Smoke Trails

Last night I met with three other members of my photography group to shoot smoke trails. It was the first time I’ve ever done it. Aside from nearly getting smoked out of our leader’s garage studio, we had a great time.  The first two were shot using my Speedlite. The others were shot using Michael’s studio strobe (after Susan let me use one of her Pocket Wizards).

Cap

I had the house to myself last night, so you know what that means!  I was looking to explore broad soft lighting but at the same time decided to try shooting myself in a ball cap, just to see what challenges the brim would provide.

 

Ah! Lipstick! Better…

One, sans cap. Pretty pink nails.

And one with Nina, for fun. She was squirmy and didn’t cooperate for the timer!

Just so you know I haven’t fallen off the face of the earth

Though things have fallen on me.

I had a little run-in with this on Sunday.

Cast iron. Very heavy. Sharp edges.

It won.

Remind me never to move a shelf again without first removing the heaviest contents from the highest shelf. Pain, blood, and three staples later, I’m still kicking.  No concussion.  If you were one of my Facebook friends hanging around on Sunday, you were witness to the blow-by-blow.

So here’s a somewhat cuter photograph.

Something new in my photographer’s toolbox

I’d heard about this mystery process called scanning negatives, and I knew my CanoScan 4400F had the capability. I’d even glanced at the little thing-a-ma-jiggy that holds the negatives. I finally took it out for a whirl yesterday.

Way cool.

No, seriously.

First husband (daughter’s dad). 1981. Willamette River. Portland, Oregon.

I miss Oregon so much, but I digress…

I took this photograph with my spiffy, new (at the time) SLR. I barely knew what I was doing, but this one came out pretty good. I wish I’d kept up with my photography, but we were young and poor and film developing was not cheap.

A whole new world has just opened before me. Toddling off to buy some film. Any recommendations from my film photographer followers? I love black and white too, so any recommendations would be most welcome!

Nesting Robin

I believe I caught this robin on a day when she was laying one of the eggs in her clutch.  Her continual shifting and acrobatics along with a beak that hung open the whole time seemed to give it away. The girl was working it.