Friday, August 23, 2013

Katie 25 days post-amp

I needed an excuse to practice with my Pocket Wizards and the SB-800 flash, so I decided I'd try them out with Katie as I had never made even a half-serious attempt to try them on her yet.. I had made an attempt with her previously by taking her outside and using my umbrella, but it was clear from the one picture where she stood still long enough that I didn't know what I was doing. So just to simplify things I tried to get a picture of her indoors, dispense with the umbrella stand and just hold the flash in my left hand while holding the camera with my right.

Katie was clearly up to posing for me as I took a few snaps: she'd been feeling more like herself after her first chemo dose a couple of weeks earlier. So it wasn't too hard to get her attention by saying a few choice words to her and ending up with a picture this:


I bounced the flash off the ceiling and used a large aperture to blur the background. After importing the picture into Lightroom I lightened and added a bit of clarity and saturation to her eyes. It's not a good picture by any means, but I wanted to capture that expression of hers.

(Shot with the Nikon D600, SB-800, and Pocket Wizards; aperture priority with aperture set to f/2.8 at 1/60 second and ISO 400; center-weighted; normal JPG.)

10 comments:

  1. I have no idea what a pocket wizard is. I know Katie is beautiful without one but she looks beautiful with one too :) She is such a smiley girl.

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    1. it's a set of radio transmitters and receivers that let you place your flash off your camera.

      yes, she is pretty happy these days. how painful that leg must have been for her.

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  2. I think that's a great picture of Katie. Really captures her joie de vivre. Glad she is doing so well after chemo.

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    1. her third round comes next week provided her bloodwork (which we do this friday) looks okay to her oncologist.

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  3. Well, I think it's a lovely shot of her. I need to play with bouncing the flash some. I also need to toy with just moving them and using them downstairs some to get more relaxed, hanging out shots. She looks so happy in this picture!

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    1. i've stayed away from using flash indoors ever since i bought the 50mm prime, but i needed to get some practice in with the pocket wizards. i still have a long, long way to go before i have a good feel for using them.

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  4. Really lovely expression on that dear face

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    1. she looks pretty happy a lot of the time, but she also has this look she gives me where she's resigned to me taking her picture -- you know, the look where you can almost hear her sighing because she has to pose for me.

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  5. She looks so happy! What a beautiful photo of your girl.

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    1. thanks, lori. we've all been taking a lot of katie pictures lately, and poor sadie is getting the short end of it. i hope to rectify that.

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