Yesterday's Strobist meetup went great! We had 9 of 10 photographers and 5 of 7 models show. We all got some great shots and we learned a lot about working with models. We ran the gammut again with models and photographers experience levels so we all got some new experiences. We also had a wide variety of equipment from Alien Bee ringlights to discontinued speedlights. All in all, it was a great time.

I did get reminded that I should always leave my equipment out until I'm really ready to leave. After about 5 hours of shooting, I decided to pack up and just watch what other folks were doing and I missed a couple of opportunities for behind-the-scenes shots. Oh well, that would have ruined the mystique anyway, right?

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Well, tomorrow is another strobist meetup. We've got a big group this time and are actually having to turn away both photographers and models. I'm not too happy about that, but it's winter and we have to do what we have to do. Summer time should be a bit better for the big meetups so it's a little odd for me, but that's two reasons I'm looking forward to summer.

I identify myself as a hardcore Minnesotan. I was born here, I've always lived here, and I love the cold and snow we get every year. It's nine degrees below zero outside right now and I'm just starting to think it feels like winter again. On the other hand, with the limited daylight hours and the icy trails, it's not so good for bycicling lately. I've had to hang out in the third floor bedroom where I've set up my bike on a trainer and my iBook on an end table. It's not the same as biking 35 miles from home before walking to work, but I am catching up on The Batman.

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Last Sunday, we had a Strobist meet-up in Northeast Minneapolis. We got a studio from 08:00 to 18:00 and lined up 8 models from ModelMayhem, four in the morning and four in the evening. All of them canceled due to snow. Fortunately one of our fellow Strobists has a son who is in the theater industry and knew some people who knew some people. We got four new models and had quite a time.

Early in the morning, before any models showed up. I was screwing around in the studio. It's much larger than my home studio and the wall color is much more neutral. They also have a great table for product shots and it was a simple matter to set up some empty Coke cans and fire away. Using my new 100mm macro lens I was able to get some really tight depth of field shots. I also tried this technique with a dirty coffee pot, three plastic-tipped darts and a black-and-red vase that was sitting on top of a cupboard.

Before lunch (from Pizza Lucé!), I worked with two of the other strobists with support from the rest of the group and went over some of the lighting exercises from Lighting 102, including the most important one, balancing flash with ambient light. I only said f/stop when I meant shutter-speed a few times, honest.

Once the models showed up I learned:

1. How tough it is to work in a stairwell.
2. More experienced models are easier to work with.
3. AI-Servo mode doesn't always focus where you think it should.

Anyway, I've got a flickr set dedicated to the event. Check it out if you want to see what I've been up to.

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Last Saturday, I took some portraits for Steve Mueske. I haven't done much in the way of portraiture, but I'm working on it. Between what I've learned at Strobist and what I already know, I managed to produce some pretty good shots. It was fun experimenting with light and color and Steve was a good sport when I said things like "Let me try this nose-enhancing wide-angle lens for one".

He also showed me to this really cool location at an abandoned munitions plant on the University of Minnesota's Rosemount Research facility. There were rows of these huge concrete structures that must have been either mounts for heavy equipment or blast protection for/from explosives. I'm definitely going to head back there sometime for more pictures and there's a lot more land and ruins to explore.

I heard from a guy at my local coffee shop yesterday that some local groups go down there to do war re-enactment. I suppose all the open land and interesting ruins could be good for that. I think I had my fill of re-enactments in my 11 years at the Rennaissance festival though.

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I'm really loving this strobist thing.

This weekend I tried out the first assignment in the Lighting 102 series: Cooking Light. The assignment was to take any reasonably shiny kitchen utensil and take pictures of it while paying particular attention to controlling the specular highlight. That's the direct reflection from the light source. In this case, I used a microplane grater and tried out a couple different specular highlight options. This is my favorite of the group because of its abstract nature. The light is coming from a 540EZ strobe on the right, bounced off of a cardboard box behind the grater.

I'm thinking about doing a basic photography class for some friends and possibly running it as a seminar at some of the local Science Fiction and Fantasy conventions in town. I know general photography isn't really a SciFi thing, but it seems like something the general public needs to have now that digital photography has come to the masses. Since more people are able to take and share photos without thinking about it, the overall quality of published imagery has really gone down. Besides, I think there are enough hungry minds at these conventions that the technical side will really appeal. So anyway, if I do it as a seminar, the title will be "How to Take Pictures that Don't Suck".

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I am an avid reader of Gizmodo: the Gadget Blog because of my obsession with gadgets. They recently had an article about the lighting boot camp that David over at Strobist was about to have. His intent was to share his and others' knowledge of off-camera flash photography. Since most of my photography has been outdoor and nature photography, I've never had the opportunity to really learn how to use a flash, much less an off-camera flash. Of course, I signed up at Flickr right away so I could participate. I've learned more about flash photography in the last month than I could have imagined. If you've ever wanted to take pictures where you control the light or if you already think you're hot stuff in that department, check out the site and I guarantee you'll learn at least one thing.

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As I have no doubt mentioned. Grand Marais was a really nice little town. I think it would have more appeal to a mariner since most of the town is a marina (by area). There's a point that sticks out into the lake which is where I took the picture of my self from two posts earlier, and the land forms the start of a natural harbor in the other direction. On the way out to the lighthouse before I left for Thunder Bay I took a series of panoramas.

The breakwater has a really interesting interface between concrete and stone.

 

Here's an overview of the whole thing taken from right up next to the water.

 

Grand Marais has one of Minnesota's 3 geodetic markers. This panorama was taken from PID AA2869. The camera was right over it.

 

And the last two are an overview of the area and one from right next to the cute little lighthouse

 

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I recently asked James to take a panorama of his hotel room in Nashville with his cameraphone. He thought that might be a bit tough to do. I agreed with him, but just to show that it can be done (and to egg him on a bit) I decided to try it. This is a panorama done in the basement of a place I was pulling cable today taken with my Tréo 600's built-in VGA camera

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I've wanted to do this for quite a while but, when we got our first Roomba, I would have needed to mount a light on the top so that you could see the thing. The newer Roomba models have status LEDs on the top for power level and for the cleaning cycle that is running though. It's taken me almost a year since we got the Roomba Discovery to realize that and set up the tripod and take the picture, but I think the results of this first try are enough to make me try again. I'll have to find a darker room to do it in at some point since the street lights outside the living room window fogged the image somewhat.

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For anyone who is curious about the type of photos I'm taking. You can see a virtual tour of a hotel here. It's not the hotel chain I'm doing now and I'm not saying I took every single picture on the site or even one for that matter and I definitely didn't take the one with the chick getting out of the pool.

Oh, and if you need a portable bidet with a handy built-in digital camera. Gizmodo's got your back

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