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learning to crawl (with a strobe)

the journal of Michael Werneburg

twenty-seven years and one million words

Tokyo, 2010.08.23

Having had some success with product photography, I've decided to extend my ability with a strobe to personal photos.

It's something I've been playing with on and off for some time, but thanks to strobist.com it's become more of a passion. On the weekend I decided to do some tinkering bother in street photography and at an event. In this case I wired up one of my old Minolta flash units (an 'Auto 360PX') to my Pentax DSLR. Here are the results.

On the street:

using a strobe for fill light
I used the strobe as fill light while metering for the small portion of the photo that's lit by sunlight

Compare the above image with this one, in which no strobe was used.

strobeless in Tokyo
same but with no strobe (or child)

The following were shot using a strobe either on or off the camera, but certainly with the settings at something other than my onboard camera's full blast white-out.

the jazz bassistthis jazz bassist is a world-class competitive sports fisherman
friends toasting my wife
Friends toasting my wife's singing career
keiko-san and sam
shot with the strobe at arm's length

Interesting lighting, too bad about the thumb (thanks Mari!)

keiko-san and sam
on-board strobe

rand()m quote

If I had my life to live over, I'd try to make more mistakes next time. I would relax, I would limber up, I would be crazier than I've been on this trip. I know very few things I'd take seriously any more. I'd certainly be less hygenic... I would take more chances, I would take more trips, I would scale more mountains, I would swim more rivers, and I would watch more sunsets. I would eat more ice cream and fewer beans. I would have more actual troubles and fewer imaginary ones. Oh, I've had my moments, and if I had to do it all over again, I'd have many more of them, in fact I'd try not to have anything else, just moments, one after another, instead of living so many years ahead of my day. If I had it to do all over again, I'd travel lighter, much lighter than I have. I would start barefoot earlier in the spring, and I'd stay that way later in the fall. And I would ride more merry-go-rounds, and catch more gold rings, and greet more people and pick more flowers and dance more often. If I had it to do all over again - but you see, I don't.

Jorge Luis Borges