As mentioned in the last post, as well as taking pictures of the Slinky(s) on a white background, I also tried it on a black background. In this case, a spare T-Shirt.

The black background and the strobe/flash light really helped the colours in the slinky comes alive.

The problem with these sort of pictures is that they can look very samey to some and utterly different to others. Sadly, I fall into the later camp and it’s been a challenge to pick 6 (3 white, 3 black) which I liked to show here.

If I’d to do it again, I guess I’d diffuse the flash a little more to try and negate the highlights on the coils. And as mentioned, I’d try to use an additional strobe as well.

What walks down stairs, Alone or in pairs, And makes a slinkity sound?

A spring! A spring! A marvellous thing! Everyone knows it’s Slinky!

I am reliably informed that ‘slinkity’ is indeed the sound they make.

My nephew and niece each adopted a slinky as part of their Christmas presents  and since I was in that post dinner, pre going to the pub part of the night I got to wondering if it was possible to take some abstract pictures of them.

These pictures are all taken using a 100mm lens freehand with my 440EX flash gun held by a voice activated light stand (also known as a niece). The slinkys (or is it slinkies or slinkii?) were placed on the back of a 2009 calendar. The V.A.L.S. held the strobe between 15 and 20 inches from the slink… subject at different angles.

The difference between these shots is almost purely the position of the light source. In the first shot, the shadows show it’s above and behind/right of the subject, whilst in the second shot it’s closer and more directly overhead. As a result, the shadows aren’t as visible (apart from under the slinky itself).

Looking at them now, I’m kicking myself for not trying to find an improvised reflector to reduce some of the shadows a little, especially in the first and last shot. I’m also now in the market for a cheap manual strobe that would give me a second light source – cause photographing using off camera strobes is just cool.

I have about 30 of the shots on the white background and I quite liked the cropping on these for some reason. I also have a bunch on a black background and they look really weird – and will follow later…

*And if you really need to hear that song again…

ps: PC is once more in the land of the living. A backup strategy now copies every file in my user accounts folder to a second drive every time the pc starts. I’ve also agreed a new strategy with my brother to keep off site backups on matched external drives – I keep his, he keeps mine. If I don’t mention this again in the near future, someone hit me and make sure I did it.

I like to try things. Even when what I read makes sense. Even when the photographic evidence proves the point. I still like to try things.

Sometimes it can take me a month or two to get round to it. Sometimes it happens sooner. But inevitably, I'll try a thing just to prove it is so.

So, finding myself alone in a house filled with food, beer, hundreds of my favourite movies and the web...

I ignored all those and got out my new light stand and umbrella to see if using a reflector with an off camera strobe really did make a difference to the light...

OK, not owning a reflector was a bit of a bind, but I happened upon a fantastic piece of A2 glossy white card, and necessity being the mother of invention, suddenly I had a compromise.

I set an apple on a chopping board. Then I positioned a flash high to the left pointing at the apple through a translucent white umbrella. For the reflector shot, I then positioned my white card to the right of the apple - the size of the card meant it ran from the surface of the table to above the umbrella in height. (For reference the chopping board was on a black surface). since I was shooting freehand, the position of the apple is slightly different in the two frames, but the setup was the same.

Without a Reflector...

With a Reflector...

OK, neither of these is going to win photograph of the year, but it proved out the theory I'd read about.

Whilst there is still shadow in the reflector shot, it's a lot less sheer and looks more natural in keeping the apple and board detail.  I reckon moving the reflector closer again would have reduced the shadow further.

So, lesson for tonight. Reflectors do work in reducing the harshness of a shadow.

I was playing with my flashgun tonight and decided to try and recreate a picture I'd seen in this Strobist post.

Because I was away from technology at the time, I had to try it from memory.

When compared to David's toy car, the highlights on mine are still very sharp and there are some burnt out patches on both pictures (I like them on the second car), but it's a fun thing to try.

Now the essence of David's post was related to light sources and what makes soft light or hard light, and to be honest I'm still trying to get my head round some of this so I'm not going to try and stick my understanding of it online just yet.

Still, it's a fun way to photograph toy cars.

Halloween is coming and the photographer has gotten fat,

and while he was sorting dinner he spotted the wee girls trike (OK, it doesn't rhyme.).

With winter arriving with vengeance I was cooking dinner tonight and looking out into the back garden. My daughters trike was sitting abandoned and I couldn't shake that "Here's Johnny" line. After saying it four or five times my wife cracked up and made me go and take the picture.

I think it's kinda sinister, but you maybe just think it's badly lit.

(f/8.0, 6secs, 100mm, ISO-200, 29/10/2008)

This was deliberately lit down low on the right side of the image to try and give it that partially lit appearance. To do it, I stood just out of shot and remotely fired the camera, then during the 6 second exposure I fired the flash manually from low to the ground and pointing up.

This is kind of a lead in for me to a concept known as 'off camera strobing' and something I'm hoping to do more off over the next while. There are a few good sites that deal with it, but the defacto best blog on the subject is The Strobist.