Aplomb

Letter A, day 9/14, 9/365

a·plomb/əˈpläm/

Noun: Self-confidence or assurance, esp. when in a demanding situation.

Sent in by a fantastic, amazing professor of mine from graduate school, Dr. Kristin Arola. Leave it to a wordsmith like her to send in aplomb. Sheesh! Just kidding, thank you Kristin. Cook me up something phrasally crazy next time!

Three lessons this time:

1) I really need a light above me when I’m shooting against a dark background. The top of my head always bleeds into the blackness. Maybe get a third light.

2) Get friends to help out more. I don’t want to use myself as a model much more. Maybe I should just get some more friends.

3) Simple, thus far, has always been better than complex. I’m not good with complex yet.

This is by far my least favorite shot because it’s lit poorly, I had to composite two frames, and this is my second shot today. Granted, the first shot was all planned out in advance, but still… And worse yet, this shot was not planned out at all. This is what happens with zero planning. Yesterday’s shot, which I love, was done with lots of planning.

So as the letter A winds down, I’m going to plan more, and keep things simpler. Detail shots, perhaps. Close-in work with little equipment, but lots of interesting stuff in the frame. When I am 100% comfortable with that, it’ll be on to more ambitious shoots.

Strobist:

This is two shots composited in Photoshop. The first (me in green) uses an SB-600 in a softbox, high camera right, and an SB-26, bare, camera left for some rim lighting. The second frame (me with a giant, face-rending knife) is lit with a bare SB-26 right below the subject’s face, with the softbox’d SB-600 directly behind the subject’s head.