april's fresh start

i always feel the pressure at the start of every new month to, admittedly superstitiously, get off to the best possible work-success...lest i be cursed to mediocrity for the remaining 30 days...my first assignment in april was a portrait of a woman who'd been awarded an honor for her work with women by the local soroptimist club...i really wanted to do something cool, but she had little time and was gonna be in her small office at the police station, so i was mentioning that to mr. bosch before heading out and wondering how to jazz this up, and he wisely suggested that we really don't have to put her in her environment per se - we just want a nice portrait, and he showed me some work on strobist...so, we started brainstaorming, and i came up with a possible location to take her to near her office, and then we were talking lighting techniques, and he offered to come with since it was a slow day - help me with the set-up - he's been studying lighting a lot and has been making some kick-ass portraits - and i've been really hit-or-miss with my attempts at stepping it up in that way, so i was very thankful for his input...on the way over to her woffice, i noticed the entry to the historic courthouse - the original, very stately one that isn't used anymore...i said, hey, let's try there, so, we set up some lights and tested them for position and exposure...mr. bosch is a very good model

then, as it was almost our appt time, i walked over and grabbed my subject, tried to line her up just as we had arranged it with him - her framed right within that dark portion of the column, which stands out more given our light inbetween the following column row

i was happy with the result, and it was a great lesson in using multiple lighting...but for some reason, i think i still like bryan's foto better!

friday - another slow day, another feature hunt - came upon these kids playing hoops in their driveway - wasn't sure i liked this, but it's one of those, the more i look at it, it's growing on me kind of pictures

back in for another week...there wasn't anything on the schedule, but then i was told about a possible protest outside the nuclear plant - the union is in negotiations with management over the hiring/use of contract (ie, non-union) workers, and some people were supposedly gathering to voice their union opinions prior to this week's vote...worked it best i could to try and get moment/story-telling....sun started coming out of the overcast skies near the end of their protest, so i tried working that moment as they shouted and cheered with other plant workers coming out of the plant complex at shift change

today, did a fair bit of office-y type work, but i had a portrait for sports for a story on a high school golf coach who was finally rejoining his team after recovering from a near-fatal stroke - luckily, it didn't actually start raining til we were done - busted out the light kit, and i was really happy with the result - very simple one-light set-up, but i think it works

and now i am ALL CAUGHT UP!!!!! PHEW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!