Finally Shooting Again

Since I haven’t shot my oldest’s five year portrait yet, and given the fact his school portrait turned out awful (he tried to smile too hard) I figured I might give it a try tonight.  Since I was by myself with both boys tonight, my hopes weren’t high. Wrangling one of them for pictures is hard enough, and they both generally want to get in the act.  Nonetheless, I gave it a go.

It seems like ages since I actually did some serious photo work, but it felt great to be shooting again. Ever since I saw this shot from David Hobby’s London Workshop, I’ve wanted to emulate it:

 
Image © David Hobby

David covers the basics of how to pull off this shot in his Lighting 102 series on his amazing Strobist blog.  How did I do? Not bad if I do say so myself:

The wall isn’t as reflective as I might have liked, but I still got the effect I was looking for, namely that highlight on the wall to provide some separation. I got a flat out refusal at a wardrobe change from the model, (I’d have preferred him in some nicer clothes) so we may be doing another shoot, but I really like this one.