Screaming Monkey Research Laboratories

This is a Lightroom technique but all the controls are there in Photoshop CS3.

Find the Surreal Edgy Effect at Adobe Photoshop Lightroom Killer Tips. It wouldn’t work for a lot of photos but as soon as I saw it I knew one that it would work on. I’ve posted this photo a couple of times. (Once as a POTW I think and another time to show off some cloning work.)

Edit: For some reason I didn’t apply my normal crop to this. The top of the buildings should be gone.

Minneopa has a pretty crappy waterfall. It looks nice but is brown and smells. I got some of the spray on a very expensive Hoya Super HMC filter and the water drops ate through the filter’s optical coatings. Ick.

Tried this one in B+W and I like it.

Ordered the Optical kit for $199. I also ordered a second fotodiox optical slave for $15.

Once B&H lets me put an order in I’ll be ordering some polarizing gels to use in front on one or more strobes. This should let me do some cross polarization lighting. I can then filter that light with a polarizer at the camera. What that lets me do is greatly reduce reflections on shiny surfaces. (Like the ones on the guitar strings below. Although they are not that bad on that particular photo.)

This should be fun.

Been looking at Midwest Photo Exchange’s Strobist Lighting Kits.

A lot of these look pretty cool but the one I’m really looking at is the Starving Student Wireless Kit (SW1) for $215.

For $215 you get –

• 1 – Vivitar 285HV Shoe Mount Flash
• 1 – 8ft. Air Cushioned Light Stand
• 1 – Cactus V2s Wireless Radio Slave set (Transmitter and Receiver)
• 1 – Westcott 43” Compact Umbrella – Soft Silver
• 1 – Rosco Pro Color Correction Gel Pack
• 1 – DIY Grid, Barndoor, Snoot kit
• 1 – CTA Ni-MH 2700mAh AA 4-pack Battery w/Charger
• 1 – Bongo Elastic Ties (10 pack)
• 1 – Umbrella Swivel

They also have one for $125 that doesn’t include the flash. Considering that I have a cheap old flash in the basement I could get that. One can do a lot of cool things with this kit. And as winter approaches I think it is time to buy it. Probably get the cheap version first and use my own flashes.

They have another kit for about $15 less that uses a Fotodiox optical slave instead of the Cactus V2s. Probably more reliable but not as versitile as the radio slaves. The PC cord or household kits are about the same price. PC cords are cheap and suck. The household kit is more expensive than the wireless kit. So nuts to that.

Anyway, cool stuff.

I’ve posted one from this series before. This is a different shot. In color and very contrasty. I like the way the backdrop looks like a light is being directed towards the bombay sapphire.

Just playing with different looks. I’m going to order one of the cheap strobist lighting kits from Mpex one of these days and give this another shot with better tools.

Second try at this one.

Just sky and prairie.