1. Reflectors – You know that piece of foamcore from the craft store your loved one has been sticking under your chin? It works just fine, but there is an option that looks a bit more professional. A reflector is a really nice, portable tool that can put highlights in eyes, function as fill lighting, or even become an emergency backdrop for head shots. I have three reflectors and use them constantly. This is one of the more reasonably priced tools for a studio, although I do recommend getting a reflector stand for added functionality and to help you avoid one of the phrases most feared by those who love a photographer, “Here. Hold this.” (The 40×60 inch DMKFoto Studio 5 in 1 Reflector Panel shown does not include the stand pictured. I have two of these and love this size.)

2. Lighting – I have tried a few different types of lighting equipment. My favorite option is AlienBees strobe lights. If I had it to do all over again, I would have skipped my continuous lighting package and speedlites and just gone straight to this awesome gear. You can get a one light Beginner Bee package* that will keep that photographer busy for months. Mastering one light is a great way to understand how lighting affects the way a person looks in a photo. With that said, I do still like my Flashpoint II Continuous lighting kit
when I’m working with babies. It is a soft, gentle light and they aren’t startled by a flash going off.

3. Receiver and transmitter – If your loved one wants strobes, he or she will start longing for a receiver and transmitter by the time the UPS truck backs out of the driveway. Having one less thing tethered to the camera and limiting the photographer’s ability to move around quickly and easily is beyond fabulous. I went with the CyberSync setup that was designed to work with AlienBees, but there is also the more expensive and widely recognized PocketWizard system.

4. Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 3
– Don’t tell anyone, but if I was stranded on a desert island and had to choose between Lightroom and Photoshop as my companion, I’d totally choose Lightroom. I adore this software. I pull out Photoshop for major editing jobs, to add texture layers, or stuff like that, but the majority of my work is done in Lightroom. Tethered capture is super easy with Lightroom, too. (Umm. Sorry for the techno-speak. Tethered capture is when the photographer presses the button on the camera, the light goes off and your photo appears right on the laptop.)

5. Portable Backdrop Stand – I have a few different permanent options for hanging backdrops in my studio, but I only shoot friends and family there. (That so doesn’t sound right. Photographers sound so angry if you happen upon us having a conversation, overhear us discussing what we did over the weekend and don’t know what we are talking about.) Anyway, for on location shoots, a backdrop stand is downright priceless. When you shoot in front of a backdrop when you are doing an on location shoot, it doesn’t matter what the actual location looks like. A backdrop stand makes it appear that the shoot was done in a professional studio instead of in a less than stellar spot. There are a ton of different options, but this one has pretty consistent ratings and comes with two backdrops so someone can just set it up and start shooting.

* I am not an affiliate of AlienBees – just a true fan. I get no compensation for mentioning or linking to their products. Other links on the page are to products on Amazon and I do have an affiliate relationship with Amazon.

Peacock is inspired by a recent zoo trip. Our zoo has a ton of peacocks roaming around strutting their stuff and the baby was blown away the first time he saw one spread his tail. Mouth open, eyes huge…Shock and awe. It made me think about the first time I saw one. Funny the way it turns into old hat until you see someone else being amazed by what you are taking for granted, huh? So, I went home planning to paint a peacock. I thought about my reference photo, taken when the baby was gaping in amazement, and proceeded to paint.

Of course, I can never boss my canvases around, no matter how hard I try. So, I ended up with an abstract peacock. Very abstract. But I think it captures the vibrant boldness of the birds and the excitement the little one felt seeing them. The purple Radient Pearls paint is homage to the way the feathers go iridescent in the sun. I hope you enjoy looking at this piece as much as we enjoyed looking at that bold peacock unfurling his tail and as much as I enjoyed painting it.

I think I will list them on Etsy since the local art studio I was hoping to put them in has closed its shop. I used a mix of watercolor paper and brown wrapping paper for this first journal and used rings to bind it so someone could add a lot more pages if they wanted to. Here’s a peek at it:

The cover of the journal

If you like this piece, you can find it as a birthday card on Zazzle:

Make a Joyful Noise Birthday Card by craftyblogger
View other Birthday Cards

Beading Arts has an entire month of fast and easy tutorials for handmade jewelry gifts to share with us. Sounds like a great resource for those, “Oh, no! I completely forgot to get Aunt Betty a gift!” moments.

Creative Dreamer is sharing a Christmas Nail ornament.

Eileen from The Artful Crafter invites us to join The Artful Crafter Christmas Parade of Crafts. She says, “Pssst … don’t miss the fabulous freebies at the end of the parade.”

Cherie suggests you check out Gifts for Your Favorite Crafter, which has ideas for things to buy for that crafty person on your list.

And, last but not least, we have Pine Cone Craft Ideas, which is a list of 12 fun pine cone craft ideas kids can make. I gave my pine cones to a neighbor last year, but I see plenty under the trees again. Looks like we’ll have plenty of crafts to keep us busy this winter!

What are you up to in your studio this week?

My sweet Sophie. (Her haircut is not the typical Scottish Terrier cut. It is the “Oh, no! How did you get that face full of thistles? I’m going to have to cut them out!” type of haircut…)

To get that big, long image, you need to find a nice scene and take three or more photos that partially overlap. You should try to keep everything as level as possible so you don’t have problems when you have your computer stitch it together, so you may want to try using a tripod. I did for a panorama I shot with my zoom lens. And, you should set your camera on manual and set your shutter speed and aperture so they’re even across the whole panorama. One time, I forgot to do that because I was snapping off photos of the little guys going down the slide between setting up the different scenes. Well, you can totally tell. The first section is way lighter than the rest.

Wanna see one of them? I’m not sure if you can make anything out since it will be so tiny on the blog, but here goes:

This week, though, I have to turn in some diptych and triptych photos. Oh, I had so much fun putting these together. I may never stop! I can’t show them to you the way I printed them because I made them as pdfs in Bridge and my blog doesn’t seem to like them or the psd format either.

Still 13 Inside

I had a hat like this I wore when I was about 13 and I felt so cool when I wore it. I found a photo of myself wearing it the other day and thought I’d recreate the look.