Self Portrait Session

I set up my studio today to work on some lighting techniques, specifically Rembrandt lighting. I used a two light set up and a bounce flash to support the main light. I shot using my 18 – 55 mm lens at a 200 ISO, an aperture of f5.6 and a shutter of 1/125. The flash was set with a +¼ compensation. I shot using a remote control and live view on the camera. I then processed the raw images through Lightroom and then Photoshop. Below are some examples from the shoot and you can see the full gallery here.

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2025 Year in Review and Looking Forward to 2026

This year was a bit interesting especially since during the day, I’m a government employee, which resulted in a lot of stress and a 42-day furlough. I didn’t attend as many cosplay events with the D.C Cosplay group, now Costume and Camera, as I normally would have, due to schedule conflicts. However, I traveled up to Poughkeepsie, New York for two photo events, one of which I was a featured photographer. I attended two conventions, one of which didn’t turn out as expected and the other just confirmed my decision to take a break from it. Though happily I did a lot of studio work this year, which I enjoyed. But on the other hand, I lost my dear “studio supervisor”, my dog Teddy. He liked to great clients and then “supervise” while lying/sleeping in his bed. I also started to work on the business side of my photography work, by investing in a Customer Relationship Management (CRM) site to manage bookings, schedules, and payments. No more trying to juggle...

Cyber Blue

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Return to the National Portrait Gallery

On February 28th, I attended the Costume & Camera (previously DC Cosplay Photoshoots) event at the National Portrait Gallery in DC. I have a love/hate relationship with shooting at the National Portrait Gallery; it is a beautiful location due to its architecture, especially on the third floor, and I’m thankful that you are allowed to do portrait photography there as long as you don’t use flash. What I get frustrated with is the varying colors of light throughout the building and the need to use natural or continuous light. (I’m a flash girly.) For this event, I used: Canon R6 24 - 105mm lens Neewer 12-inch LED light Assistant Camera Settings: This shoot was inside the Portrait Gallery, which has a no flash policy, thus I was using a mix of natural and continuous lighting, which affects settings. My ISO ranged from 100 ISO to 3200 ISO with the most common ISO being ISO 1000. My aperture stayed between F4 and F5, with the most c...

The Munchkin's Notebook

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