Tuesday’s Tales

It’s been awhile since I did a Tuesday’s Tales. Not that I have really done any studio shoots for a while, actually apart from a few day trips and our trip down the Great Ocean Road, I really have not had the camera in my hands much. To be honest I am a little frustrated with my dirty image sensor…….it is becoming such a pain and I keep using Moth’s camera when I need to. It is becoming apparent I need to get this looked at, but everywhere was closed over Christmas weren’t they?

So what have I been up to, I have already written a little about the courses I am currently enrolled in; Creative B&W and Awake, plus the 52 Week challenge. I have already learned an enormous amount, I’m still surprised at my learning capacity. Some days my head is so full of ideas I cannot sleep at night. Some of my ideas are turning into projects that I NEED to see through. Maybe you can or cannot understand a NEED to create something, but it can be consuming.

My first project was an idea I had that started with simply lighting and B&W images; Angel. It then turned into and amazing piece of art.

The next project I had, called for something Blue, so that was this weekend’s studio setup. I set up a small table with some black cloth and a black backdrop and then hunted around the house looking for blue items.

The painting is one of mine from a few years back, a study on roses with the lovely blue mottled background……I grabbed a few brushes and tubes of paint, a fabric rose………then I liked the idea of the tea light lantern (this time no one was holding it, so it is steady) and I really liked the blue top of this bottle of wine. Not that I drink red, it was given to us and well…… I at least got some use from it 😛

I also did an extremely dark blue bottle in front of a white background and back lit with a light behind the bottle. Kind of cool effect, but perhaps needs a little fineness.

My other project was to play around with a new Speed Light (or flash unit) I had just picked up. Nikon SB-910. Now this is a complicated bit of kit……….just the manual itself is confusing. At least it has the advantage of putting it on the camera and it sets most of it up for me, however I want to shoot with it off the camera. Let’s say a LOT more reading and investigating is required. But so far it seems pretty cool, as long as I diffuse it with an umbrella or bounce it off a reflector…………without it seems to be way to bright (and I am yet to figure out HOW to drop the intensity down). Once I have this figured out I will write a more in depth review. But I had decided I needed more light in the studio. The continuous lighting, while cheap has been largely effective, but many of my shoots can appear dark, I need more light on my subjects faces and the speed light seems to be the way to go after much reading (well studio strobes seem to be, but they are much more expensive), so I figured I would give this a go and build from there. It never hurts to have various different types of lighting around, also the speed lights are portable!

I have more projects I want to work on including some more body work in the studio in B&W, some artsy stuff. Just trying to convince my adult models to go almost nude, lol. Of course I need to get my model Xavier back in, he’s two months old now. babies change so quickly, it’s time for an update. For once I do not have any portrait sessions booked……wow it feels kind of weird, but I am sure that will change.

Well that’s about it from the studio, til next time, happy snapping…….

-Julz

 

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