New Equipment

As you know, I have been saving up for equipment and for models for my fashion portfolio for when covid is over.  I decided I couldn’t wait any longer.  So, I took $1000 of my savings and bought 3 light stands, 2 speedlights and a softbox and a few other little things.  I also want a collapsible beauty dish, but they didn’t have one.  At the very least I can practice at home or maybe have some friends pose for me outside.

My husband was excited for me and said are you going to test out your new equipment?  I said are you going to pose for me?  He agreed.  I had an idea in my head for a fashion shoot where a woman is getting ready in the bathroom then trips and falls into the shower curtains, gets tangled in the shower curtains and smears lipstick on her face.  But, my husband wouldn’t agree to the lipstick.  I thought for a minute then, it came to me, secret eating in the bathroom.  I had ice cream in the freezer and so began the secret eating series.  My daughter loved it so much (because secret eating is a running joke in our family) and wanted to get in on one of the shots. So we did secret eating cupcakes in the bathtub, thus the strange featured blog image.  They were both great actors and this is the best shot of the whole series.  Would you like to see the other shots?  The last one wasn’t the greatest of “hiding the pizza in the sink and pretending to eat fruit”.  My husband wasn’t in love with the idea and it kinda shows.  I need to make up for that one. And I threw in a black and white test shot because it makes a nice portrait.

Before I bought my equipment, I bought a piece of white cardboard from the dollar store and put it on an easel and bounced my flash onto it and into my subject to create a softbox lighting feel.  It works really well and looks just like a softbox in my eyes.  But it sure takes time to figure out how to angle the flash to bounce the light just right.  For self portraits or for my family portraits, I needed to put my camera on a tripod, put the timer on, run and hope we look good.  I now have a remote trigger that also has a timer, so no more running back and forth.  My photos are much improved.  Here’s what I did bouncing lights.  This idea came to me as I was starving.  It killed me not being able to eat my giant bowl of food, but once that idea comes, there’s no turning back.  Anyway, doesn’t the lighting look good? And all it cost me was $1 for the white card.

Now that I have a 3 light set up, I need to figure out how to use it.  I read the instructions, but I can’t seem to get it to work.  Langara has a course that’s called small strobe big light, but it got cancelled this summer.  I have taken it before, but it was 7 years ago.  A refresher would be nice.  But I’m sure YouTube can work as well.   I’ll reread Light Science and Magic for a third time, and come up with some great 3 light set ups to shoot.  Hmmm who to use?  Me, my daughter or my husband hahahaha.  For now, I’ll show you some double exposures with a one light set up that I did on myself.  Man that was really difficult.  I tried so many things and I’m not the most photogenic person in the world.  How creepy do some of these look?  I’ve added a couple with textures as well, just for fun.  My favorite will be in my next blog post.