“Life is like riding a bicycle. To keep your balance, you must keep moving.” -Albert Einstein
Besides making photos and goofy jokes, I spend a lot of time studying. Some things I study are: how to make better photos, how to make funnier goofy jokes, how light and color work, the lives and careers of my favorite artists, the science of creativity, historical and alternative darkroom processes, how the brain works, the history of the southeast, and cooking. I never said my interests weren’t diverse.
But the funny thing is that none of that is work. In fact, it’s the opposite of work. To me, it’s playing. My whole job is the opposite of working. Usually, at the end of a photo session with a client, I’ll say, “Thanks for playing with me today!” Because even though I might have been running around like a two year old hopped up on Pixie Stix and Mountain Dew, and totally sweating bullets to get my shots, every bit of it was still fun.
In a few short weeks, ‘wedding season’ will be here and I’ll be very busy blogging about all the amazing people and their gorgeous weddings. But for the past couple of weeks, and for the next couple of weeks, I’ve set aside a little extra time for playing (also known as ‘learning’ to humorless people). And I’m going to share a little bit of that with you between now and that first wedding in April. Because that’s way more fun than all the usual wedding photographer stuff I’m supposed to talk to you about.
For all you curious photographers out there, this was an experiment with bounced light and reflectors. The main light source was a Speedlight on camera right bounced off of a gold reflector. In the top photo, on camera left was a second large white reflector to bring in the tiniest bit of fill light. For the bottom pair, there was no fill. If you’re using a camera with a pop up flash, you can make this happen by using an opaque object (I’ve used my hand with success in the past… although be sure to steady the camera) to deflect the light toward something reflective, like a light colored wall or a person wearing a white shirt. And it kind of needs to be done in a dimly lit situation.
