California & Nevada Day 1

Some photos from our first day in San Francisco.








































































Will add commentary when I get a chance!

Making an effort to keep up with the challenge

I'm trying! Ha. About 11.45 pm I realised I haven't taken a photo today. So here's my desperate attempt to come up with something worth looking at... These are just some of my props that I bought the other day. The theme, I thought, would be something like "shades and jewellery at the ready - where's the party!?". (Well, basically, I just tried lighting the black perplex sheet with some items on it ;-).

If some of you my dear regular or irregular photo blog followers have a spare moment and can be arsed, can you please let me know which photo you like the most? (If any... I'm not sure if they are all crap.) The winner will be uploaded to Flickr in my "Photo a day challenge" set.

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Studio!

I bought some studio lights (Bowens Esprit Gemini 500W kit) and a few backdrops so that I can start practising taking portraits. Finally!

Here are a couple of test shots of Miles.





I need to work on avoiding reflections on glasses. Have received some advice from friends on top of what I found on the internet. Will give them a try the next time Miles poses for me. Here are the tips that I have acquired:

1) The most obvious one: change position of the light source. Move it higher, more to the left/right, or further away from the model (downside: light source will be smaller as it's further away)

2) Change the angle of the glasses by raising the 'earloops' a tiny bit above the ears.

3) Use polarising filter on the lens. (I'm yet to test this.)