The kids downloaded a virus to my Photoshop machine at home, and now it won’t even boot up. That’s a huge bummer. The same kids (mine) destroyed my Photoshop CS2 installation disk a year or so ago, so I cannot reinstall the software. I am hoping a reformat of the hard drive will get rid of the virus. I have a 10,000 rpm Raptor drive in there for the OS and Photoshop (all image files are stored on separate hard drives in the same computer, as well as on two 500GB external drives). The Raptor drive gives better performance for Photoshop and general computing. I want to salvage it and put it in my new computer I just finished building (AMD dual core, 4 GB of RAM, 256MB 8600GT Video).
Anyway, I ordered an upgrade to Photoshop CS3 and it will be here Monday. I had to restrain myself a little. I wanted to get the entire Creative Suite, to include Illustrator, Acrobat, Photoshop, Web authoring software, etc, etc. I also wanted to get Lightroom… But, alas, we are in the middle of a business startup and cannot afford such luxuries. I went with the basic CS3 upgrade, used my NAPP (National Association of Photoshop Professionals) discount, and will be back in the editing business for $180. It can’t get here soon enough, though. I have two photo shoots to edit already, and I have another shoot on Saturday. The first two are a local church’s staff (formal headshots for their website) and the other is a family portrait session. I am doing a maternity shoot (and it also happens to be their first anniversary, too) on Saturday. I will post some examples of the shots after I get some editing done early next week.
OK, I was reading Scott Kelby’s blog (http://www.scottkelby.com/blog/) this week and he is doing some formal food shots in a studio type setting for his wife’s cookbook. He used a continuous light system with a softbox (lights are on all the time, as opposed to a burst of flash when you press the shutter). Continuous lights (nicknamed “hot lights”) are great for studio work because you get constant feedback as to lighting strength, ratios, shadow placement, catch light placement, etc… They have always been bad for studio settings as well because of the enormous amount of heat they generated. Well, now you can get daylight balanced compact fluorescent lights that emit almost no heat. I followed the link he posted for purchasing the same equipment, and it was approximately $550 for a single light set up (light, stand, and softbox). I researched the actual lamps a little more and found that I could buy the bulbs for about $10 each (this particular set up had five bulbs). So… $50 for bulbs, and a little bit of money for some light fixtures, wiring, switches, and a backer plate and I can make my own for under $100. I think I am going to try it, you know, in all of my spare time. Well, this project might have to wait awhile, but I can do it. We have the technology, and I understand electrical work enough to build it safely. For now, I will continue to use my Alien Bees strobes.
I was looking at another blog called Strobist. This blog is about wireless, off camera flash (instead of studio lighting kits). This guy has done more to help the average photographer understand photographic lighting than anyone else in history. He has an international following, and there are Strobist groups that meet on a regular basis to conduct photographic lighting seminars and photo shoots in every city around the world. Anyway, one of his biggest concepts is knowing how to reverse engineer lighting. He wants people to understand lighting so well that they can look at any photograph and be able to describe the lighting set up without any other information. You should be able to identify how many lights, their location as compared to subject and camera, distance from subject and camera, quality of light (soft, diffused, hard, etc), and on and on. I am proud to say that I get the reverse engineering questions right pretty much every time. If you want to learn about photo lighting, check out his site. Every minute spent there is productive and valuable.
Well, I haven’t had any time to do any photography for fun, and I can’t edit any photos until Monday anyway. So, I am going to post a few photos from my galleries just for fun. Some of these are straight photography, and others are Photoshopped. You can see more of my photography here: www.pbase.com/jdanderson
Click on any image to see a larger version:
...and one of Starbucks going down in flames!!
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