The Lone Flash

Ruth Brumitt, 88, and her husband, 82, consider themselves "newlyweds." The octogenarians married four years ago and live on Ruth's farm 10 miles east of Columbia, Mo. Both Christians, they attend separate church services on Sunday mornings. However, on Sunday nights, they go to Ruth's Rising Sun Baptist Church for Bible study.

I bounced the flash off the low ceiling of the fellowship hall, which had fluorescent lights. Exposure: ISO 200, f2.8, 1/125, daylight white balance.

This is not a great moment. I confess I was so worried about the technical aspects of using a strobe that I did not pay attention to the "real photography" of it all. I plan to spend more time with Ruth and Raymond. Hopefully I will have my eyes open for better photos.


Jim Thaxter waltzes with Marcie McGuire during a bi-monthly meeting of the Mid-Missouri Traditional Dancers. The group hosted a contra dance - where participants form two long lines and face each other - at the First Christian Church in Columbia on Friday, Oct. 16, 2009.

This was my first attempt at using a flash for this assignment. I did not realize the camera, a borrowed Nikon D3, was set for -2.5 exposure. I realized this AFTER my shoot.

The participants danced in an open gym area -- high ceiling with fluorescent lights. I wore a white shirt and made several attempts to bounce the light off my shirt, since there was no immediate wall or ceiling upon which to bounce the light. This shot was made with direct flash: ISO 200, f2.8, 1/250, daylight white balance.

Terribly underexposed, I learned quite a bit about flash and cameras during this assignment. Hope to learn how to blend light and only use flash to supplement, not fully supply, light in a given situation.

Metal and Glass

This assignment could be called "metal and pumpkins." (My classmate and lab partner, Alex Browning, took the glass half of this assignment. Check out her new fish: Bob, Marley and Ziggy.)

What I learned: Pumpkins reflect light.

My first try, was with three knives. I determined the placement for a different light source for each knife, and used a green light from the back of the pumpkin to light the stem. However, the resulting photos were flat. There was no definition of the edge of each knife. (Alex was a fabulous help with this effort. She moved equipment and connected, disconnected strobes as needed.)

Looking at my take, I wanted to go back into the studio. This time around, I tried to bring attention to the sharp edge of the knife by 1) determining the family of angles with a flashlight, 2) placing a long, thin light box accordingly and 3) blocking everything but the edge of the knife's light source with a large piece of cardboard. There are two other light sources in my final photo: a soft box at half the power of the knife light to the left of the camera, and a green gelled strobe at half the power of the knife light facing the back of the pumpkin. The resulting photo is a bit under exposed. I would troubleshoot this next time.