Mom, I think a space capsule just crash-landed in our yard. Once again, I have joined the Project 52 blog circle to challenge myself weekly into the new year. Last year I only missed a few blog posts. Let's see how I do this year!
There are so many new things on the horizon this year. We have new members joining the blog circle (welcome! welcome! welcome!), and they are from EVERYWHERE (or at least places that take forever to fly to in a plane), which really broadens the interpretations of themes and will give you a good look at other perspectives!
I took down the studio Christmas tree this past week. Next year at this time it will be up in the new studio space we are building on the property. I am very excited about that. I have also been busy ordering and trying new products. The best of the lot (they passed my very picky inspections) will be featured on the website soon. They will be displayed in the new studio as well, and will offer a variety of options to preserve lasting memories.
This year I asked Santa to bring me an Alien Bee 800 studio strobe. Even though we don't have a chimney, the guy in the red suit came through. I actually read the paperwork and manual. Yep. Really. Then I went to that vast wizard of knowledge--Google--and asked him for a brain. Wait. No. That's another story. I asked him for some instructions on using my Nikon D800 with the Alien Bee 800. Google also came through.
Now mightily armed for strobe battle, I picked the hardest dog to photograph--you know the one with the wonky coat that never sits still--and got all my questions answered by doing instead of reading. Now, please, don't get me wrong. They aren't FULLY answered yet, just SOMEWHAT answered. Because questions come in layers. There are beginning layers, and then when you answer those, you move to middle layers of questions, and then to more advanced layers. So right now I am some where between the beginning and middle layers of questions. I find when you first begin to experiment with something new, you have OH-MY-GOD-YOU-HAVE-TO-BE-KIDDING-ME moments and AH-THAT'S-BETTER moments.
In the first 15 minutes, I had A LOT of the first and few of the last, but then things started to change. The images I am mostly satisfied with for now, are below. The image above is one of the first set I took, just after I found out that an Alien Bee 800 strobe set at full power is brighter than the sun. I turned that power WAAAY down after that test shot.
It's really an ideal time to have NEW as the theme, because you can now see the photos in the newness of using this piece of equipment. As the year progresses, I'll be using this strobe more and more, and we will see what happens as the AH-THAT'S-BETTER moments hopefully start to pile up.
So without further ado, here is Billie, the lovely little, wirey-coated terrier girl, and the new strobe set at different powers and placed at different angles in conjunction with my on-camera flash (set at 1/32 power pretty consistently).
There are so many new things on the horizon this year. We have new members joining the blog circle (welcome! welcome! welcome!), and they are from EVERYWHERE (or at least places that take forever to fly to in a plane), which really broadens the interpretations of themes and will give you a good look at other perspectives!
I took down the studio Christmas tree this past week. Next year at this time it will be up in the new studio space we are building on the property. I am very excited about that. I have also been busy ordering and trying new products. The best of the lot (they passed my very picky inspections) will be featured on the website soon. They will be displayed in the new studio as well, and will offer a variety of options to preserve lasting memories.
This year I asked Santa to bring me an Alien Bee 800 studio strobe. Even though we don't have a chimney, the guy in the red suit came through. I actually read the paperwork and manual. Yep. Really. Then I went to that vast wizard of knowledge--Google--and asked him for a brain. Wait. No. That's another story. I asked him for some instructions on using my Nikon D800 with the Alien Bee 800. Google also came through.
Now mightily armed for strobe battle, I picked the hardest dog to photograph--you know the one with the wonky coat that never sits still--and got all my questions answered by doing instead of reading. Now, please, don't get me wrong. They aren't FULLY answered yet, just SOMEWHAT answered. Because questions come in layers. There are beginning layers, and then when you answer those, you move to middle layers of questions, and then to more advanced layers. So right now I am some where between the beginning and middle layers of questions. I find when you first begin to experiment with something new, you have OH-MY-GOD-YOU-HAVE-TO-BE-KIDDING-ME moments and AH-THAT'S-BETTER moments.
In the first 15 minutes, I had A LOT of the first and few of the last, but then things started to change. The images I am mostly satisfied with for now, are below. The image above is one of the first set I took, just after I found out that an Alien Bee 800 strobe set at full power is brighter than the sun. I turned that power WAAAY down after that test shot.
It's really an ideal time to have NEW as the theme, because you can now see the photos in the newness of using this piece of equipment. As the year progresses, I'll be using this strobe more and more, and we will see what happens as the AH-THAT'S-BETTER moments hopefully start to pile up.
So without further ado, here is Billie, the lovely little, wirey-coated terrier girl, and the new strobe set at different powers and placed at different angles in conjunction with my on-camera flash (set at 1/32 power pretty consistently).
I will take umpteen-thousand photographs in the next several weeks revolving around the use of this light, and then just when I think everything is under control, it will be time to go outside in the sun with it. But that's a whole other story too, or maybe a whole other blog post.
I hope you have your coffee handy, because there is a huge blog circle this week. To see more "NEW" things, start here with Jessica Wasick of Bark & Gold Photography, serving Pittsburgh pets and their people. Then travel around the circle and enjoy all the great things you will see!
I hope you have your coffee handy, because there is a huge blog circle this week. To see more "NEW" things, start here with Jessica Wasick of Bark & Gold Photography, serving Pittsburgh pets and their people. Then travel around the circle and enjoy all the great things you will see!
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