Where I Always Wanted to Be

Color Study: Blue

Why yes, yes it is. :) 

More About Photo Stuff

Yesterday, I talked about blocking out that pesky daylight, so that you can get consistent results. Here's a little more information about the rest of my photo "stuff."

I could use softboxes, but I actually kind of prefer umbrellas for strobes. They're a little more portable, for if you are ever going to leave your house and work on location. I bought this set from Cowboy Studio and it's working really well for me.

The little squarish thing you see in the second photo is an optical flash trigger. This is not a fancy one. It's a cheap one ($12). In a darkened room, it works very, very well. In a bright room or outdoors - it may not. 

You can  buy really nice radio triggers, which will work every. single. time. I love them. They cost about $250 for a set and you need at least two, one for the camera and one for each flash you want to use. If you're in the market for those, I used PocketWizards for my entire photojournalism career and they were always wonderful. But, I'm not doing that sort of work anymore or trying to light up entire stadiums, so the price tag is keeping me away. 

Some flash units have triggers built in. These can be either radio or optical and they are usually pretty good. My newest flash has radio capability, but my camera's too told to use it! So, I'm totally fine with my $12 fix to keep everything working together. 

Construction

One of the things I love about the bike trail is that you, literally, get views of the city you can't get any other way. 

I've been admiring this strange-looking configuration of steel over Highway 100 for weeks and weeks - but there's no where you can shoot a photo of it from a car, safely. 

On a bike? Easy peasy. It's right on the bike trail!

Tiny Bird

I saw this tiny bird with a big sky as a backdrop and I'm mostly just happy he didn't fly away when I got closer.

Basement Studio

So, I finally went from this: 

To this:

This:

and this:

Yes, Boomer is my constant companion in the basement!

My Weird Little Sock Drawer

These little guys are all knit up. Seven pairs of socks that are my size, but I can't wear them, yet. I have to photograph them, first!

All The World's A Stage

"All the world's a stage,

And all the men and women merely players;
They have their exits and their entrances,
And one man in his time plays many parts..."

I've always wanted to do a feminist, knit-centric version of this Shakespeare classic, but I haven't done it, yet...

Paris Wallpaper Socks

I almost hate to say that I fell in love with Paris. It seems like such a cliche. Does every American who goes there have to follow in the footsteps of Thomas Jefferson, Gertrude Stein, Julia Child and Ernest Hemingway? Anthony Bourdain basically says you have to be a complete dunce not to fall in love with it, though, so I have even that curmudgeon on my side.

Well, I did fall in love. We did. In May of 2013. The first draft of Sock Architecture was done, and most of the patterns were drafted out, too. I took a break from obsessing about my book to obsess about Paris. Anyone who was following me on Twitter at that time got to see a pair of little socks roam around the streets. I couldn't tell you why I had those particular socks, then.

Some obligatory Paris photos:

Anyway, when you're looking at everything in the way that travel forces you to, as if the whole world was made all over again for you last night, you sometimes look a little more closely at little details than usual. 

This was the wallpaper in our little hotel. Very simple. Very elegant. 

Months later, I saw a design call from Dream in Color for designs using two colors and bases of yarns, I knew I wanted to take design cues from the wallpaper. 

Voila. Paris Wallpaper Socks.

Photos of Your Knitting, Part 3: Low-Tech Solution

Excuse my rumpled paper, but I just threw together another idea for something you can do if you don't want to invest in 3 flashes, a camera, and (maybe) light stands.

Find a window. Pile up boxes, tables or chairs to create a flat platform at least as high as the bottom of the window.

Tape, rig, or otherwise affix your paper to the ceiling. If you're starting with fresh paper, it will look better than this, I promise. This is all banged up because I moved it from where it was before. 

Place object, and shoot away.

Not bad! It will depend on the time of day and the weather, but it's not bad.

Photos of Your Knitting, Part 2: Location Location Location

The next thing that matters a LOT to your photos? Where you are taking them. Look for a space in your home that has a white ceiling. Ideally, it would have white walls, too, but any color that isn't really bright or really dark is still ok. In this house, that's the basement storage room.

In our old house, I took over a corner of our white living room as a photo studio. Our basement was unfinished. If I had to use a part of the house that was painted a dark color or an unfinished basement, I wouldn't be above stapling up white posterboard. You can get as much as you like for less than $50 and you can replace it if it gets dirty or you have to tear it down to get to the plumbing.

