Some inspiration for me

So a few days back I was reading the slew of photography related blog feeds and came across one that truly inspired me in a way I haven't felt for awhile. The feed came from "The Travel Photographer". The post brought me to "Phil Borges" website. While the entire site seems very authentic and probably inspiring the part that got me was the Tibetan Portraits. The portraits are great and seem really capture the person; I also found the small description of each person and Phil's "experience" he had with each. Now the descriptions aren't overly long but I got a real sense that he truly was fully present with each of these people. It just screamed authentic to me in a time when that doesn't happen as often as I'd like. I would love to just be in Phil's presence. I think I could learn a lot. Photography and life. I hope each of the you get these moments from time to time; it makes life that much better.

While I hope you go and visit Phil's site I wish you find some of your own inspiration.

A trip into Self-Portraits ... and my new flash

So you might be asking yourself. What is this that post title. Well the new flash part is simple. I'd recently bought a new SB-800 flash and I was playing with that and my SB-600. Now the self-portrait bit probably needs a little more explanation. It started with my reading of a book called "Digital Portrait Photography and Lighting". A pretty good read but maybe a little general for me ;in all fairness I haven't finished it yet as I like to jump around while reading my photo books. So in this book it suggests and goes to say that doing self-portrait is a great tool for learning with practice. It will also give you an idea what a model/client will be faced with and maybe help you develop some ways to make them more comfortable and natural looking during the shoot.

It all seems to make sense so I setup my make shift studio at home like I've done a few times. Really just a white back drop (Do it yourself) a light stand with shoot-through umbrella. My Nikon D80 with a few lenses and now a SB-800 and SB-600.

Now one thing I was finding with this is that I didn't have a bunch of room to work after I got the backdrop setup. I decided to use my 50 f1.8 as it's not too long (75mm). It went pretty well but I found the model (me) didn't have many facial expressions that didn't look silly or down-right ridiculous; hence the serious looks. Some of my friends had some not so nice things to say about my facial expressions but I think they need to open up. Another I noticed was how hard it was to focus. I was trying to keep it on manual focus. I was using a 2-second timer with the remote. Something I should test is whether it acquires focus when the timer/remote is used or if using the focus it had previously. I also need to use a smaller aperture (F8 to F11) to get more DOF.

Was trying some things with Broad and short lighting. I was also trying to get some side lighting (bring out the detail/texture a subject) without much success. One thing I need to learn to see and use is subtlety. I also need to work more with and control my backgrounds in a studio like setting.

In the third and fifth photo's you will see a sepia type effect that I have been liking a lot as of late. I will be making another post regarding that shortly.

I did get some quick shots of my roomate and her sister after this. It was much easier but since I didn't ask I won't post those here.

What the Duck

This is a great comic strip I've just started reading.
I've had this a few times. Last time was about 2 months ago.

What the Duck

Abstraction along the way

See here are a few shot I took last week on a 2 hour walk about the Creek near where I live. The light wasn't spectacular so I thought I would have some fun with some close shots of various subjects along the way. I did some things with selective focus on my 50 f/1.8 lens but didn't do a great job with the backgrounds (too distracting). I also did some things with patterns and texture of the ice covered water. It is amazing how much information there is in a raw file. I got a lot of color came out of photo's in my post-processing. Hope you enjoy.

2008 the Year in Photographs 3