Crazy little thing

Ok, I must confess...I was struggling to come up with a topic for this week's blog...so I decided to have a bit of fun.

Canon 5D MKIII 160th sec f8 iso 100 Sigma Art 24mm

Yes it's a bit of fun, but it also serves a purpose. Everytime you take a picture that you haven't done before there is the potential to learn something. As you will see from the following setup pic, I don't have much room in my office/studio. There were quite a few little hurdles to get over. I didn't want light from the octo to spill onto the background (I probably could have put a grid on it but wanted to maintain the softness of the light) so it is heavily feathered (almost directed away from me). 

The striplight is gridded to prevent lens flare, and is there primarily to give some fill light (it also gives me a little separation from the background).

I needed to cover the windows to kill the ambient light (so random stuff in the room didn't become a distraction).

It also gave me a chance to play with my Case Air (see previous post "Powered by Air" Dec.15). The Air enabled me to monitor my lighting, change focus, aperture and shutter speed, check seating position, check stupid expression and juxtaposition of myself and the Phantom...and fire the shutter without getting off my chair. All this on my phone... to which I downloaded the selected image.

So all the while I am making a ridiculous image, I am problem solving, learning nuances of my equipment and learning how to get the best out of that equipment. So the next time a client wants of portrait of themselves under attack by a drone... I will know exactly how to go about it.

Just in case you were wondering...the fishing line was removed in Photoshop using the healing brush tool.

Keep on shooting. Don't stop learning.

Until next week...