strobes

I took this photograph of Kgomotso at the beach in a session, where I played with some concepts that I learnt from Strobist. In the past, I would have just packed in my camera and worked with available light. On this occasion, I packed in light stand strobes and lots of courage. For a good part of the photo session, we were standing in water. Not only we, were standing in water, but also the lightstand with a strobe. It is amazing how powerful waves can be. One wave threw over the lightstand and with it my strobe. Thanks for insurance companies… The strobe died a heroic death in the seawater.

Nevertheless, we had lots of fun with the portraits and this image here was taken before the accident. One strobe was direct from the camera right from the bottom up towards the face.

Jake Garn published a video tutorial on dodging and burning in Photoshop to enhance portraits. The tutorial guides you through a process of enhancing images with those tools in 15 minutes. Check it out here.

Stephen from Appletell thinks that Apple displays suck. Good post with some interesting points. Go here to read it.

Freelanceswitch focuses on actions to get things done. Read it and use it. I found some good advice for myself.

Remember my article on using more than one library in Aperture? Ben Long from Inside Aperture has a different opinion. He calls his post: One Library To Rule Them All. He offers good arguments in favor for using one library.

Of course, David Hobby had a couple of good posts this week. I liked Assisting On The James Balog Iceberg Shoot for several reasons.

• David’s approach of sharing encourages other photographers and assistants to share their experience.
• Strobelights are used in a landscape photography context, where you wouldn’t normally expect it.
• Jeff, who wrote the article gives great hints on how to work with Nikon’s CLS (Creative Lighting System) in very difficult circumstances, where you wouldn’t expect the system to work and would normally use remote triggers like Pocket Wizards.
• The post forced me check my camera manual!
• The results are amazing. Check them here at Nikon. There is also a video giving some more background info.

If you are a .Mac user, you can learn here, how to embed the .Mac Web Gallery into your own domain. Mac OS X Hints is a great resource for tips and tricks, using Macs.

I went away last Friday for an overnighter in a small village about 250km outside Cape Town. Most of the guys went with their motorbikes, while I followed them in my car, transporting 2 of their wifes, a dog and my camera equipment. Well, I just packed in the camera to take some snapshots. As I packed quickly, I decided to take my standard case with the majority of my equipment. There was no time for repacking, but plenty space in the boot of the car… We arrived after sunset and started preparing supper, my part being documenting the progress. Read the rest of this entry »