I know it’s not technically Christmas yet (at least here it’s not – 1:15 to go…) but I snapped a few shots of my parents living room after Santa came tonight but before it gets totally destroyed in the morning and I wanted to share them with you before I head to bed to dream of sugarplum fairies and what not. Enjoy!

Merry Christmas!

Into The Matrix

Being the computer nerd that I am I always enjoy pictures that make computer equipment, cables, etc. look grander than they really are.  And any chance that I get to take a shot like that I jump on it.  Luckily for me there are many, many places around my department to look for these kind of shots.  Naturally, I’m a programmer, so I’m in the IS department, so there are computers everywhere.  It just so happens that right behind my cubicle there was a large test bench with more cables than you can shake a stick at (do people really shake sticks at things) so I decided to play around a little and this is what I got:

I think it’s pretty cool.  Looks very sci-fi.  And this was done so easily.  One Nikon SB-24 in the back with a 1/4 green gel on it and shot from a low perspective.  The hard light works really well here and I even dig the lens flare.  Not too bad for a bunch of power and network cables.

A Boy Man and His Trains

One of the guys I work with (he works in a different department than mine but we work closely together) is big train buff.  And by big I mean huge.  I think this guy knows everything there is to know about trains.  And every year for Christmas he sets up a little electric train set that runs around on top of several cubicles in his department.  Well, one of the big things we are trying to push for next year is to increase readership of our internal website and publications, and one of the ways we are doing that is to try and incorporate more shots of employees, to try and make things more personal.  So my boss suggests that I go take a picture of Lee (the train guy) playing with his trains.  Not a problem since I always have my camera with me.

It just so happens that I also have my new Manfrotto 001B Light Stand with me, so I decide it’s time to try it out and take a nice portrait of this guy playing with his trains.  The first idea that came to my mind was the image of a little kid around Christmas playing with his brand new train set, so that’s kinda the route I wanted to take with this picture.  I went over and set up my light (a single Nikon SB-24 into a silver umbrella) on my new stand (these ultra-compact light stands rock, BTW) and fired a few test shots and had Lee come over and climb up so he was more on the train’s level:

Like I said before…it really reminds me of a little kid playing with his trains.  The red of the covering and the slight green of his shirt (green is EVERYWHERE at my work, company colors…) add to the Christmas feel I was going for.  I tweaked the colors just a tad to give it a little different feel than the way it came out of the camera.  I wish I would have had a way to light up the front of the train just a little, but I only had one light with me and was trying not to distract everyone for too long.  Oh well, I still think it’s a great picture and hopefully you do too!

So there is one of my posts I promised in my previous one.  Keep watching for the rest!