Day 7 - Grey skies + Rain = Flash

Just like the first week is over, so is the nice weather in Nijmegen, The Netherlands. At the moment we have little else but a dreary rain drizzling down from the grey skies the entire day.
Grey skies + Rain = Flash

More after the jump...

Flash Photography

This is probably the thing that kept me going in the photography scene. After having sort of given up on photography, I discovered strobist.com, a site where you 'learn' to light by using small portable flash. As soon as I had read through most of the site I knew that that was what I wanted to do. I love working with light and creating something out of nothing, plus that fact that the flashes had all these cool buttons and stuff didn't hurt either. As a child even, I was always more interested in my father's flashes than in the camera itself (although that I wanted to hold in my eager little hands as well).

I started out with a simple 1 flash setup = a (manual) flash, a light stand, a swivel (a metal thing you use to connect the flash to the stand), and a shoot through umbrella (which you use to alter the light) and started shooting away. Instant love affair ;)
Since then I have graduated slightly to a couple of flashes (and stand and stuff) plus some modifiers (like reflecting screens to alter colour, direction, quantity and quality of light) and a little bit of more knowledge (and experience).

Self Portrait

Then, of course, I needed a subject, and seeing that everyone was either at work or otherwise indisposed I chose to do a new selfportrait headshot. My previous one was from January of this year (on the day I first got my equipment) so I believed it to be time for a new one and maybe see if I learned anything.

Self Portrait of a Klutz

 As it turned out I did learn something! I used a traditional portrait setup with half the amount of gear, and it worked. The photos I took this time have a lot more zing, or pop, than the old ones. In fact, I have little to no comment on the light (especially since the entire setup was built, the photos shot, and the setup put away again, in under 30 min). I am definitly sticking to that setup (after just a little bit of tweaking).






BUT, and there it rears its ugly head, I forgot a very basic thing about photography, and that is the focus. If you look at the photos enlarged you can clearly see that my focus was way off! This is always hard to do when doing a selfportrait, because you have to sit the same way and focus on your own face while you're not sitting there :S, but I just forgot about it. I focussed half, and starting shooting frames. WHOOPS!

I still had a lot of fun making them and the results are, at least on small size, not bad.

Please drop me a line about what you think of the lighting and the photos! And if you are into that kind of stuff, try and find out where the flashes are around me. I'll give you a hint: I used 3, and drop me a line about that as well in the comment section below.