Phoenix Wedding Photographer | Mike Olbinski Photography » self-portrait

Ugly Mug

Mike — