I just looked at this blog for the first time in - well, a really long time. I guess it hasn't been too important to me to write anything here, so, well, I haven't. But I just got inspiration to, so I'm gonna do that.
I'm actually pretty happy with the development of my photography skills and abilities over the past couple of years, but I obviously still have a lot to learn.
Case in point:
I did a portrait session for a family who we're friends with - not close friends, but they're good people and we're in the same general circle of Christian friends who know each other in the Western San Fernando Valley. Anyway, they wanted me to come over to their house to do a bunch of family portraits before two of their three kids go back to college for the spring semester. Probably their last chance to get a family portrait before their oldest son gets married in March and their family structure starts to change into something different.
Technical weirdness kept happening. First it was the fact that the D2x I had borrowed to do the job wouldn't be recognized by the tethering function in Lightroom 3. So I had to use the D200, which I was fine with, but I had hoped to use the D2x because of its higher pixel count. But I think the D200 is also better in some ways, so no problem there. Switched camera bodies, and everything's fine.
But then I had problems with the lights. I have these cheap studio lights that are really sort of entry-level lights, and they didn't seem to want to work right. I'd move one into position, and the thing wouldn't fire. I'd move it away to where I didn't want it to be, and it fired just fine, but when I moved it to where I needed it, it failed. Couldn't figure that out. Finally after the whole thing was done and I was packing up my stuff and everybody changed back into their regular clothes, the dad helped me figure out it was because the recessed lights in the ceiling were pointing straight at the light's optical trigger, rendering it useless. If I had just had the presence of mind to turn off the overhead recessed lighting, it wouldn't have been a problem.
Oh well, live and learn. I toughed it out and kept improvising with some smaller strobes and reflectors held by my trusty assistant Zack (see photo above), and got what I think is a pretty good session out of the time spent there. But I have to kick myself for not recognizing the source of the problem when I could have saved myself (and probably the subject family) some grief, and I'm sure more than one quizzical expression like "Does he really know what he's doing?"
