Shop Talk: New Lighting Equipment!

My camera is packed full of really fun pumpkin patch photos and I think I will post them here eventually even though there is nothing new under the sun for me to write about pumpkin patches and some of you will be privately gagging.

But whatever. This site is my archive of my life. I don’t have any photo albums or scrapbooks. How sad is that? When my server goes down and I cease to maintain this site, all this history of Bug and SAJ will suddenly not exist. Strangely sad. But I don’t have several thousand dollars to make it into books so I’m just going to stop thinking about it and hope that we just don’t care that much because we are out living in the present instead of the past. Or something like that.

Anyway!

Before I post pumpkin patch photos I thought I’d rattle on about my new photography equipment. It’s pretty big news here at SAJ headquarters aka me at my desk with my coffee and my heater on, toasting my toes. The cats are running around in the background on their own personal race track that includes the rocking yellow chair and sometimes the wall.  You wanted to know that, right?

Alphamom bought this new umbrella light  for me so I can continue to do craft posts after dark. In the pro photography world this is not a big deal. I’d probably need two and a battery pack at least to shoot professionally. But to me?  This is a HUGE big deal. Up until now I’ve been racing the sun because I hate flash photography and I only use natural light.  Natural light gone? No more pictures.

It’s been a real pain in the winter months as you can imagine. Days are short, not much sunlight.  I craft all day and then I’m working like a mad freak, trying to get my shots in before I lose my light.  I rearrange furniture in my house, I use foam core to bounce light from the windows… I pretty much stand on my head to get my shot and then pull off really bad  photoshop tricks to make things look semi-professional enough to post on a website that I’m paid by.

I can now shoot in my house after dark.

Wow.

If I was a night person (which I’m not. Commence wringing of hands.) I could be two times more productive than I am. Imagine the possibilities! I could work all night!! But I’m a morning person so these lights give me about four more hours to get things done. Maybe five if I drink a lot of coffee. This is a big deal. How many times have you wished you had five more hours of daylight to get things done?

So I’m learning.

I’m learning all about light and how to adjust the camera to work with it. I had a lot of hot spots and shadows in my latest shoot and the fabric that I bought for a backdrop was not big enough.

I’m going to seriously have to hunt down a cheap source for backdrops. Anyone know a theatre getting remodeled? I’ll sell my eyeteeth for some velvet curtains. I think threadbare ones would be awesome, kind of rustic and anthropolgie-esque….I bought this pink fabric in a tiny little hole in the wall fabric store in downtown Santa Ana. I love the color and it was pretty cheap too. It’s something poly that doesn’t wrinkle. It feels like a restaurant tablecloth that probably doesn’t absorb moisture. Don’t you hate napkins like that, that don’t soak up anything? I’m getting off topic.

I wish I’d bought twice as much of this fabric because it was really hard getting my models to stay in front of it and not lean off the side into my normal white boring apartment walls.  Note to self: next home needs to include interesting wall, maybe brick or industrial, graffiti…?  But I’m not complaining. My white walls are much easier to work with than the stained walls of my last place that was a trailer.  That was photoshop clone tool city.

I’ve come a long way and I have so many more tricks to learn.

Did you catch my Parisian costume post on alphamom? We had a lot of fun and you know what else?!!  It includes a link to my latest book THAT IS GOING TO BE RELEASED IN FOURTEEN DAYS!!!