Keeping secrets

Photography wise, I’m interested in a lot of things. Landscapes, people, architecture, interior, etc. Also, I love sharing ‘secrets’. One of my favorite sites, of late, is The Strobist. There I can find all kinds of low budget lighting secrets by those who are more than willing to share their experiences.

I was looking at a particular article today about interior lighting using flash. Suddenly, I remembered that I had to photograph my wife’s yoga room for the lady who designed it. She’s an interior designer in-training and this photograph will go into her book. Always on the lookout for opportunities, I want to make the photo look really nice, but am constrained currently by having only one flash. However, I think that I almost pulled it off. When I do get the final picture and present it to her, I want it to knock her socks off! Then, she can tell her friends about me and I can do their books, as well, for a fair price! Business!

Following some instructions that I found on The Strobist about balancing window light to flash light, I was able to get this picture. Here, I took my first shot, no flash, and tried to get the picture where the window light was not blown out. In this case, it was 1/30 second @ f/8. Next, I put the flash on manual, 1/4 power and found that it was about a stop too low. Then 1/2 power, and this is what you get! The histogram looked great. I also too a bubble level and leveled my camera to minimize the lens distortion from this 11-18mm lens, which I was using at 11mm.

I can see how I could use a couple of more flashes and small changes to the room. Hopefully, when I get the final picture, I’ll remember to share it with you. There are a few other small things that I’d like to do like light all of the candles on the bookshelf and adjust the lighting overall to give a nice comforting, yoga feeling. Even so, one on-camera bounced flash didn’t do a bad job! It is a small room, though.

Some years ago, before The Strobist, I contacted a few architectural photographers and asked them to share a few lighting secrets and even asked, if possible, to go and see them in action as a very silent observer. I was turned down; however, one of them offered to allow me to come to one of his shoots, that he was doing at 2:00 AM on a work night. I agreed, but he later decided that he didn’t want me to come along. Oh well. Later, after I asked him about his lighting techniques, he became belligerent and said that if I didn’t like the way that he did things, then I shouldn’t have contacted him. Talk about a temperamental artist! I smoothed his feathers, thanked him, then went my way.

I don’t know about you, but I love to share my experiences and ways of doing things. There are no secrets. If I know it, you’ll know it. The only thing that I might keep to myself is information about how I plan to approach a certain market segment, but other than that, the gates are open.

This weekend, I received a great compliment. Richard said that I was an excellent teacher! It doesn’t get any better than that! Thanks, Richard!