As it is, I have a crowded but pretty good space with light walls and a white ceiling. I only ask that you not judge the number of unopened moving boxes. We moved into this house about 7 months ago and it turns out that isn't a long time when you're also finishing a book!

A roll of white paper is completely needed for a seamless background. "Real" photographer's background paper is really big, designed to be stomped on without tearing, and expensive. Fortunately 36-inch craft paper is available at most office supply stores and is usually less than $10. I put mine up with blue painter's tape. I'm using a stack of boxes, here, instead of a table, but a TV tray works well. The only problem with these boxes is the shape of the top of the box - you really need a flat surface or you'll have to spend a lot of time photoshopping out wrinkles. I don't like to do that, so I switched to a stool with a flat top after I took this photo.

Using stacks of boxes (or chairs, or whatever you have around) is a cheap way to get around light stands, but if you want to use light stands, it's hard to go wrong with this set. It gets you where you need to go for less than $100. The umbrellas are a great bonus - you would have to worry less about the color of your walls and the state of your ceilings if you had that kit. 

My basement has a fair amount of window light. A slight change in the lighting will happen depending on the amount of daylight outside. This is great if I don't need the lighting for all of my photos for several months to be the same. If I do need that consistency, I will either cover the windows with drapes or only shoot at night. 

However you do it, here's a quick three-light set up. Imagine your studio area is a tiny baseball stadium, with your subject (the foot) at home plate. Your camera will usually be around the pitcher's mound, with a flash that can point straight up. Put that flash into manual mode and set it to send out as little light as possible. (Check the manual or online for how to do this. It's called "dialing it all the way down.") Take your second flash and put it somewhere along the first-base line, pointed at the ceiling, with a slave, and also dialed all the way down. (If you don't know where this is, ask your sports-nut friend while he's drinking something. Hilarity will ensue.)

Your third flash should be your most powerful/easiest to use. It goes along the third-base line. You can see mine on the right side of the above photo. It also needs an optical slave. Start by dialing it down to 1/16 or 1/32. Set your camera on manual. Choose 200 ISO, 1/125 for the shutter (or the highest manual sync for that camera, again, check the manual), and f/5.6 or f/8 for the aperture. 

Take a test shot. Too bright? Dial down your main light. Too dark? Dial it up. Experiment until you love it. 

Tomorrow: How to get a white-background, pretty good photo with just a digital camera or the camera in your phone (and the right location).

Photos of Your Knitting, Part 1: The Gear

Even though "photographer" isn't my day job anymore, I still am one! I get questions, with some frequency, from knitters who just want their photos to look better. Knitting is hard to photograph. It's often small, we do it in our homes (living rooms are notoriously dark), and since most knitters aren't professional photographers, we have to make do with whatever equipment we happen to have. 

Today's post is geared (ha!) toward any knitter who has a digital or film camera that will accept an external flash. 

The top photo is the set of flashes I use. The one on the left is from when my mom was in college (1970-ish). The center one I bought last year when my old Nikon flash died after many years of service. I bought the one on the right the morning after my junior prom in 1996 at a camera swap meet. I remember because my dad took me and I bought that flash and my trusty Nikon FM2. I still have that camera, but film and processing costs mean that it's mostly a nice keepsake now.

Those weird little things you see below the flashes are called optical slaves. For less than $20, they will turn any flash unit into a remote flash that will work well as long as the light in the room isn't too bright (I don't recommend them for outdoors) and you have a direct line of sight between your units. Fancy, expensive flashes used to come with built-in optical slaves. Alas, those days are no more as camera companies prefer to build in radio-controlled slaves, when they build them in at all. Radio control is awesome, but I'm not about to replace everything I use (including my Nikon D100!) just to take advantage of a feature I can buy for less than $100. 

Rant over. Sorry. BTW if you want to drop serious money on just making sure your flashes will fire, I recommend Pocket Wizards. I used that system the entire time I worked at newspapers, and they never, ever let me down. For relatively inexpensive "studio-style" lighting gear, Alien Bees are hard to beat, too. 

You don't need a fancy flash to take great photos, but it helps a lot if it has a tilt and swivel head. Just check for that option when you're comparing flashes. The two flashes on the right in the above photo have that, and it just opens up your options a lot. 

The second photo is probably even more important than the first. Fresh batteries. You can use rechargeable if you want, but always, ALWAYS have a spare set of hand and ready to go. There is nothing worse than being ready to shoot and finding out that your batteries aren't working. 

