House Tour

I mentioned that I was in the midst of a string of bad luck. Several instances of this effect my photography.

First, my digital camera once again died -- failing to fire off the studio strobes (this time despite using a doohickey that was supposed to protect it from the power pack's voltage).

Fortunately, the natural light in the house was excellent this day, and later, when I wanted to use the studio strobes, I still had my old reliable film camera.

Further, I think I made the mistake of hand-holding the camera while having it set on its automatic exposure setting. I tell everybody that you should never let a camera make your decisions for you -- I should have followed my advice. The exposure was long enough to degrade the quality of the images but not long enough to produce interesting blur effects.

In a way, this was a good thing. The failure of the camera to handle the strobes & the overall quality of these images finally inspired me to purchase a higher end DSLR (and Pocket Wizards to firing off the strobes wirelessly).

Love that low angle! Still, care was taken to ensure that the pose was natural without being too, umm, gynecological. This works for me. Something that my digital point & shoot camera has that no DSLR has is the live preview in the tilting / swinging LCD screen. I know I am going to miss that feature.

Again, my "off-by-one" thinking says that if I like a really low angle image, perhaps I should also check out a really high angle image. This I do.

I'm usually not a big fan of "models looking out of a window", and that's what Ashley is doing here. When I see these images, I always wonder what the model is looking at.

On the other hand, I do like posing the model in my real living room, using real backgrounds & real furniture. That's my photography book collection behind Ashley.

Anyhow, soon after this sitting, I decided to order a new DSLR -- I chose a Canon EOS 5D. I called the mail order place, because I wanted some advice on lenses. After consulting with an in-house "expert", the guy recommended a 18-200mm zoom, which sounded great.

The mail order place was offering a special "order now & receive it before Christmas" deal. The camera did indeed arrive before Christmas, but it turned out that lens wasn't supported by that camera. The 5D has a full sized sensor, and that lens just didn't cover the sensor -- images were vignetted. That's typical of my streak of bad luck.

So, I had to contact the mail order place again & arrange for the return of the lens. That was a big mess. I had to make over a dozen calls & escalate the issue a few times. What bugged me is that they recommended replacement lenses that also weren't supported on the camera -- worse, I had to point out to them that the lenses they recommend on their web page also weren't supported on the camera (and it took them two months to fix their web pages). While I did receive the camera before Christmas, it took an additional month to get a system that worked.

(Doesn't Ashley look inticing, rolling around that big comfy chair?)

That was highly frustrating -- towards the end, I had to call them at least once a day in order to make any progress at resolving the issue.

Meanwhile, I did order some Pocket Wizards (from another source), and I love these. This are devices that allow you to attach your camera to your strobes wirelessly. These work amazingly well, and I especially like the elimination of wires -- I used to trip over them a lot.

Here's a particularly sexy image. I usually prefer to let the model move, but sometimes I have specific suggestions. Hiding her nose behind her arm was my idea, but the appeal of the resulting image is all Ashley.

Every once in a while I produce an image like this one -- Ashley is bare-assed naked, but because of the light, perspective, and pose, you can't see any of her naughty bits. I find these images to be incredibly sexy. I am a big fan of the curve of her waist to hip to butt to leg, all uninterrupted by clothing.

In retrospect, I should have eliminated the cord used to control the blinds.

One last image on the big comfy chair. Since this is a good light day, we wander the house for more good light.

There's a little alcove on the top floor, which is a finished attic. This upstairs room is actually my office -- I'm in it right now. This light comes from a north facing window in the front of the house. While there are other north facing windows, most look out onto the house next door, but this one and the back stairs ones are unobstructed and produce good light.

Still loving that low angle!

I find this image appealing. I like the diagonal slash of Ashley's leg & the unusual placement of her arm & hand. It is an unusual composition.

This one almost works. The problem with being a "cerebral" photographer is that some ideas look better in the head than in the camera. I was trying to combine a low angle perspective with Ashley's hands on the rug. Like I said, it almost works. Hey, you've got to try this things out & see what happens. I believe that I learn more from my mistakes & near-misses than I do from my successes.

A minor variation (moving her right hand out of the shadow). Better, but still doesn't quite work for me.

The good news: my house is a Victorian, which means many large & tall windows. The bad news: this is the Pacific Northwest, and winter months tend to be dark. The good thing about using strobes is that you can create artistic & consistent lighting. So, I figure that we'll go back downstairs & break out the strobes.

This sitting continues with Hands On