February 25, 2010

Details about the pic from yesterday

Someone contacted me asking how I set up the shot yesterday. Seeing as it's snowing, roads are bad, and I'm trying to distract myself from the irresistible urge of going to get beer to go with my very delicious made-from-scratch tacos, and I have no problem sharing my secrets of the trade, unlike some...

Here's my setup.
Ingredients:
Black backdrop, table, four egg cartons, a now-broken piece of glass that I took out of a big picture frame, black felt, flash and an amber gel for the flash.

Why egg cartons? I needed something to raise the glass surface so that I could fit the flash underneath and just happened to have them on hand. Books are more stable and sturdy, true, but they tend to be hard to get perfectly level. I stacked the cartons two per side and draped the bottom of the backdrop over it, with a little hollow for the flash in middle. The glass went on top of that.

On top of the glass, I placed the black felt with a 2-inch diameter circle cut out in the middle. The flash with a piece of the amber gel (similar to colored cellophane) to colorize the light was placed directly below the bottle.

For this shot, I didn't use any other lights, other than the flash. However, my camera has an infrared light inside the built-in flash, the infrared signals the flash to go off wirelessly. Unfortunately, when it fires, it also fires the on-camera flash - haven't figured out whether there's a way to turn that off. I need to reread the manual. That's why you see a streak of white light along the middle of the bottle.

That's as far as I got when I knocked the bottle over and it split the glass pane in three pieces.

Read more...

February 24, 2010

Assignment...Wednesday

I've been toying with this idea for awhile, ever since I saw a similar concept elsewhere. Now, I was just getting started with experimenting when I inadvertently broke the glass pane that I was using for the surface. Oops. I need to get some plexiglass. I still had a few ideas to try before picking the final version. But seeing as my shoot was cut short due to "technical difficulties"...here's the best of the bunch.

It doesn't make me go "wow!" but I think it's not bad for my first try. I'll pick up some plexiglass soon and figure out how to get that wow! factor.

Read more...

Why...

did Kamikaze pilots wear helmets?

Read more...

February 19, 2010

Friday Apollo Is a Snob

Actually he was sniffing something in the air. You can see by how his nose is sorta twisted to his left (your right).

Read more...

February 15, 2010

Assignment Monday

Needed to update the picture in the blog.

Read more...

February 12, 2010

Friday Apollo: a Blue Period


Apollo is on a diet, and that makes him very blue. Har har, see how I worked that in there? Yeah, seriously, he's on a diet. I took him to the vet last week, and we discovered that he was a shocking 93 pounds. He gained four lbs since his surgery in December. And that's on top of the seven he gained since summer. I did expect some weight gain because it's winter and we're less active especially in foul weather, but that's too much. He should ideally be under 80, but most of the time, he hovers around 82 because he's not super active due to his hips.

I evaluated his eating habits. He doesn't get a lot of treats. We walked fairly regularly, but evidently not often enough. And the real reason? I *ahem* am the main culprit - he is supposed to get half a "tub" (small tupperware tub) twice a day, but I had been giving him a little more each day because I felt bad for him after his surgery.  Or because he seemed hungry. Or... And we got to the point where he was getting a full tub twice a day. Oops.

So now he's on a diet, and we are walking more often. And each walk ends in a play session at the nearby field. As an aside, Canadian geese have taken over the field - goose poop yuck! And Apollo shows absolutely no interest in the geese. What kind of hunting dog is he? Anyway, he knows that all our walks, each one about a mile, ends up over there and he will faithfully carry the "flinger" the whole time. Every frickin' time. Apollo carrying a large, bright hunting-orange square frisbee toy that's bigger than his own head. We get odd looks from drivers as they pass us trying to figure out what the hell that dog is carrying.

Read more...

February 8, 2010

Monday Assignment

Needed a decent picture of myself for work purposes. Decided to do this for my Monday Assignment.

Read more...

February 5, 2010

Friday Apollo

Catches some air
And looks good!

Read more...

Beano!

Friday Apollo will be put up later today.

I wanted to post about this before I forget - a good college buddy of mine is on her third, I think, school - career student - and she and her classmates had to make a superbowl commercial parodying Beano. Part of the project is marketing - getting people to view it. So they, in addition to their own marketing endeavours, are asking their families and friends to pitch in. They need 5,000 views. Go ahead. Click on the link. DO IT!

http://www.last4sources.com/

Read more...

February 4, 2010

Each month,

I pick new color schemes to go with the new photo banner. Figuring out the colors is a bit of a trial and error. But I have a very simple test to determine the final choices. "Does it not make me want to vomit or run away in terror? Y/N"

Read more...

February 1, 2010

No Assignment Monday today

Between my weekend and today, I didn't think of any ideas for today. What's more, I want to start putting more effort into these photos other than randomly snapping pictures and calling it a day. Which isn't necessarily always what I do, but I admit that sometimes I go about it half-assed. 

Keep an eye out next week.

Read more...

About This Blog

A mix of personal-yet-not-too-personal blogging and photoblog.

Recent Posts

  © Blogger templates The Professional Template by Ourblogtemplates.com 2008

Back to TOP