After purchasing a silver reflective umbrella as recommended by David Hobby of www.strobist.com fame, I found that I wasn’t very good at getting the light I wanted for portraits. I guess I’m not as good as visualizing how light will reflect off the umbrella and light my subjects. I began to have second thoughts about which type of umbrella I should have ve bought.
Then I read a post on the strobist web site about how David now uses shoot-through umbrellas exclusively, so I had to get yet another umbrella. But I’m glad I did. The shoot-through umbrella is much more intuitive to use for me.
Our apartment is quite small, when I used the silver reflective, I often ran out of room, or had the boom of the umbrella sticking into my camera frame. Most of the problems I had were operator error—just getting to know how to use it and getting acquainted with off-camera flash lighting technique. Before I got my white shoot-through, I started to get better with my silver. I got some good results for Kadence’s 6-month pictures.
So now I’m happy with the benefits of the white shoot-through: it can collapse to a half of its original length, diffuses my off-camera flash light, and allows me to place the umbrella close to my subjects. Jenni and Kadie were patient subjects as we tested it out. And I’m thankful to my wife who allowed me to be pictured with my daughter, so I’ll be remembered in some photos rather than always the guy behind the camrea. She did a great job, don’t ya think?
One reply on “Umbrellas, Can’t Have Just One…”
These photos are so good! I especially love the one of Jennilyn holding a standing Kadence and the one where Kadence is on David’s shoulders looking at his hair like it is so strange. It must be so nice to have so many great pictures.
I am loving NY and I think Clark does too, though once again he is working a lot. At least here he gets weekends off. I found a job this last week working with horses and I am so excited for it. I think it will be a lot more fun then working in an office:) And just this weekend we started dog obedience school and I think it will be SO good for Remmy. He’s a nice dog but with manners he’ll be great. Hope all is well with all of you!