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.)

Indy is four years old today

Indy, our basement cat, is one of two former strays that our daughter brought home in 2007 from the animal hospital where she works. She estimated that March 22nd was Indy's birthday. That makes him four years old.

I've never known a cat who can look so angry, so full of malice and mischief all the time.

So Indy, happy birth...ah...er...oh, never mind:

(Shot with the Nikon D300; program mode; 1/60 sec @ f/5; ISO 1000; SB-400 bounce flash; auto white balance; flash compensation +0.3; normal JPG.)