Meet Big Strobie

After a very long weekend of building and sewing and swearing (oh, so much swearing), I actually managed to finish up my new soft-box. The first few test shots show a big, beautiful, soft light that I can't wait to put into action. All it took was about 50-bucks of materials and that special phrase of the eternally damned, "How hard could it be?"

Of course, the subject matter of this particular shot doesn't help show things in their best...uh, light, but you get the idea.

It's big. It's a strobe. It's Big Strobie.

This is not Project Runway

So I had a bright idea: I'm going to build my own soft-box. It shouldn't take much, I thought. A little wooden frame, perhaps a foam-core casing....No, wait! I'll do it out of shiny fabric. It will be cheap, take me an afternoon to make. No problem!

Ugh. Here's a picture of me slaving away on my sewing machine, three days later, wondering how I got myself into this mess. It's too bad my strobes are old and strange and don't take any speed-ring known to photography (which means no pre-made soft-boxes for me), but damn it if I'm going to let that stop me.

It actually came out pretty cool. I sewed myself a pyramid shaped box with silver on the inside. The frame it gets attached to is solid and is designed to clamp onto a C-stand. Tomorrow, I'm going to attach the diffusion material and give it all a whirl.

Keep your fingers crossed. If this works, I'm going to make more specialty lights.

If photography is the art of shaping light, might as well make the lights you use as individual as possible.

How not to make a website

Websites are such a pain. I tell you, I've been working on my website like crazy these past few weeks. Of course, like the big control-freak that lurks deep within all artists, I was building my site from scratch. This wasn't the first time I've created a website, but this was going to be the biggest, baddest, best website ever. That was the plan, at least.

It's amazing how fast frustration can build. One moment you're coding an external asset pre-loader with full XML functionality, and the next thing you know you've turned your flat-screen monitor into a Frisbee.

After countless stops and starts and more than a few "Why the h$*@!! isn't this working?", I finally had to admit defeat. I spend my time making images, finding new visual metaphors that help people promote ideas, and through those ideas, their products. I'm not a programmer. Not anymore.

So I've purchased a really nice template. I'll spend the weekend kicked back with a cup of coffee, working on which images go where, and generally not worrying about how it works. And by the end of next week, the new site should be up and running.

Someday down the road I'll hire some nice young web-design firm to make me something ultra-cool. Some place with a one word name like Stun or Volume. They'll be nice, and young, and oh-so-hip, and knowing what I know about websites, I'll probably be their worst nightmare. I apologize in advance