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.

Anthony: A Self-Portrait

Letter A, day 7/14, 7/365

Only one person calls me Anthony on a regular basis: Elizabeth Weaver, my friend for many years. She suggested a self-portrait, even going so far as to throw abstraction into the mix if I so wished. I decided to do something a little more traditional.

As a subscriber to David Hobby’s Twitter feed, I saw a recent post he wrote about Gregory Heisler, portrait photographer extraordinaire. He has photographed some of the most famous people in the world, and while I don’t think much of his series of vivid portraits (do I really have a right to comment on the work of a guy of his caliber?), I was really, really impressed with his series of simple portraits.

I was specifically going for the shallowest depth of field I could muster (at something other than telephoto focal lengths), leaving me with basically my trusty old 35mm f/1.8. I positioned the camera on my tripod, nearly fully extended, and sat on the floor. My SB-600 sat on one of my Manfrotto NanoStands, shooting through a small softbox just to the left of the camera. I wanted only one half of my face lit, a little bit of splash on the floor behind me (I was sitting directly on the floor), and focus locked straight on my eyeball.

Now, shooting oneself can be a little frustrating, especially if it’s hot and you’re sitting on the floor; you’ve got to hop up and down, checking the frame after each attempt. Also, see the duds? Yeah, I changed into a collared shirt and tie, because what’s the point in doing something dramatically if you’re not spiffed out?

I think I accomplished what I set out to do here. I at least generated the image I had in my head, although I would have ideally used a 24mm f/1.4 wide open. That would’ve been very nice. I also considered throwing a bit more light down behind me on the floor, but I really didn’t want any of my furniture appearing in the shot. Light behind me would have really made the dark half of my noggin pop off the frame.

Strobist:

SB-600 into small softbox, camera left.