♥ Lotusland Fine Art ♥ About Me follow wlotus at http://twitter.com	Through the Eyes of A Lotus	Reminiscent of Richard Avedon	Archives	Previous	Next
	15 February 2010
	In 1955, Richard Avedon photographed singer Marion Anderson. I learned about Avedon during Studio & Lighting, and I immediately liked his high-contrast, black & white photos done against a plain, white background. Last night my favorite photo subject was grooving to the music mix on WBLS during our photo shoot, and I captured this image of her. I like it, because it captures a bit of her playful side, and because it reminds me of a Richard Avedon photograph. I made this photo using a seamless white background, and because my makeshift studio setup was in a very small space, there was not enough room to completely avoid shadows. I used a white, shoot-through umbrella to soften the shadows down to almost nothing. That was a juggling act; I don't yet own light stands, so I held my camera with my right hand while holding the flash and umbrella overhead with my left hand. It may not have been a pretty setup, but the results were exactly what I wanted, and that is the most important thing. Speaking of working around the limitations of one's equipment, I have figured out how to get the brightness I want using my fully automatic flash at close range. With my camera on manual, I lock the exposure with the aperture set to F8. Then I open or close the aperture by one stop, depending on whether I want a brighter or darker image. It's the same as using flash exposure compensation, but it's a lot faster, as I only have to spin the dial on the back of the camera with my thumb to change the aperture. I promise to use my new-found powers only for good...most of the time.