To And Fro

What's the matter with me,
I don't have much to say,
Daylight sneakin' through the window
And I'm still in this all-night cafe.
Walkin' to and fro beneath the moon
Out to where the trucks are rollin' slow,
To sit down on this bank of sand
And watch the river flow.

- Bob Dylan, "Watching The River Flow."

It's been a weird week with people and dogs in the hospital. Not much happening photographically this week except for a couple of trips to buy supplies for lighting projects. The new flash should arrive this afternoon so I will be playing with that this weekend and reading the manual online at lunch time. I didn't win (didn't expect to) the Orbis ring flash in the Strobist Boot Camp II assignment, so I guess I'll have to get busy and build my own instead...

It's In The Mail

I bit the bullet today and ordered myself a new Nikon SB600 flash. I can’t afford the SB900 at the moment and I have come to the conclusion that two smaller flashes (thinking ahead) are actually more useful than one really big, powerful, good looking, sexy…

Everyone has to start somewhere. A flash is a flash but it helps when they all match and you don’t have to scratch your head trying to figure out different settings and controls every time you want to use them.

I wasted some more time at the hardware store today looking for things to use on lighting (light modifier) projects. I didn’t find the part I was actually looking for so I think I’ll just hold off on any projects until my new toy arrives. I just wanted to make sure it came in time for my vacation.

I went over to the park at lunch time. There was a blimp flying around downtown so that was sort of cool. No good sunsets lately but at least I came prepared today with my big-boy camera and manual flash (off camera) which someone asked me about so I gave a brief and confusing (I'm sure) explanation of why flat lighting is bad. Just trust me, it's bad.

I can't believe all the cameras (and tripods) I saw downtown today. When I say cameras, I mean big-ass DSLRs though there were plenty of people with point and shoot cameras with confused looks on their faces as though technology had somehow let them down when they were shooting directly into the sun with no fill flash. "Huh? They didn't say nuthin' about that in the TV ad."

Just Do It (Yourself)

I'm thinking of making myself a ringflash so I've been looking around on the net for a good plan. I ran across a great video for one this afternoon. It's in two parts and you can jump to the first part by by clicking on the title of this post.