java baby

java baby, originally uploaded by pr9000.

I haven't taken many pictures lately.

I really enjoy taking pictures outside -- using natural light, finding beautiful things in nature and then trying to find a different way to see them. But when it's -13 F outside, as it is this morning, it's a lot harder for me to motivate myself to get outside. In fact, I don't think -13F is within the normal operating range for my camera (or most cameras, for that matter).

So what to do when one lives in Minnesota and the calendar turns to winter? Build a lame-ass home studio in the basement and hope for the best.

I used the instructions I found here and built two softboxes yesterday, with my lovely wife's help. In fact, without her help, I'd have ruined several pieces of foamcore board. I have very little ability to understand schematic drawings; my spatial interpretation skills are second only to my classical ballet dancing skills. She was able to help me figure out how to interpret the crappy instructions, and after a few minutes of work, we had a softbox.

What we didn't have were light bulbs of sufficient wattage to actually d any good -- 60W bulbs do not make for good light, and certainly not enough to require a scrim over the softbox to diffuse the light ... but, undaunted, I went down to the basement and set up a makeshift studio, and then found some small objects to photograph.

Here's one of them -- a miniature Starbucks coffee mug that I use to hold rubber bands. Getting that white was as easy as (1) shooting RAW, then (2) adjusting the white point to compensate for the fact that 120W of total light makes everything look orange/brown -- the whites in that cup were not there in the original shot, but aside from adjusting the white point, I didn't really retouch the photo.

More later, as I get big-ass bulbs and a "real" background (that's just two pieces of foamcore board that haven't had the luxury of being hacked to death with my not-so-sharp box cutter). Eventually I'll get a home studio I'm proud of ... and until then, you'll get shots like this.