Guess Where I've Been

No prizes for figuring out that I was back at Independent Machinery today. The portrait is of Greg, interesting fellow, welder, machinist, water colour painter. He was very tolerant as I asked dumb questions as he worked machining various bits and pieces.

I brought in a studio strobe but with the high ceilings and far walls I wasn't able to brighten things like I wanted and the results so far do look very 'flashy'. Clearly more work needs to be done. Frankly it would have been easier to work with floods to simply augment the available light already present - I have much to learn about artificial lighting.

For this shot I took advantage of some nearby fluorescents to light the scene and turned off the flash. I tripod mounted the camera but kept the ball a little loose so I could aim but hold reasonably steady. I used IS and f4 at 1/15 second at 153 mm. on my 70-200 2.8 on the 1Ds2.

The shot of a pail looks like it has some sort of reptile sitting in it but I loved that curved shadow and the hose and the shaded sides of the pail. I deliberately went for a light image, though suspect in the end I'll darken considerably - experimentation is essential to growth.