Last night while I was playing around with my gear it suddenly occurred to me that I take quite a few pictures of myself. I’ve fallen into a routine where I’d set my flash on a light stand, manually set the power on it, shove business end of the lens in my face, and start firing away. I’m usually trying different camera settings, testing new techniques and equipment, or just fulfilling the need to get some shutter time.

Last night’s round of experiments centered around the effect different white balance settings had while applying a 1/2 CTO gel onto the flash; and no other light modifiers. I wanted hard direct lighting for a more edgy dramatic look. My camera white balance was set to tungsten making the blue sky behind me really pop, combined with the 1/2 CTO gel on the flash to cast warmer light onto my face gave the images a different flavor. It’s a technique I’ll be sure to employ while doing portraitures at the beach. I continued fiddling with the white balance settings to get a better understanding of how the changes I make affect the images.

I was also testing the longevity of some Rayovac AA rechargeable batteries that were powering the flash. I shot 177 images in a thirty minute period, and the flash only misfired once, and that was during a 5 shot burst. I was quite impressed with their performance (so far), most notably because I didn’t have much faith in them in the first place.

I’ve got a lot more learning, experimenting, and testing to do, which means I’ll be the main subject, and a lot more selfies. It seems to be the only way I’m going to appear in pictures…now if I could just smile…

Engulfed In Smoke

This image is safe for all audiences.

Apparently my selfie affliction is worse than I thought. Inspired by the morning light, I bolted for the door, camera in hand, and took a few more shots at my ugly mug before finishing the write up of this post.