The flash is fully manual.  No TTL, but for getting me started in flash photography it shall do nicely.  Soon as I can come up with some more cash I’ll probably pick up an sb-400 or something.  I’m looking forward to getting fairly proficient with single flash photography before I jump into multiple flashes.  If anyone is looking for info on speedlight photography I think this is the best source. http://neilvn.com/tangents/ This guy is simply amazing and has a wealth of information he’s willing to give you right there on his site for free!

Also hit up http://www.strobist.com if you’re wanting even more information on off camera flash photography.  The wealth of knowledge from these two sites is astounding.  I did a couple shots of the flash and flash box, and added a bonus of Dyellen and Eden, who were the first willing models for the camera tonite.  Oh, and Dy’s walking shoe. Enjoy!

Hope anyone reading this likes the shots and I’m hoping to have quite a few more model shots coming up again.  My sister will be back in town next week, and Jessica has agreed to do some more shots soon as well.  I’m also trying to hand cards to strangers, but I think they all think I’m a creeper….

If you would like an example of some of the stuff I’ve been working on, you can check out my twitter page.  www.twitter.com/readmckay I’m going to try and make everything look similar, twitter, my blog, my eventual web page.  I want it all to appear seamless.  The design I’m going with on twitter, is not necessarily where I’ll end up.  I consider it my starting board.

As far as my picture today, I got bored and decided to take a few pictures of some action figures I had floating about.  (I can’t get rid of anything)  I think I’m going to invest in some more action figures though.  Some that have a little more flexibility than these ones.  All I can really make Picard and LaForge do is stand lol.

Headshots as a general rule I believe are not to have too much retouching done.  I did very little to these pics.   Color correction, blemish removal, fixing the background, and minor eye sharpening and lightening.  No real heavy lifting on these shots.  I think they came out pretty good!

The pictures use natural light from the window with the reflector held by either my hand or my wife slightly off camera right.  The diffuser my parents got for me was a 3 foot Lasolite Tri-Grip.  So far I love the thing.  The reflected light is considerably cooler than the natural light though, so I will probably get another type of reflector before too long.  I’m doing some headshots soon for someone and hopefully the diffuser will come in pretty handy.

About the pictures now,  I always enjoy taking pictures of the bells players, however I always end up with the same looking shots.  So this time, I decided to try and see what kind of different pictures I could come up with.  The two shown below were my two favorites.  There is also a picture of a friend of mine playing the violin tonite.   She did wonderfully and I’ve been wanting to work on my black and white’s a bit so you may see some more of those showing up in my blog posts.  The panoramic picture is of our congregation at the very end of the service.  Candle’s are passed out and lit, the lights are turned off and we say a prayer ending the night.

So last night I updated my twitter, facebook, and Gravitar.  I should have all of my bases covered I think.  The rest of the pictures below were the rejects.  Enjoy!

The two dogs you see in the shot are Eden and Willow.  Eden is the lab, Willow is the husky.  We only took them on the trip.  Anara started having seizures this year, Kaylee hates getting in the car, and Pyro had just finished going into heat.  So they all got to stay home for the week.

I’m starting to find myself liking a different style a bit more now.  I’ve dropped some examples below, the first is the newer processing I’ve been doing lately followed by some processing I did a few months ago.   I think I’m starting to get closer to something I can begin to call my own, my style.  Still not quite there yet.

Half the reason I procrastinate is because of the sky.  Here in Taft/Bakersfield, we usually only get clouds right before or right after it rains.  Otherwise its more haze.  I’ve been trying to push myself to go out and get more landscape shots, but then I think about the drive and the timing, and I say, “oh I’ll do it tomorrow”.  You can guess what I say the next day….