Never Limit Yourself...

Never limit yourself to only one form of photography.

Tonight i was wandering around the web and ran into some abstract photography and thought, "hey, thats kinda cool" so i just started messing around with stuff... next thing i know im laying on the ground looking like a contortionist with my two home made lighting rigs turned on. But, this time instead of lighting the subject, they WERE the subject. Here is the result of my evening.


Here is a side shot of the light/shroud ive been using just as a reference...

Old

This is a post just to show how i tried to do some pics like kyle tried in the last post...Mikey, Jeremiah and myself decided to go out and play some pool at a local pool hall...so we all met up...and before we left I put all my lighting equipment up and snapped a couple pics...i was using 2 sb-600's...one white umbrella that i shot into to diffuse the light and then i used a ring light to cast an even amount of light over the face...
Mikey
Jeremiah
after we got to the pool hall...i realized there were to many people there to set up the lighting since we couldn't get in a back room...so i decided to bump the iso and turn the shutter down...there is no flash..the only light was the ones in the back ground and the one light over the table...
mikey took this one of me
i took these of mikey trying to get the whole effect of a story...to try and tell what he was going for...
low depth of field...focus on the stripe ball
higher iso...lower shutter higher depth of field...shows the combo

it was fun...but not an easy task...i took over 100 pictures and only liked a couple of them really lol...i am going to try to do another actual shoot really soon so i can put the pictures up here and maybe show some set up shots...i got some new stuff for christmas i have been wanting to try but haven't had the opportunity yet...hopefully soon

improvise!

Since i no longer have any flash units and my D50 doesnt have Commander mode, i decided to get creative and start slapping some paper on the top of flashlights....

here is what i had setup:

Nikon D50
Nikon Nikkor 28mm f/2.8
2x Flashlights that have 11 LED's each with a "light cone"


i took these with my iPhone to show the setup in action


And the end result....


I know the composition isnt exactly perfect but considering i took some 8 1/2 x 11 paper and taped it into a cone and then jammed the flashlight into it... the lighting is pretty even.

Came to my senses....

well...i haven't been doing to much shooting lately which led me to the decision to sell my D300 and all my other camera equipment...and after i put it up for sale i realized it wasn't worth selling...even thought its still brand new, no one would give me what everything i have is worth and i'm already to spoiled with the D300 to even consider a down grade...so i decided to ride it out...

shortly after deciding to sell the camera i was talking with kyle (before he ordered the 28mm) and we decided to start shooting more...even though we haven't done alot of shoots, the couple that we did do has helped me be happy with my decision to keep my stuff...hopefully kyle will post some pictures that he has taken with that 28mm or even let me use it on a shoot one day...if i like it i will probably buy one too...seeing that the 50mm is just to long of a lens, zoom wise...

so anyways...here we have kellen...

your modern day guy...drives a TA...and i know it weird seeing that he doesn't have a mullet...but you never know what his taint holds...lol jk...but kyle, mikey and myself met up with him and marcus (brother darkness productions) to take pictures of the TA and kind of just hang out...we started out using just the lights from the street lamps and that didn't work for to long before mikey broke out 2 sb-600's...now the car is red...i forgot to check my white balance like i normally do so thats why there is a hint of orange in the car lol...
using kyles 50mm
back to the 10-20 wide angle
only pic with flash lol
now i've gotten alot of complaints on forums about my extremely wide angles and the effect it puts on people when i do it and blah blah blah...i do that on purpose...it's funny...and they people i take the pics of/for seem to enjoy it...


a couple of nights before shooting Kellens TA...we meet up with marcus again...this time he was with out friend Matt...Matt is a dealer for Xenon Visions...so if anyone is interested in buying a set of HID's just email me and we'll work it all out...not only does he give great prices on his HID's...but hee drives an HID equipped SRT-4...thats pretty fast i might add...


so we all decided to meet up to take a couple pics and shoot some video footage for marcus's next mixtape...we didn't get to take alot before security came and kicked us out...it always seems to happen...i don't see why people have such a big problem with us taking pictures...we don't destroy anything or mess with anyone...makes no sense...but here are the shots i got...
i will add this...these pictures looked perfect when i had them opened in photoshop...then once i uploaded them...they turned out hazy...i don't get it...but it happens sometimes i guess...we had a great time that night...and almost every other time we go out and shoot...i am hoping to add a couple more people to the authors list on the blog so we get more updates for people to read...so look forward to that...also we are planing on going out for some more trigger happy games tonight...so i will take my camera this time and try to see if i can catch a bullet in my shutter...should be fun....till next time

New lens

I havent been updating very much lately but i recently picked up a Nikon Nikkor 28mm f/2.8 off of ebay for fairly cheap, i find it to be an even MORE usefull lens than the 50mm as it gets you closer to the "35mm" range. with an effective focal length of 42mm on a Nikon DX format camera it really does great in taking indoor photos as well as macro shots. I started to experiment with it earlier and found out that it will focus down to 8 inches with about a 1 1/2 to 2" depth of field at f/2.8

Also, i am currently trying to decide on what to do for a camera body right now. The D80 is something i know i want and know i would use to death, but the D300, which Mario has, keeps calling my name and showing me new features every time i look at it. So if any of you out there have any suggestions for me, just comment my lame updates on here...

Look for more 28mm and 50mm shots to appear, i plan on using the 28mm for some rolling shots of cars soon so watch out!

Late response

Sorry for the late response...the beginning of the year has been a little hectic for me...so a little late on my post...but here are a few from the saturday night when me, kyle, and mario went out...

Like mario said it was really dark and we left our tripods so not all of the pics that I took came out because it was about 30-40 degrees outside...but here are the ones that came out fairly visible...

Mario working his D300


Inside City Hall


so there are two for some reason my pc is not connecting to the site so I will get some more back to you later...Hope all of you have a great new year...

1-1-08 1st post for Robbie

Happy New Years to everyone, hope everyone had a fun and safe new years, I sure did. One of my friends and I decided to go shoot his car today since it was really nice compared to the past couple of days of non stop raining. Here are some pictures I took today, I only used the 18-55mm cause I felt "In the Zone" haha I'm joking but just decided not to use it for this shoot so here they are, Enjoy.

Happy New Year...

First off i would like to say happy new year to everyone.

Since I am the slacker that i am, i took longer than mario to post pictures from the exact same shoot date haha... so here are my shots which i took with my new Nikon D50 with my 50mm f/1.8