Playing catch-up on posts, this week it's a rather diverse entry in this journal. I paid a visit to a feathered friend's home, where his adoptive parents wanted his portrait made for some home decor. We're likely going to print a set of three images as he goes through some supermodel motions, and perhaps print them on canvas as gallery wraps - a cool presentation.

To light the shot, we used soft light and hard light; a single strobe in a diffused box for soft light illuminating the bird and the perch, as well as a white reflector behind to bring some light back in from the opposite side - giving us a wrap-around, three-dimensional feel.

We also used a "gridded" strobe on the green paper background to create the bright circular highlight you see, bringing the viewer in to what is obviously the subject of the photo - and adding some emphasis.

This friendly pup and his sibling also posed for us recently, and at this time of year with nothing but bare trees and muddy lawns we needed to control perspective a bit to make the portraits aesthetically pleasing. So, in the owner's backyard, we used the red storage shed as a background, throwing it out of focus, to keep our subject isolated. The light was soft, a mostly cloudy day - though it was brighter behind the shed at that hour. So we faced him away from the brighter part of the sky to add a defining/separating edge, and popped a Nikon SB flash unit in a small softbox to even out the illumination - and add a little twinkle to his eye.

Oh by the way, pup, the dry cleaner was able to get all the mud off my jacket after your enthusiastic greeting...how about next time, we just shake?

Lastly, we spent a quick evening with Annabelle to make a few potential images for her upcoming book jacket. It was almost dark outside, and the sky offered nothing but heavy cloud cover. To add a little life and creativity, we again used the small and portable Nikon SB flash in a small softbox to add the light for her portrait. As the colors were drab and gloomy, we spiced things up a bit by adding a warming gel to the flash, and setting the digital camera's white balance to match. This let the sky go cool blue - a quick and effective technicque for countering the winter duldrums!