Relax, you're on vacation.

Today’s post is coming to you from the Village of Douglas on the shore of Lake Michigan. The days fly by too fast and run together like watercolor paints. We had a bonfire on the beach last night and stayed up way too late once again. It took me a while to get going this morning even though I was woken up prematurely by some sort of clatter going on in the kitchen. When I got up to investigate, I discovered some banana bread waiting on the counter that was still warm from the oven. Yesterday we had baked eggs with cream (like a souffle), bacon and warm croissants for breakfast. In the afternoon we had home made cookies, again straight from the oven. It’s about food first with this group.

There are some people renting the house next door and they appear to be super fitness freaks. I glanced over there this morning and they were running in place on those small trampolines prior to going on a bike ride which was probably following by a mile swim. When we went to the beach today (or rather when I wandered down there much later than everyone else) there was another family of super fit parents and kids. The kids ranged from about eight years old to maybe fifteen years old. Those kids were running in the water, wave boarding, tossing footballs and about a hundred other activities all at the same time and never paused to take a breath. This afternoon Tod the Uberman came over to chide me for starting the BBQ grill at four in the afternoon. Well, I may not be able to beat him in a marathon but…

DIY Ring Flash For Strobes

I've posted some photos on my flickr page showing the DIY Ring Flash under construction. You can go directly there by clicking on the title of this post. I'll be putting the finishing touches on this project just in time for my vacation where I hope to put it to good use. The hardest thing about any project seems to be getting all the parts and tools together. I've kept this one pretty simple and learned a few things in the process of building my own ring flash adaptor. If you have been longing for an affordable ring flash as much as I have, then I hope you will find the information useful.

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."