Making photos for myself

I always love the process of making pictures but I rarely like photos of me. It is so much easier to be on the other side of the lens.

A lot of goofing off went into the self-assigned project, as did beer and tinkering with lights and settings. I'm still not 100% happy with the results, but I can live with it. Some of my concerns are with the post processing I do in Adobe Camera Raw and Photoshop. Over time I hope to start using Apple's Aperture 3 to process the RAW files before opening them in Photoshop.

Overall, it was a two light process. I used an Alien Bees B1600 strobe for the key light, and a Nikon SB-800 for fill.

Details:

• AB 1600 at 1/32 power, 22 inch white beauty dish with diffuser sock positioned overhead on a boom.
• SB-800 (on Manual) at 1/64 (+2/3) power, no modifier, gelled with Roscoe blue gels (one 1/2 blue, one full blue to make 1 1/2 blue)
• Nikon D300 shot tethered (from the Mac in the photo) using Nikon Camera Control Pro 2. Settings were; 1/125 shutter, f/7.1 aperture, and 100 ISO (LO 1.0).
• Triggered via Pocket Wizards - I know, overkill but I had control from my chair since I was using my Sekonic meter to check exposure and Camera Control 2 literally takes total control over the D300...I really never needed to get off my butt!

The final shot...

A production shot...

As you can see in the photo above, the Alien Bees strobe was low, and I hand-held the SB-800 in my left hand. Notice the Apple logo is not bright in the production shot. The final shot (second photo in this post) had some Photoshop work involved in making the logo bright. It never looked great in the set-up photos so I opted to enhance it myself.

Oh, and for the beer drinkers out there, I'm drinking a Guinness Extra Stout (my favorite).

Cheers