three lights and a model

One of my favourite models i might add, and just any old three lights.
Had a main light shooting through a 24" umbrella, a hair light pointed direct but with a snoot made out of black foil, and a background light point direct and zoomed in to control the spill (sb 900 flash zoomed to 135 at a power of 1/32 and 4 steps from background).
I processed the black and white in lightroom and used a preset called b&w creative creamtone. I then tweaked the sliders a bit and opened in photoshop. Just did a little retouching and burned the floor and legs down a bit as they were quite bright.
Total time of shoot was about 5 minutes and mabey 10 more in computer.

shoot through umbrella

I was asked to do a quick shot of someone on a phone for the web the other day and he was nice enough to let me post it to my blog. I used a shoot through umbrella (medium size) with a sb flash. I placed it above the back of the computer to camera left.
My worries were many as usual, will pointing flash at his forehead blow it out in comparison to the rest of tones, will it be too bright on white computer, will body be too dark due to computer blocking light, can i get the light far enough to left due to wall, is background distracting due to window on right of image. Some of these concerns turned into small problems but overall i accepted these as what i could do with what i had available. When he looked at middle of screen his eyes were dark so i had him look at top left corner of screen and kept joking around with him for an expression (note: this is not the image that will be used on the web, its just one i liked). The shoot only took about 10 minutes, was fun, and will work for the intended purpose.

starting 2012

A new year once again and time to reflect on the past year and one to come. I have read alot of blogs of photographers speaking about the same thing but i was late in putting my thoughts into the mix.
Speaking of last year, it was great. I was happy with my work, tried some new things, and worked with some wonderful people.
Moving ahead to this year, I would like to continue, full steam ahead. One thing i would like to do is more one on one shooting, mainly for fun. I want to do a few portraits and try some new lighting things that i have been thinking about. Shoot more perhaps also, although i dont take any lack of photos in the course of a year. I bought a book for some new inspiration and have read it off and on over the christmas break. I also want to work out at the gym like a madman, in my spare time of course.
Hopefully the year will be healthy, and very happy.