I'm Gellin'

Yeah, I hate that ad campaign as much as you probably do, but I really am gellin’ - in that I’m starting to see the versatility and importance of using them in my flash photography.

Check out this shot of a bottle of Captain Morgan’s 100-Proof Spiced rum:

There’s one speedlite in a softbox, camera-left, and another directly behind the bottle, with a Honl Speed Gobo strapped to it. I like it. When I look at it, I can almost feel the burn of that delicious golden liquid as it warms my insides.

Now check out this shot I made, after adding a red gel (what Sensei McNally calls the theatrical gels) to the speedlite that was behind the bottle.

Dramatic, huh? It’s a small thing, but it’s really starting to open my eyes to the importance of using gels, or at least the creative possibilities that they make available to me. I’m still wrapping my head around the concept of using gels to correct mixed lighting situations (I’m still in the “I shoot RAW, so I’ll just fix it in Aperture” mindset). But I’m determined to get more comfortable - after all it’s yet another tool to have ready at the arsenal.

Bonus: Here’s another shot of the same bottle when I pulled the camera off the tripod and went handheld (which is more in my comfort zone).

The New Family Time?

So, I don’t know about you, but I’ve noticed this new cultural phenomenon lately where people seem to be spending an awful lot of time on their laptops and smart phones…

Okay, I’m being kind of tongue-in-cheek about it, but it is something I’ve been thinking about a lot lately. My wife and I were talking about it last night, and we both realized that when we’re at home, we’re mostly doing stuff on our computers, and then we go to bed (usually pretty late), and then we go to work, and the cycle repeats itself.

I’m kind of conflicted about it, because I really like being on my computer. It’s one of the things I do to relax and entertain myself. The problem is, I also happen to sit in front of a computer for eight hours a day to keep the lights on, the upshot of which is aching hands and wrists, an aching neck, tingling forearms and other various afflictions that are so familiar to so many of us these days.

Besides the physical side effects, of course, there are the effects on our relationships, our concentration, our ability to learn and retain information. There are tons of books and articles exploring all of these questions, so I won’t delve too deeply into it here, except to say that at least we’ve started to talk about it in our house, which I think is a good first step. 

Anyway, for a while now, I’ve had the idea to start playing around and exploring how our online time is encroaching on our meatspace time via a series of photographs, so keep an eye on this space for more… I just need to check Facebook and Twitter first.

From the Archives: Brooklyn Kid

Brooklyn KidFrom the early days of my love affair with photography. I was shooting a panorama of the outside of my apartment on Woodruff Ave when this little guy appeared and instantly improved what would have been an otherwise pretty boring shot.

SimonAbramsPhotography.com: It's Alive!

Olivia and Brian

I’ve finally put the finishing touches on my dedicated photography site, simonabramsphotography.com. “Finishing touches”, who am I kidding - I’ll be fiddling with that thing forever - but the point is, it’s up and functioning. The purpose of the site is to serve as a place to go to see my photography portfolio (and, by extension, battle my online photography schizophrenia), and to promote my fledgling kids and family portrait photography side gig (Reasonable rates! Call or email for more info!).

Stop by and check it out, and leave a note in the guestbook if you’d like. Also, if you’re so moved, you can purchase high-quality prints and other great photo products as well. Bonus: Use coupon code ITSALIVE to save a couple of bucks at checkout.

Project 365

Elias [8/365]It’s been a minute since my last post (or 146,044 minutes, according to Wolfram Alpha), but I just wanted to make a quick update to point you to my latest personal photographic endeavor. It’s called Project 365, and the basic premise is that you take a photograph every day for a year. There’s a dedicated site and community built around the idea, but I opted to go the Flickr route, where I created a set and joined a Project 365 group.

I’ve been having a ton of fun with this exercise, and I’ve also been learning about myself as a photographer. It forces discipline by making me shoot every day. Yes, I’ve often been caught at 11:50pm running to go and shoot a picture of my cat before midnight, but I still think that the quality of my photographs has gone up overall, simply because I don’t want to include crappy images in this project.