Kim St. Dennis Photography

Well. Its been a few months, the holidays are over, and things are slowly getting back to normal. Essentially life gets put on hold in the month of December for me. Family fills my time and a form of hybernation seems to set in. Not that I sleep a lot (4-5 hours a night), but it seems things around me just kind of slow down.

So late January is here and Im thinking things will be back to normal soon. Ive started to work on post again. Had a very unorganized shoot last weekend. Didnt turn out well due to time constraints. I suppose the sun has to light the rest of the world as well. There was lots of discussion about where to go with your shooting, how I should learn from other photographers, and what not. It all made for an interesting day.

On the other side of things, for Christmas Santa brought me a new (20 year old) Hasselblad 503cx. Its my jump into medium format film photography. I grew up shooting 35mm slide film and this is just a larger version of it. All manual focus with a 1/500th sync speed. Its been a joy so far. I barrowed a medium format film scanner from this guy and have started to scan the developed film. I get a 30+ MP image with a wide dynamic range. I would imagine though that affordable digital backs will be on the way in the future as well. So all is moving forward again.

Just for information purposes, Im going to post this. Its from Zenfolio Support and can be found on the web via google.

Here are the specific  instructions on how to make changes with GoDaddy:
1. Login to your GoDaddy account
2. Select 'My Account'
3. Select 'Manage Domains'
4. Click on the domain you would like to edit (ie 'yourdomainname.com')
5. Find a link that reads 'Total DNS Control' and click it

The following instructions assume you want www.yourdomainname.com to point to your Zenfolio home page. If you want to use a different name, e.g. photos.yourdomainname.com, you need to replace 'www' with 'photos' in the instructions below.
6. Find a section called 'CNAMES (Aliases)'. If you see any existing CNAME records for 'www', remove them (only do this if you want the full domain to point at Zenfolio!)
7. Click on 'Add New CNAME Record'
8. In the 'Enter an Alias Name' field, enter ‘www’
9. In the 'Points To Host Name' field, enter 'zenfolio.com'
10. Click OK, and then OK once again to save changes

If you also want yourdomainname.com (without 'www') to go to your Zenfolio page, you need to make more configuration changes:
11. Find a section called 'A (Host)'. If you see any existing A records for '@', remove all of them.
12. Click on 'Add New A Record'
13. In the 'Host Name' field, enter '@'
14. In the 'Points to Ip Address' field, enter your zenfolio IP address.
15. Click OK, and then OK once again to save changes

It usually takes up to 24 hours for the changes to propagate. After 24 hours, login to your Zenfolio account and under Preferences enter the new domain name exactly like you set it up in steps 6-10 above, i.e. www.usethelight.com

Its been a few days since my last post. Ok, maybe even a week or more. It was Halloween and ive been working on PP more than not. Lots to do.

As of late Ive realized that I need new strobe triggers. Oh the conundrums that ensue. The long short of it is that there is no one trigger that does it all. This kinda sucks and makes it tough (if you dont want the novella, this really is my conclusion, sans buying a new set of triggers).

Source: pocketwizard.com

As most photogs will tell you Pocket Wizards are the defacto standard. They are super well built, never fail, and extremely expensive ($200 per device). Their most recent release is the mini TT1 and TT5.

These PWs (from here on out) are able to do highspeed sync and achieve TTL (through the lens) flash control for your specific speed light be they Canon or Nikon. Alas, the TT1s for Canon dont work with Nikon and vice-versa. Also, they dont control the output of any other type of speed light, mono block, or head& pack system. They can however achieve highspeed sync (HSS from here on out). Which is a major upsell. For us Nikon folks we can sync around 250 - 320 now. The Canon folks get 200 or so.Also, the devices can be controled with a pc/mac via usb. Also a nice feature but a little over kill for me.


Next contender is the Radio popper (RP from here on). There are two new lines from them, the  JrX and the PX. The PX system can achieve the HSS as the PWs can and costs about the same with a longer range and no usb support. It canot control any dflash output that Im aware of (this is all a bit confusing and requires a good deal of reaserch). There is some tests you can find on the web where the RP can do about 10x the distance that the PWs can do. I think it was 30' for PW and 300' for the RPs.

Source: radiopoppers.com
The JrX system is very reasonable at $350 for 3 receivers and 1 transmitter, can control Paul Bluff mono blocks as well as most modern speed lights with some DIY work. It has 3 groups of which you can control each groups power indivuadly. The major down side... No HSS. The max sync speed being 1/250th.


 There is a third option from Paul Bluff, but Im vague on the details as its release date is a carrot dangling on a rope. Its been moved around a lot. The thing I do know is that it will be able to control Bluff's mono blocks, but thats about it.

So whats a guy to do? Be lazy and control the lights from the cameras hot shoe or have the added ability of HSS for a lot more money? Its a tough call and a confusing one at that.

So, Im looking into filters. The first thought is dont put cheap glass in front of expensive glass! I dont. I regularly use my singh ray and B+W filters for minimal effects and would much rather have things done in camera than in post. I know it goes either way, but for me its just easier in camera. I guess there is something to be said for having some restrictions placed on what I can do and that forcing creativity?

(Source: Lee filters)
Presently Im looking into softening filters like Lee filters black net 2 filter. Heres the reference example. I guess its essentially tulle (tool) and originally made for movie cameras to soften the lens. But, then the argument of why not just do it in Photoshop comes in (slap yourself a la Zack). That perticular filter runs $75.00. I guess this means a DIY tulleproject should be coming down the pipes. Ill post more when I start doing research.

Heres the link to the product on the Lee site

For my notes as much as anyones. A taste of Richard Avado. 

I have been moving more towards  conceptual style shoots. Meaning shoots where a theme is present and things are more stylized. Seeing Avadons work, just makes it seem that much more worthwhile to persue this avenue.

Remember when discussions would break out about weither a cover of a magazine was photoshoped or not? Now, Photoshop is so commonplace we dont give it a second thought. Its just assumed any photo or image you see has been somehow edited by an Adobe application. Amazing. That brings us to an amazing photographer and his achievements. Im talking about Dean Collins.

David Hobby has written about him a few times and I'm just now getting around to his videos and concepts. Let me say, hes amazing. I started to watch a video exerp from his lecture on 3 dimentional contrast and fell into thought on the cross hatching I was forced to learn in Drawing I. What a phenomenal concept. The masters painted light as they saw it fit and Collins teaches us how to shape light like a master. Hats off.

This post I began on Sept 29,2009 -
I belong to the Strobist Los Angeles group. Stobists are all about off camera flash and usually are aspiring Pros or Pros allready. They are all DIYers and enjoy sharing their methods whenever possible. They also take some damn good photos.

I suppose you would say that I am community oriented and I like to be a contributor to the functions of the organizations Im belong to. So I took it upon myself with Michael Kang's help to put on a strobist meet. Ive been to many of their socials and a few meets for shooting. But I figured it would be fun to do and I like putting things together like this.

Well its been an interesting ride. I find that lots of people show interest, but not as many sign up...

A week later...

Well, it happened, I learned lessons, and met some nice folks. I personally wouldn't call it a success. Why? Out of our 6 models only 3 showed. One additionall model came as a curtisy to one of the photogs. Oh, there were to many shooters for the space. Just slightly. 10 came, 8 would have been much better. On the other side, the place was nice and the MUAs great as well as the stylist. So I can say it was a good learning experience.

Andreas of ANM Photography
I personally didnt shoot much. Too many people with the same shot. My buddy Gerald set up his lights on one set and got them perfect to his and my specifications. We walked away for a moment, came back, and they were changed. Made for a different shot all together. Live and lern right?