I came up with this idea a few years ago when I was trying to find a reflective backdrop for my still life and product photos. Of course, later on, I eventually found out that other people had come up with the same idea as I had. At the time, I was looking for something that would add some fantastic bokeh without reflecting the candles I had placed in the scene. I searched throughout my house and found some aluminum foil that ended up working perfectly. I never had the realization until relatively recently that I could create a much larger version for portraits...

   As I'm prone to do, I was messing around while trying to find a new technique I could add to my photography repertoire. The thought occurred to me while I was shooting through some colored lights that I could alter this slightly and fake the look of something like expired film. So I set out to figure out how to do that and make it look believable. I don't know if it's believable or not, I'll let you be the judge of that, but I did find a way to accomplish simulating the look without using any filters, photoshop or any kind of post processing whatsoever...

   This is going to be a long read. Grab a cup of your beverage of choice and relax as I explain how I shot 30 photos with different lighting setups. I've got lighting diagrams, ideas for alternatives and some food for thought that will hopefully get you thinking about lighting in ways that you may not have thought of in the past. I really wanted to hone in on the lighting with these photos, so no fancy concepts (usually) and just a simple black backdrop to make the lighting the main focus. I limited myself to no more than three lights max so you don't need a huge studio with a million lights to try these out for yourselves. So without further ado, let's get started with photo number one...

   I've been feeling kind of stuck recently with how I how subjects. I guess stuck isn't necessarily the right word. You know how people usually have a few go-to food choices and they rarely ever stray from those? That's how I've been feeling with my portrait lighting. Every photographer has a few lighting setups that they use which they know will work if all else fails. I feel like I've been relying on these choices like a crutch. It's not that I don't know other lighting techniques, I know more than I'd ever need, it's more a feeling of a lack of creativity...

   Continuing my “adventures in” series of model shoot posts, this one is going to be about using a mesh like fabric called tulle in portraits. So what is tulle? Well I’m glad you asked person I just made up so that I could give you an answer to that question. Tulle is a fabric that is usually found in things like tutus or wedding dresses to extend and add volume to them. It’s actually surprisingly cheap compared to similar fabrics out there, only $1.50 per yard at Joann’s Fabric stores. So I ended up getting a bunch of colors as well as black and white to mess around with...

   So the holidays are winding down and you’re starting to dismantle your christmas tree and remove all your decorations. Let me stop you before you do that though. There’s a lot of fun, creative photos to be had using those decorations and, specifically, lights. Now there’s millions of things you can do with things like christmas ornament reflections, macro shots and so on, but let's focus on using string lights. Of course, you can use these techniques all year round, but with that “festive” feeling still in the air and the lights conveniently at your disposal without needing to sort through countless holiday bins in your attic it’s the perfect excuse to try them out now...

   You’ve probably seen those "bokeh balls” on the internet before. You know the ones with lights blown out in the silky smooth background. Well I got together with an awesome model friend of mine and tried out a series of conceptual portraits using christmas lights that utilized the effect. Her idea was to string some icicle lights around a hula hoop and stand in the middle of them for this kind of etherial look. The idea was great, but until we set everything up and tried it out, it actually turned out to not work the way she was hoping it would. Now we could have scrapped the idea and went onto something else, but I knew what she was looking for so I suggested trying a different approach.

   A couple of days ago I did a fun light painting portrait shoot with a local model named Zylina. There were some high points and some low points with the actual light painting bits, but she was a trooper putting up with both me and the cold (HA). When I had first contacted her, I mentioned a couple of different ideas for some shoots and honestly the one I thought the least about was the light painting one. As fate would have it, that’s the option she chose. Eh, it happens. The original photo I had the idea for was this cool shot that I’d still love to do one of these days with underwater lights and such, but in lieu of a light source strong enough that also happened to be waterproof, I had to improvise. She told me the reason she went with the light painting was actually because it sounded interesting and something she’s never done before. The problem here is that it was also the first time I’ve ever done it myself...

   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...