Friday, October 10, 2003

Talked with a man up in Minnesota at PhotoTechnic. I had some questions about a graduated photo background (white gradually changing to black - the current studio photography fashion) and a black velour background. I noticed that for me, there's something profoundly reassuring about a Wisconsin or Minnesota accent. I grew up in Illinois, where the midwestern accent isn't really like the northern one. But there's something about the Wisconsin and Minnesota accent that I just love. Smith-Victor Company, I'm not so happy with. I discovered this afternoon that the barn doors I bought "for 12" reflectors" don't fit on the "12" reflectors" that came with my light kit. It's too late to return the barn doors to Adorama, which is closed for about two weeks anyway now. When I called Smith-Victor they just said, essentially, too bad. Tomorrow morning I'll see what I can improvise out of black poster board and electrical tape. If I just have to have metal clip-on barn doors I'll go to PhotoBarn near Atlanta. Gripe gripe gripe. Well, lighten up, Cathy. Someday you may be having a lot of fun photographing your work. At least you've got something to photograph. 5:44:04 PM    comment []

Are we having fun yet? I expect to cry once during a photo session, but twice? Too much! Various frustrations are mounting up. Think I need to back up and break the photo setup into smaller bits. This morning I set up lights and put a digital camera on the tripod. It had been months since I'd used the tripod so I had to dig out the instructions to relearn how to mount a camera on it. (It's a jim-dandy tripod with a double lock etc. so there's a trick to this.) Once the tripod was set up, leveling the camera was kind of an ordeal. I finally got an easier way to do it. Then I had to watch every step I made to keep from knocking over the tripod and camera. Of course, the camera was at the wrong height so I had to adjust that and relevel it. Several times. Now I think the thing to do is to forget about the tripod for now and just hand hold the camera to get some ideas about best views and heights. That will free up a lot of space in the room too. When I tried to add an umbrella to a light, I realized something about my assembly was wrong. Couldn't figure it out till I was describing the problem to the patient woman who answers the phone at Smith-Victor. Ah. I'd assembled the umbrella adapter upside down. OK. The good news is that the 12" light on the mini-boom, even with a clip-on diffuser, throws out a powerful lot of light. And the mini-boom, though a bit quivery, seems to work ok. It will be a miracle not to have to hand hold the light over the bowl while I'm taking a photo, the way I used to do. The bad news (aside from feeling claustraphobic and frustrated, and not knowing enough about the equipment I'm using) is that I don't think there's any way to get a graduated background with the light and table I'm using. I can try barn doors on the light to try to keep it off the background, but I think the distance between bowl and background paper is always going to be too small. So I may end up trying the paper that has the graduated background built in. I've read that it makes for a blue cast to the slides, but maybe I can find a cure for that. Is this fun yet? Well - yelling "I hate this!" at every session probably isn't a good sign. So - not quite. Guess I'm going to have to start getting strict about what I allow myself to say in these sessions. 1:40:28 PM    comment []