chuston

Attached is an image of my lighting setup. I used 3 Nikon SB-800 speed lights. Dave Black posted an article about how great the SB-800s are for a portable studio. They seem do have done a decent job.

The speedlights take 3-4 seconds to recycle. I noticed that Joleen's most natural looks came right after the flashes went off - as though there were some tension and expectation for the flash to go off. It'd be nice to be able to instantly shoot another shot (even if just one) to capture those less posed expressions. I looked at some mono-lights and it appears that 2-3 second recycle times are the norm.

Do you have any tricks that you use to difuse your subject's expectation/tension of the next flash?

A lesson learned from this first first attempt - 5ft paper rolls are too narrow for taking picture of people. It's tough enough to frame the shot and talk to your subject - worrying about not shooting the edge of the paper seems an unecessary pain.

What other tips might you have about this lighting setup?

That may be the longest, most thought out comment I've yet received on any photo. Thanks for taking the time.

Skin glow effect: open the image, duplicate the layer, gaussian blur the new layer, change blend mode to "screen", adjust layer opacity to taste. I also used layer masking. Read about the "Blend If" layer property... it does more than it might appear on first inspection.

A friend asked to have her picture taken. This is my first crack at studio portraiture. What worked? What can I improve on?

Thanks,
- Chris

This is a first crack at artificial lighting... What kind of background might you have chosen

for this picture? Is the lighting good/bad? Thanks for your input.

I've seen many-a-auroral photo - but never with a radial pattern. Nicely done.

This was a crappy picture of some geese flying in formation... Looks neat in reverse - better in full res where you can really see the shapes of the geese. To add some interest to the upper right, I edited in an image of the moon taken a couple of hours later.

Be brutal. Be honest. Teach me something.

Thanks for your time.

I saw the clouds reflecting in this window while riding my bicycle... I read somewhere that

a good habit to build is to take the picture as you first envision it. Then force yourself to

come up with 3 more angles. This was one of those other 3 shots - what do you think?

If you were there, how would you shoot it?

This is an experiment salvaging older bad color photos by cropping them and making

them B&W. The crop was meant to improve the composition. Thoughts and advice please?

(advice more useful than ratings)

This is another crack at "street" photography.

This is a try at night street photgraphy. I liked the lights and the guy standing alone

amongst all of the empty tables. Does the curve of the line of lights catch your eye? Do

they help the image? Or should I have shot just the guy and the empty tables?

Nicely done. I wonder what it might look like without or with fewer bubbles. Strong color choice. Enticed my eye and HAD to investigate to settle what the image was.

A friend and I were at a bar and I saw this guy light his cigarette - I liked the yellow on his face against the blue and purple lighting. I asked him to light it again and snapped the shot. That's the first time I've asked a stranger to let me take their picture.

How might I have improved this picture?

This is an attempt at capturing the swirls in the water. They mesmerize me but I've not yet gotten a very good picture of them - they so low contrast - this is my best effort to date. I haven't tried to setup a shot, yet, I've only taken opportunistic pictures. If you have any ideas on how to elicit more detail, please share.

This is one of a few shots meant to practice "simplifying the frame".

This is an excellent action picture and is unusual because of the razor sharp focus. I'd enjoy hearing more about how the image was created.

This was an opportunistic picture of a stray cat we're "rescuing". He's a long hair and

was one giant hair mat. We had him shaved bald and as his hair grows back in he

looks like a scruff-ball. His personality, however, has transformed from terrified-of-

everything to lap-cat.

I agree with the DOF comment - thanks - I'm learning.

Apparently, Photoshop 7 doesn't save JPEGs acceptable to Photo.net unless done with "Save for Web..." which appears to heavily desaturate the image.

Thanks guys - that was very constructive. Cropping the image just to the left of the door frame removes the lawn mower and has the interesting side effect of moving the space between the house and the shed toward the center of the frame... which then makes me wonder what's back there...

(I will go get a polarizing filter. Thanks for the tip.)

A newbie to photography - always looking for feedback...

Made me smile.

This is a great example of mostly horizontal lines, no strong diagonals and cool colors producing a very calm, peaceful image.

Disturbing, but get's the point across.

I like bicycles. This photo suggests a long ride with a welome break at the destination.