I’ve been working, little by little, on building a home studio where I can do some portrait work. However, in a busy household with ten people and 2 (now 3!) dogs, I don’t have a dedicated space. This means that everything I use has to be easily portable because it must be either moved or broken down between sessions. This is even more relevant because, while I am trying so hard to increase my mobility, I am still handicapped with back pain and other physical limitations. So I need to find alternate solutions. To that end, I decided that with the proceeds from the recent sale of some older camera gear, I wanted to do some upgrades. I got a tripod dolly, and it is miraculously helpful to be able to move my tripod with a simple glide of the wheels rather than standing up, lifting and shifting the tripod, lifting and shifting again and again until it’s situated just right. I think I will need to put the light stands on dollies as well! I also discovered in this latest session that it’s rather difficult to see the image on the camera’s LCD screen. My aging eyes, don’t ya know! So I did some research on field monitors and picked up a Neewer F700 model. I’m still working on figuring out all ins and outs of getting it set up just right, but it does have a wonderfully bright screen that will be extremely helpful.
I wanted to do some start of the year portraits with the kids, and managed to corral four of them on Friday. These were done with a 50mm and two lights. If I had had dollies on those lights for this session I might have been able to situate them better, but it was just too hard to move them around so I’m not 100% satisfied with how these turned out in terms of lighting, but I *am* learning, and that is the main thing. Thinking I will still get a third light eventually – I think that will be just about right, and the Amaran Pano 60C and 120C LED panels are a pretty sweet option for my budget, as well as being easy to stow away in between sessions.
Another exciting event happened on Friday. We were blessed by the offer of a rescued Pug. She is ever so sweet and has been adjusting to our household well. She’s been loved on by all the kids and carried around and snuggled and adored, and the big dogs are getting used to her as well. It’s crazy how tiny she is next to Duke! I’m not sure what her name is yet, but she is mostly getting called “Sweetie” and “Baby” and the like anyway so… here’s the newest member of the family!