Also, unless you use your flashes at least one a week, never, ever store batteries in your flash. Batteries can leak. The stuff that leaks out of them will almost always ruin your gear! I don't use brand-new batteries for every shoot, but I often keep little snack-size ziplocks in my bag and pop the batteries out when I'm finished shooting. I store batteries on a shelf, neatly lined up so that the ends don't touch each other. That can cause a short, which can cause a leak. If you can get a box of batteries that is resealable, that's even better.

Tomorrow, I'll tell you how to set up a temporary studio and show you my messy basement. Look away, mom.

Warm Mittens On A Cold Day

These mittens are from Favorite Mittens and they're just as wonderful today as they were when I made them about 9 years ago! They're in Bartlett Yarns' Fisherman 3-ply. I almost always wear them with windproof gloves underneath, so that I can still do little things like pull parking ramp tickets.

Come See Why My Nails Are This Short

I...might run out of books. I sold a lot last weekend! Either way, I'll be at the Fall Fiber Festival showing off my socks and talking with people all day on Saturday. I've learned a weird thing - if you have nails that break easily and you don't wear them short while unpacking boxes of books...they WILL break. 

So, the nail clippers have become a BIG part of my prep for just about any event.

Sunday, I'm headed back out to Northfield Yarn. I'll be teaching my class about 3 sock heels. I'm psyched!

Nothing Like A Wool Jacket

I bought this jacket over 5 years ago and I still love it. It has a great attitude, even hanging on a wall. (It's from Banana Republic, but I don't think they make it anymore.)

It was one of the purchased I made when I was re-working my wardrobe to be a Big Important Editor. I'm no longer an editor or very important, but the jacket still works, I think.

A little wear is starting to show up on the cuffs and under the arms. Basically, the white threads are starting to show through more. That just makes me like it even more. It's just showing a few white hairs, is all.

Building Skills

We live just a few blocks from a great bike trail, and earlier this summer, we bought bikes.

I haven't regularly ridden a non-stationary bike in over 20 years, and it's funny how just a little over 3 miles on a "real" bike feels like more effort to me than over 6 miles on the exercise bike in the basement.

The world seems both slower and faster on a bike. There are restaurants and coffee shops that are actually faster to reach from our home on a bike, and on the way we get to enjoy the sight of the creek and watch birds fly overhead.

One thing I've noticed about myself in the last year - I'm kind of a competitive person. I love being really, really good at something. But, I'm also very happy when I'm just starting out and can keep my expectations low. That's where I am on the bike. I'm out of breath. 10 people just passed me on nicer bikes than mine. A little old lady passed me. A teenager is passing me without even steering because he's texting with both hands. (How do they do that?)

Well, so what? I'm better off than I would have been sitting on the couch. Even when I was a sort-of athlete in high school, I got out of breath easily. It's just the way I am. If I keep going, it will be easier next week. If I have to stop for some reason and my fitness level goes down, I'll just start over. I don't have to be great at this, it's just for me and I enjoy it. There are not a lot of areas in life that are that low-stress, and I cherish it!

Vintage Baby Socks

Ok, add "antique malls" to one of the shopping destinations that Dee and I frequent.

I normally don't buy vintage photos unless they are great stereocards, but I couldn't resist this little guy. His name is Oliver (the last name is illegible).

It's so rare to see socks in an old photograph! I wonder if his mama was a proud knitter or if they just didn't have shoes to fit him. They look like half-handkerchief heels and round toes. Seriously cute and amazing stitch definition!

Sky + Lake + Trees = Minneapolis

Can you even believe this is just 15 minutes away from the center of a large metro area? Minneapolis, you're beautiful and I love you.

Yellow and Blue

Just water and a lemon under fluorescent lighting at work, but it's pretty!

Totally Normal Behavior

Everyone pauses horror movies to take pictures of architectural details, right? I mean, seriously, it's starting to seem as if houses are haunted because they are so cool looking. This is a grating (mysterious noises come out of it, so we get a good close-up view) from Haunter, which is kind of like Groundhog Day, only Bill Murray is an annoyed teenage girl being held hostage by a truly evil ghost. So, you know, pretty much the same. I LOVE the lines/diamonds/squares in this grate.

I Haven't Forgotten My Loom

Over the long weekend, I took a little time to play and weave a simple scarf on my loom. I still love it! This is Cascade Highland Duo, an alpaca/Merino blend that's lovely and soft.