Status update

While shooting Zombies on Saturday, I was giving out my contact info and almost everyone I handed the card to asked "Are you on Facebook?". Sigh... After about the fifth "no, I'm not" I decided I'd better take the plunge. So I'm now Matt Mengel on Facebook. As opposed to, Matt Mengel in real life which is much scarier. Anyhow, there I am.
I took the day off work yesterday to get some things done. I didn't get much done other than 1) Exactly what my wife asked me to do and 2) Take a self portrait for my Facebook profile. What a nerd.

Could I have smiled any bigger? Well, it's not all that bad. I'm fairly proud of it considering I'm just getting started in portraiture. It's a lot better than those out of focus pictures of peoples dogs that are on most profiles. Gotta go.

Coach

I'm coming down from some anesthesia so if I promise to pick anyone up from the airport or loan you some cash don't believe it. I went down to the boxing club for some test shooting last week and I got a head start on my lighting set up. I did two arrangements with the lights and I'm pretty happy with this one. All my gear worked with one minor snag so that was a success also. The pugilist in the photo above is one of the coaches at the gym who was kind enough to model for me as I was setting up. He is also a craftsman, and my father. Thanks Chief. That's all for today. I'd love to wax poetic about this but I have to make dinner. I mean, it was outpatient surgery why should I not have to work? Rock on.

Toys!

This post was a bit delayed as I was hammered with what seemed to be food poisoning early in the week. Don't eat the stuff you find in the sofa. Of course that set back the awesome photography things I had planned like pouring a sidewalk blogging. On to the real post...I got a few new tools to play with. I was at a loss a time or two with my flash gear. It's a bit tough to get three flashes firing at once without some way to trigger them.

Overpowering the son

Uh, I mean sun. This guy's getting a head start on the terrible two's but sometimes he makes a good model.

Becoming a Strobist

May the watt-seconds be with you

I am planning on going to the DeMotte Boxing Club and doing some shots so I did a few tests with one of my reluctant models. At least he was reluctant until I suggested we use the Light Saber. The red light gives a nice effect but not really what I was looking for regarding boxing. Eventually, I got what I wanted but after the little guy went to bed and the shots that had the good lighting were out of focus. Running back and forth doing a self portrait I wasn't too concerned with sharpness. At any rate, I did achieve the look I wanted and I got a nice pic of the boy out of the deal.

I was hanging with the boys on the weekend and I got lucky with this one.

The Boy...menacing the camera. A little hot on the left but not a bad shot.