Monday, November 16, 2009

What To Do On Blog Holiday

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I hadn't taken a picture for two days until last night. It felt liberating. All this time has opened up for other things. It made me realize that while the blog has been good for my photography, it's been bad for me personally. My work week has been long. Most of my free time was going to shooting, editing, posting and commenting. Normal household chores got pushed aside because of the demands of the blog. Still haven't finished sorting and editing the Nepal and Tibet pictures two months on. I'll probably get back to the daily blog in a bit. Now, if it weren't for this &$@!* job...

One of the things to do is study photography. I'm taking an online course in off-camera flash techniques from the Perfect Picture School of Photography. The name is a bit pretentious but I've done a couple of other classes with them and the quality is very high. So, this week's lesson and assignment concerns bounce flash techniques. This photo is not about St. Louis but it's in St. Louis, viz., my basement. I was shooting alstromeria and decided to break some rules. This is bounce backlighting, straight off the wall behind the flowers, taken with an 85 mm prime lens at f 1.8, 1/60 sec., ISO 100. Something different.

Be back soon.

7 comments:

Virginia said...

I understood about half of that B. But It's lovely and we are glad you've thrown us a crumb, so to speak! Take it easy and we'll see when we see you!
V

Olivier said...

superbe avec ce fond blanc, tu utilises une boite a lumiere ?

Rob said...

Gorgeous pic! Love the image and how the flash casts shadows to bring out details. I am just getting into off camera flash. Could not afford the Pocket Wizard, so I bought the Cactus V2s radio trigger on a cheap Vivitar flash.

Jilly said...

That's a beautifully arresting image, Bob. Yes, reading your comments, sometimes I forget what my life was like before blogging. Great idea to take an online course - soon as I send this I'm going to investigate your online school.

Come back soon but enjoy your well deserved break. Bet you are not away long!

PJ said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
PJ said...

I love the photo, I really do, and I'm sorry you'll be gone for a while, Bob, but you'll have a different perspective when you come back. When I left it was for health reasons and while I'm still not 100% I work at it each day, often to the detriment of other obligations but I think I'm happier for it and that's what has made it worthwhile.
This spring I dug up some wild alstromeria and replanted it and noticed today that they're starting to leaf out, I should have a whole bank of them by spring. Maybe I'll learn to do something similar to your great take by the time they bloom. One can always hope.

PJ said...

The ISO setting is interesting.