Tuesday, March 3, 2009

52 Self Portraits: Week 7 (Catching Up)

These photos are much closer to what I was trying to achieve. What I'm missing in my arsenal is the ability to color my lights better and keep my light pattern tight. I didn't have as much control over the difference in the background and foreground lighting that I want. Either too much light from the foreground spilled onto the background, or the long exposure time due to hot, continuous lighting in the foreground allowed too much through in the background.

52 Self Portraits: Week 7 (by John Brainard)

52 Self Portraits: Week 7 (by John Brainard)


I made great use out of my "Stick-in-a-Cans". See my set up shot here.

My wife took our mop in to get converted back into a dog today, so keep an eye out for a session with her (the dog) soon.

Monday, March 2, 2009

52 Self Portraits: Week 6

I think I'm about two weeks late for this one. I had so much to do around the house the last couple of weeks, I couldn't spend the time I needed to get some photos.

I had an idea for this photo that I found on the Ikea website. Unfortunately I'm not able to find it. It was is a photo with a chair in the foreground lit by a lamp just behind it. The photo was white balanced for the tungsten bulb in the lamp, blue color cast on the background. I wasn't able to achieve it with this photo, so, this week's photo (Week 7) is another attempt at it.

52 Self Portraits: Week 6 (by John Brainard)

A friend from Church had called to ask if I'd meet him for breakfast the next morning while I was working on my self portrait project for the week. I thought it would a perfect opportunity to get some "candid" shots of myself, as if that's possible.... At least, I wasn't concentrating as much on posing as I was talking on the phone. I certainly wouldn't pick up the phone and pretend to be on it!

Keep an eye out for Week 7 very shortly (next day or so). I'm closer to what I wanted to achieve with that one, but not quite.

UPDATE: Here are the images I was inspired by. I suspect I'll need a tighter light pattern from my CTO'd flash in order to accomplish the look I'm going for. My gold reflective umbrella spills too much light onto the background making it difficult to control the lighting in that area. One of my next purchases will likely be the Lumiquest FXtra gel holder for each of my flashes. I may even spring for a Soft Box III.