Photo LA

Went down to Photo LA last Saturday. It was very overwhelming. I have never been to anything like it. So many exhibitors in one place it was hard to wrap my brain around it. There were photographers from all over the world displayed. I'm working on a short list of photographers that I found interesting from the show. I'm going to list them and try to explain their processes. I need to do some research on them so what I plan on doing is covering one every other week. I'll also put links to their work so you can go look for yourself. I'll be posting the first one in a couple of days.

Lensbaby 3G

I picked up a used Lensbaby 3G over the Christmas break from KEH Camera (www.keh.com). I've heard great things about KEH as far as used equipment and they did not disappoint. The lens arrived in the described condition, which was like new, and shipping was pretty fast considering it went FedEx Ground. I've been playing around with it a little bit and I've been getting some great results. You can see examples on my flickr page. I'll give a more detailed post on this later, I've been trying to get ready to start the new semester at Brooks.

Opteka Speed Grids

Just got three new Opteka speed grids off ebay today, can't wait to try them out. I've been checking out their stuff on ebay for open box returns and such and got a real great price on them $8.95 a piece.

I purchased one each of the 1/8th, 1/6th and 1/4th grids. I already have a 1/8th. These things are great for getting a nice tight light on your subject and for the price you can't beat them. They use a velcro attachment to attach to your speedlights that with a little fiddling works pretty well. I'll show you how I attach mine in a later post. If you've got the money head over to ebay and do a search for Opteka and check out their open box stuff. You can usually get it for a good price and usually their stuff is pretty decent.

Brooks Grades and Christmas

The semester is over and the grades are in! I received two A's an A- and a B. Not to shabby. Need to do a little more work on my Art History. Looking forward to starting next semester already.

Also wanted to say to the folks that follow this blog: Merry Christmas and Happy New Year. Have fun, be safe.

Brooks Institute Update and Other Things...

The first semester is over. There was quite a bit of writing in this semester and I'm expecting more writing in the next. I'm now on a four week break and I don't know what I'm going to do with myself. I do have some images to post from this semester and will be putting those up in the next couple of days.

I'll be putting together a little lighting talk at the Lompoc Photographers Guild on the 15th of January. I'm so looking forward to it. It should be a lot of fun. It has to be an hour long, I'm going to shoot for about a 45 minute talk and demo with 15 minutes for questions. This hardly ever works out because people always want to know about lighting.

I have never done so much writing in my life as I have for this first semester of my MFA program. I know it's only going to get more involved. I'm actually looking forward to it. I've noticed that as I've been writing about art and creativity my own creative processes have changed and I think for the better.

How lignt can interact in an image.

Chris, our Photographic Theory instructor gave us a shooting assignment. We have to create five different images exploring the ways light can interact in an image. Here are my five:

Transmission

 

Reflection

 

Refraction

 

Absorption

 

Scatter