Day 91 - Barbed Wire

While I was out with the chainsaw this morning, cutting up some downed trees from this past winter's ice storm, I came across this hunk of barbed wire along my property line. I'd never noticed it before, so I went back when the sun went down a bit to grab a few pics of it. I just love the texture of it. Shot wide open at f.14, ISO 400.

Day 90 - Weeping Cherry

The first blossoms of the spring on our weeping cherry tree. Shot at f1.4 against the blue sky.

Day 89 - Success

My lovely wife Robyn paints as one of her many artistic hobbies. This is an old wine bottle she painted a while ago and I just really like the coloring. This is photographed on black seamless paper using my new compact fluorescent lights. One light through a large diffuser camera left, and an AB800 with just the modeling lamp in a strip light camera right. Shot with daylight white balance which causes the light from the studio light to photograph on the orange side.

Day 88 - Continuous Light

Replacing my hot lights with compact fluorescent bulbs for a couple reasons. One, this is a much lower power alternative, hence slightly greener, and they're actually not hot which is a plus. Shot these on Tungsten white balance to get the blue color to them, these bulbs are actually daylight balanced and available at Home Depot fairly cheap.

Day 87 - Vintage Kuma

One thing I don't normally to is play with textures and actions, so I figured I'd experiement a bit with my poor dog Kuma. Applied a texture using one of Michelle Black's actions and tweaked it a bit.

Day 86 - Peridot

Trying my hand at jewelry photography and let me tell you something, its damned hard. Everything reflects and its basically all specular highlights. I hung the necklace in front of black seamless paper and used 3 lights to get a look I was happy with. One light behind and camera left with a 10 degree grid on it, aimed at the back of the necklace, to give the peridot a little glow. A large strip box camera right, just off axis and another light with a 20 degree grid camera left adding a second highlight to the gems. Getting them all balanced was tricky. Lastly, I thought the jewelry was clean until I examined the gems close up in photoshop. I'll redo this sometime soon after a thorough cleaning.

Day 85 - Rhianna

A complete change of pace today, back to natural light portraits. Shot this about 3:00pm in the afternoon, with the sun pretty high in the sky still. It was too nice to stay in the studio so we went outside. I put Rhianna under the roof of an old horse cart with a gold reflector just out of frame camera left and shot her wide open at f1.4. As much as I love well lit studio work, I always love going back to natural light.

Day 84 - Go Sox

Trying to take a slightly more modern take on pinup. Zadie is lit with 3 lights forming a sort of clamshell, with a large softbox on top of the camera and 2 smaller soft boxes on either side for fill. 2 lights flooding the white seamless. Added the red spot in post.

Day 83 - Play Ball

Baseball season is finally on us and I wanted to do something baseball related. Dug out my old glove and ball that have great texture, and coupled that with my new jersey which is stark and clean. I liked the contrast between the old and new. Lit with an AB1600 directly overhead, shot through a large diffuser, an AB800 camera right with a 20 degree grid to full in the shadows just on the glove and an AB400 camera left to add a little definition.



I included a setup image this time, to show the setup for the previous shot.

Day 82 - trichotomy

Playing with long exposure and multiple flash pops. Camera set on bulb in a pitch black room. Popped the flash manually 3 times, once bare directly in front of me, once with a red gel camera right and once with a blue gel camera left. Done with a single exposure.

Day 81 - Lilac buds

Another image from right around my house. Lilac bushes in our back yard are budding and I just liked the way this looked against the trees and sky in the background. Early evening sun, just before sunset, coming from over my shoulder.

Day 80 - Finally Spring

Spring is finally springing here in northern Massachusetts. One of the branches that is laying across the roof of my shed is budding and showing signs of springtime! Of course, I'm gonna have to take it down though.

Day 79 - Shadow Play

Playing with shadows today. I liked the idea of the soft shadow defining the outline, but leaving it softer and a little more open to interpretation. Lit with a single AB800 on full power, with a 20 degree grid.

Day 78 - Easter Flowers

Heading over to my mother's house for Easter dinner in the morning, and we picked up this beautiful basket of flowers to bring over. Set them up on black seamless with continuous lights both above and camera right.

Day 77 - Pocket Watch

I'm an avid collector of watches, and I own a handful of pocket watches as well. The main light is directly overhead, shot through some diffusion material, There are additional lights on either side of hte watch, also shot through diffusion material to make 3 large light sources surrounding the watch and box.

Day 76 - Toy Vette

Wide open available light of some toy cars, with the focus on the toy Corvette.

Day 75 - Sun Drop Cola

My first selective color. This was actually shot a while ago, but I just got to processing this and wanted to try a selective color shot. Shot in a small convenience store in Tennessee by window light.

Day 74 - Tole Painting

This is some detail from wooden candle sticks that my wife painted. Lit with a 150W CFE in a clamp light that is daylight balanced..

Day 73 - Candy Macro

Pulled out my old camera so it wouldn't feel neglected (and while my primary camera's batteries are charging). Shot this small bowl of candy with my 300mm macro lens. Lit with 2 lights on either side of the camera, shot straight down into the bowl.

Day 72 - Ellie

Did a large group fashion shoot today with 3 local designers. They may be local, but these designed were fantastic and the stylists and make up artists did a wonderful job showcasing the clothing. Here's a lovely shirt and top combination that just flowed beautifully, so I had the model (Ellie) twirl a little to show the free movement in the skirt. Lit with 2 softboxes, one camera right and one camera left, with about a 2 to 1 ratio key light to fill.

Day 71 - Ms Asphyxia

Did a fine art shoot with Ms Asphyxia today. This is shot with a single light camera left, bouncing off diffusion material to make a larger, soft light source that would wrap around the front.

Time Off

Well, I've taken the past week off from shooting. I have a pretty bad case of tendinitis and I've been resting my shooting elbow. Picking it back up today though!