I am studying the light at the K. house. I did not set up my flash.

The light in the front window is beautiful when shot from an angle.

I like it best with my subjects slightly to my left.

Shot straight-on, it is evident why I might want a second light source: a flash.

This is, essentially, a photograph of toes.

Aargh! I can’t believe I chopped off Iris’ toes in the peek-a-boo picture!!!

And such round, cute squishy little well-lit toes…

Upstairs, there is also some nice light.

It works because of the angle I’m shooting from.

I mean, I like the photo.

Then it was nap time.

I set up the flash again. Given that I have no light meter, I really have no clue how to figure out exposure. Granted, I have no clue how to use a light meter, either, but it seems there would be a logical set of steps to follow in learning. Currently, I am using what is known as the “chimping” method of exposure determination: take a photo, review the photo on the LCD to determine quality and go “ooh, ooh” if it’s any good. I don’t find this a good method at all. My flash photos are underexposed by a little to a lot. I tend to err on the side of underexposure anyhow, so this is really excessive. Nonetheless, I do happen to like this one photo of Heather holding Mesa. I admit it was a total accident, and not a terribly good accident at that, but I like it.

This next photo utilizes both flash and natural light. You can tell how much harsher the flash is by the quality of the shadow on Heather’s chest and under her legs. The window light has a nice feathered edge; the flash is straight. The original photo was terribly underexposed. I could have used a longer exposure and a lower percentage of flash to make it that the window lighting was dominant, tho this wouldn’t have eliminated the harsh edge on the flash’s light. I was goofing off with shooting through the umbrella vs. bouncing the light. I think my conclusion was that shooting through the umbrella seemed to produce a harsher light, but of course I didn’t take any notes so I failed to learn anything.

Then I went to check out the window in the back hallway. I like the light from this window, tho there is very little room to place a human in a photo in this location. So I used a very little human. The photo is underexposed again, but, again, I like it.

I made more pie.

It called for more whipped cream.

Licking the bowl was a family affair;

Iris crawled right in.

Compare these shots to Thanksgiving Night, where the light was off in the living room in the background.

Iris & Mami do some coloring.

It is not easy to get the caps off of markers.

Big people have trouble, too.

Serious scribbling.

I invited some Canadians over to my house for the cultural experience of a USA Thanksgiving.

Mami played with Iris while I cooked all day.

Then we ate.

Martin’s family aren’t big eaters, so Iris had to help them out.

We all help each other out.

After dinner, Papa and Papi went back to work in the basement.

It is safe to watch through the hole in the floor.

Snow fell last night, melted on the driveway and turned to ice.

Iris quickly fell. “Ice,” I said.

“Ice,” she said and walked, sliding her feet.

It is fascinating how easy it is to quickly recover areas obscured by poor lighting.

It is equally easy to overdo the effects.

I went to the orthodontist today. I won’t be doing that much longer.

Iris’ favorite part is waiting, when we get to play with toys.

I received my flash, light stand, reflective umbrella, and connecting cable in the mail.

The first challenge was to make the flash fire.

Then I got two willing subjects to pose.

They were able to stay still a long time while I fiddled with everything.

I think there must be a better way to attach the flash & umbrella to the stand.

The way I have it, I can hardly angle it down at all.

Eventually I got a 45° angle, powered down the flash,

& filled in some to make the shadows less harsh and the figures more round.

It was total trial and error.

There are ratios one could use to determine % flash power vs. # of stops underexposed vs. ambient.

Hopefully I’ll learn them soon. Most people aren’t as patient as these two.

Facing our subjects, the window is off to the right, the flash to the left.

natural light

with fill flash

Later: Wow! I got that setup completely wrong! 

Just goes to show you even an untrained monkey

could make a stuffed lamb look a little better with some fill flash.