...you're SUPER patient. :)

Yeah... it's been since before Christmas.  So here's THAT collection!

I got an umbrella (the kind you shoot light through... not the kind that keeps you dry), and I used it for this one.  Because things have been REALLY busy, I haven't done a lot with it, but I like soft light for other people's portraits, and I think I'll be able to do a lot of cool things with it once I put in the time.


I used off-camera flash a lot.  This picture of my sister's cookies was actually lit through a kleenex from a lower angle than the on-camera flash to show the texture of the napkins and highlight the smooth yumminess of the cookies.  She drew those holly leaves on there with a toothpick or something.  Crazy artsy.  The cookies... not the picture.

I also got a lot of nice pictures of people.  This is just one that I like, but I think I'll probably be using the technique more.  I shot into the natural light and filled it with flash from the front.

I thought it came out nice with the sunlight highlighting the edges of Jackie's hair and keeping the picture bright, but still keeping shadows off of their faces.  Another virtually shadow-free picture was this one:

I basically blasted away from across the room zoomed in with a bounce off of the ceiling and the left wall.  It still gave a little of the "off camera" look, and it didn't drop an annoying shadow on the wall behind him. Derek Zoolander would be SOOOO proud!

The last one of this set is from the Museum of Science and Industry.  They have this HUGE train layout.  I was fiddling with depth of field and got this shot:

I like the way that shooting without a flash let the shutter be open long enough to blur the passing train the background.  It added more of a feeling of motion than I thought it would.  Just for perspective, the horse and rider are probably about the size of a dime and I shot the picture from probably 15 feet or so away.

Probably not what a Christmas collection should be, but there were like 2,000 to choose from, so I basically decided not to.  :)  I just went with a few that I shot on purpose. Hopefully things will settle down a bit, and I'll get back to something more frequent than once a quarter.