This week's challenge was *puts on National Geographic voice* the artist in his natural habitat. *Ahem* Anyway, the point of this challenge was to photograph me in my surroundings in a way that was indicative of my actual work environment. Basically an environmental self portrait and by basically, I mean that's exactly what it is. Coming up with something other than, 'hey look, a picture of my desk' was a little more challenging than I thought it would be. I had a couple of different ideas in my head of where I wanted to take them, but ended up with mixed results...

   Finally, I've brought back the weekly challenge! Yes, I am overly excited about this. I've been planning on doing another weekly challenge for the past couple of months now, but life decided to get in the way everytime the words were even mentioned. Let's put all of that aside though, because I'm planing on doing one of these every week again. It's been awhile, so you might not be familiar with the weekly challenge (I can't blame you). Basically, every week I challenge myself (hence the name) to shoot something that I'm not used to shooting. For example, the challenge might be to shoot a subject matter, like this, that I've never shot before or have limited knowledge of. They could also be more of a concept that gets me, and you, into a more creative mindset and get me, and you, to think outside the proverbial box, like this...

   Something a little different happened this week. Instead of me taking a couple of days to think what it is I actually wanted to do and then last minute cobble something together, this time I actually got the idea right away. Immediately after I woke up I started setting everything up and proceeded to spend the next couple of hours figuring out how to take really great shots with only one light source. So I had one hot light with a giant soft box attached to it and decided to make the best out of the situation. Seeing as how I only had the one light, there wasn't an easy or nice way to create nice even lighting, so I opted to try out some low key shots instead. The great thing about only using one strobe is that the possibilities for creating really dynamic and beautiful lighting is relatively easy. With a little trial and error and the knowledge of how lighting works, I think I created some really powerful images (if I do say so myself)...