DIYPhotography.net Photography and Studio Lighting

Gotta love strawberries. And gotta love strawberries in cream even more.

Maybe this is why my taste buds had me coming to this picture again and again.

Then again, it might be the technical details of the shot that drew my attention. Getting a nice splash is hard enough but getting strawberry on spoon splash is nearly impossible. Read on for some musings, thoughts and tips.

The following article is a guest post by Dana Maltby a.k.a. Twin Cities Brightest a.k.a { tcb } an addict to Light Painting.

In the last Light painting installation we saw the huge variety of tools and toys I use for creating Light Painting Art.

One of the things that came strong in the comments was the need to bind those tools to the actual process of taking the image. Well, now I am going to do just this.

So let's talk about the hottest and most natural object to paint with light, the orb. Also known as a sphere. The good news is that orbs can be made with light quite easily.

How did I manage not to burn the house down??

Well, first, my wife was not at home, LOL... and second, with the remote trigger in one hand, and an extinguisher in the other... just in case!! ;O))

This is what Filipe Batista had to say when I wondered how he took that shot. The extinguisher bit is enough to hint that no Photoshop was used to create the fire and as they say it the magic industry. Don't worry, that fire is harmless. Unless you touch it.

Filipe was kind enough to share the secretes behind this fire spectacle with DIYP readers:

There are some great things going on around the web lately, and I really wanted to share them around. Either because they are really cool, or because (please ignore violin in background) I think they make this place a bit better, or just because they are lots of fun.

The following article is a guest post by Dana Maltby a.k.a. Twin Cities Brightest a.k.a { tcb } an addict to Light Painting.

Now that you know the basics of light painting let's move on to creating the effects you want.

If you have a certain idea about a lighting effect you want, chances are you can make it happen. Some ideas are cheap and inexpensive while others can be costly and time consuming. Every project is a great learning experience, and the results seen in the photos later on will keep you on your toes and inspired constantly.

In the following post I will present the tools of the trade that I use to create my light painting art. If you know of other light painting tools and tricks, please add them in the comments.

For each of the images below a different tool was used as the main tool. Some of the images were done using several tools, in that case I mentioned the tool which has the main effect.

In this post you will find a collection of really (and I mean really) cheap alternatives to pro lighting.

Will you get the same crisp results that you get with pro gear? Probably just an approximation. On the other hand none of those mods cost more than a nickel and a dime, so it is well worth the try.

I had the honor and the pleasure to give a talk at my daughter's kindergarten on Friday. We recently moved to a new place and once the kindergarten teacher heard I was a photographer, she asked me to come down and talk a bit with the kids about what I do.

Of course I said yes. I also offered to take some portraits of the kids and stuff - just for funzees. I asked the teacher to tell the kids to bring a favorite toy or set of clothes. It was amazing to hear what 5 year-olds think about photography and I am going to share some of this discussion here.

Mrs. H. should have known better than to push Steve Hermitage (Flickr) into doing the dishes.

What started out as an innocent dish washing exercise ended as a lab for shooting tiny worlds of soap, and revenge taken against a Tia Maria glass.

This is just too good of a project not to share. It is a ton of fun and the setup is very simple as Steve explains in his setup shot (after the jump).

So you hacked yourself a gadget infinity flash radio slave and you are happy. You are shooting off camera flash and things work splendid. Actually, you really wanted a pair of pocketwizards, but it was 26 big ones Vs. 360, so it's GI. Actually they work quite well. They worked quite well for a long while now. Then a crisis. Flash wont fire. 

Camera clicks, but flash won't fire. Darn! It was working just a second ago. What could have gone wrong? (Or in the words that the guys from the internet service hear 1000 times a day - I did not touch it.)

Here are three things to check before giving up on your cactus remotes.

I'm gonna talk about Plexi in a moment, but first, Happy Halloween everyone.

OK, Plexi. 

It is very common for a product shot to be built from two symmetrical halves, the product on top and a reflection on the bottom.

I tried taking shoe images like this using a mirror and some glass, but with both I got two reflection - one from the upper surface of the glass and one from the lower surface on the glass. I then tried using durable nylon to get the same effect which was nice, however the reflection image was not sharp.

Then. Came. Plexi.