Messin' around Friday, July 27, 2007

A bottle of Phillips Oatmeal Stout purchased on my recent trip to Victoria. The label describes it as "stick to your ribs breakfast nutrition. The beer that's rich, smooth and filling, just like Mom used to make!"

A couple of weeks ago, I ended up shooting a whole bunch of portraits on short notice, which was fun. I'll post some of those once they have been published. But in the process I decided I'm sick of shooting portraits with hard strobe light, and invested in a couple of 24" x 32" soft boxes, along with all the other accoutrement that I need to use them with my Speedlights—speed rings, clamps, etc. Thankfully I already had stands that will work. More than half the cost, though, was a set of three PocketWizards. Oh, and I picked up a gold/white reflector at the same time.

All of that stuff arrived about a week ago, but I've been so busy that I didn't get any farther than making sure everything was in the box.

Today I finally got a chance to play with everything, at least enough to know that everything works. I still have to buy another $90 cable if I want to use the PocketWizards to trigger a remote camera though. It never stops. Next, it will be magic arms and super clamps, and safety cables so I don't drop a camera on some up-and-coming Michael Jordan. Then some bigger strobes, and some long glass. By that time, my cameras will probably be obsolete ...

After shooting the beer for a while I got bored of that, and put myself in front of the lens. Here I am, hard at work. Crooked horizon? what? Looks fine to me ... maybe you'd better check your head.