3.18.2011

Nerdiest LED configuration of the day. Kirk Tuck's nutty contraption with a nod to Syl Arena.

I know now that I have become truly a lighting nerd.  I was reading Syl Arena's good book on Canon flash when I came across a small section in which Arena needs more power and manufactures a "light bar" out of wood and nuts and bolts and proceeds to festoon it with six or ten Canon 580 EX2 flashes.

Not being a carpenter and not owning power tools I meandered over to Precision Camera, looked thru their bewildering collection of lighting stuff and found an already assembled and ready to go model that was under $50.  With shoe mounts.

I came home, put four of the DLC-60 LED units on it, threw a sheet of diffusion over the top and lit a portrait.  Those four little guys can really belt out some light.  Don't know what I'll do with the assemblage now but I'm sure it's enough to earn me membership into the GEEKS OF LIGHT private club.  If I can just  scrounge up a couple dozen of these units I could probably go toe-to-toe with Joe McNally himself......

Done. Finished. Happy. Satisfied. Complete. A-Okay.



If you haven't written and photographed a book I'm here to tell you it's a sneaky undertaking.  By that I mean that it sneaks up on you, sucks away your time and energy and makes you a bit......compulsive.  So what's involved?  Well,  over 42,000 words,  a distillation of 12,000 images,  lots and lots of experimental shoots,  four very patient professional models (whom you've seen from time to time represented here in the blog.....),  approximately 260 captions and lots of time spent learning everything there is to know about buying and using LED lights for photography.

Of all the books I've written this is far and away my favorite.  It's a subject I  really wanted to write about because I think it will overwhelm and engulf the whole practice of photography over the next two or three years.  I think it will also make good video accessible to so many good photographers.  It's cool technology, literally and figuratively.  It's also available at relatively low cost for people who want to experiment with it.

For the past two weeks I've been declining social invitations, missing some swims and spending way too much time with a laptop burning my thighs.  I'm sitting here burning DVD's full of images for the people at Amherst.  In an hour or so I'm heading to the Fed Ex office to send out the whole bundle.  And that includes my hand drawn lighting diagrams.

All of a sudden the post partum depression is settling in.  What will I do tomorrow?

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