. There is nothing spectacular about these photographs, but they are a slice of my life.

The first few images were taken at the Reno Air Races on Friday, September 16th. This was the day of the horrible crash and Sweetie and I were in the thick of it.

This is where I put my camera away for the day. I had plans to do more shooting the next day. And then, during the last race of the day, all hell broke loose.*

We spent all day Saturday at home. Crying mostly. On Sunday we needed an escape, so we put the dogs in the car and headed up to Spooner Lake. The walk helped. There was an “art” event going on along the trail.

Monday night on the university grounds.

And to finish up the roll, as I was down to my final two days, I shot in my office and around the grounds.

This is my favorite photo of the set.

At the duck pond near my work.

Back on the grounds at work.

*If any of you are interested in reading about our experience with the crash and the journey we took, here is a link to all my posts at my other blog.

http://bluelyon.wordpress.com/category/home-life/reno-air-races/

My latest post is first, so you’ll have to go back to the first post on September 15, 2011 and read in order from there.

Target

My brother’s family’s dog. She’s a sweet girl.

Aftermath

In a tree in at the back of the property where my brother and his family live, there is something hanging in the tree. At first it looks like it could be a long strip of cloth. It isn’t.

It is steel siding.

It appears to defy gravity, just hanging there, tangled in the branches of the tree. Until you walk around behind the tree and look up.

It’s not coming down any time soon.

Tornado Damages Oklahoma School, but Shelter Beneath Stands Strong

At a Demolished School, Moving On and Looking Ahead

The First Baptist Church mentioned in this story is the church my brother pastors, and is directly across the street from their home. The school has been rebuilt and the community made a point to use the bricks from the old school when constructing the new one.

Atoka, Oklahoma

I’m in southeastern Oklahoma (Tushka) for the weekend. On Friday night, brother and I went to supper in Atoka (Luigi’s), followed by a little drive around town. More later.

The two of them

Another from my natural light session with the pups. I just love how the light wraps around them. Our white ceiling helps to spread the light even more.