So now the Strobist has led us to lesson 1.2. Distance. This lesson leads us to explore the affects on the subject and background when the distance of the main flash is changed while the angle remains the same. Pretty interesting stuff. The closer I got the flash to Abbie's face the darker the background became. David(strobist) briefly explained how light falls off harder at close distances. The difference in the background was subtle moving the strobe from 20ft to 10 ft but 5ft to 1ft was a huge difference. At 1ft, the background was almost completely black. This is one of those things that with enough practice become second nature.

See how much darker the background is? And when you have the background dark you are free to develop it how you like. For example, I just received a sample gel pack from Lee filters with a million different colors. So now with the dark background, I can color it however I want. I can't wait to experiment with that.

Speaking of second nature, I made my second trip to a house here in Atlanta to take pictures of the progress to renovate this place. During the first visit, I felt a little awkward and wasn't really sure where to place strobes in each room. This most recent visit, I felt way more comfortable. And this is with some serious distractions. First of all I was friggin exhausted. I was up until 5am hosting a bachelor party for a very good friend of mine and then had to work the next morning for a few hours. I tried to squeeze in an hour nap before the shoot but no way. Too much on the mind as usual. Second thing was the heat. The house was pretty much gutted and of course no AC. It was a green house. I wish I had had a thermometer to see how hot it was. I would guess well over 100deg. I'm not one to sweat too much but it was poring off of me. You know its too hot when you go outside in the sunshine for relief. But with all this going on I really felt at home and with an innate sense of where I wanted the light. I was delighted to see that the picks came out great. I look to have a web developer friend create a flash slideshow soon.

More to come soon. I will be focusing more on the business side this week. I have some potential paid work coming up so I need to be ready.