Me, Myself and I
How does a champion runner become a champion runner? How does a Michelin star chef become so good at cooking? A MotoGP rider like Valentino Rossi become a 9 times World Champion (and on his way to his 10th championship at the age of 36) - By practicing, practicing and slowly but surely honing their craft, their skill to the point where it's awesome, and preferably better than their competition.
The same is true with photography, the more you use the camera, the lights, the reflectors, the softboxes, the other tools of the 'digital' trade, the easier things become, the more aware of things you are, the more able you are to get things right quicker, and to be able to add that little bit of sparkle, that defines you above and beyond your competition.
Today has been one of those days, just sitting with my camera, a couple of lights and taking lots of shots of myself.
They're not all great shots, some are out of focus, some are badly lit - but it's all part of the learning process, each little adjustment, inching a light left or right, up or down, increasing power, decreasing power, adding a reflector in, moving the reflector about - all adds to the muscle memory, all helps you work out what's good from what's bad.
Space in my living room is cramped for a home-studio setup, but you make the most of what you have - in the pictures above (sorry if they're badly rotated, will try to fix) - we have:
- Elinchrom Rotalux Octa 130cm softbox - with Elinchrom D-Lite RX One
- Elinchrom Portalite 66cm softbox - with Elinchrom D-Lite RX One
- Chair for me to sit on
- Three Legged Thing Tripod, with my camera - Canon EOS 6D
- Apple Macbook Pro Retina 15" with a Tethertools cable tethered to my camera
The final product, hardly any post-processing was required - Few minor adjustments in Lightroom, mainly for the crop, and then I used Nik Silver Efex Pro 2 for the B&W conversion.
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Me, Myself and I
How does a champion runner become a champion runner? How does a Michelin star chef become so good at cooking? A MotoGP rider like Valentino Rossi become a 9 times World Champion (and on his way to his 10th championship at the age of 36) - By practicing… Read more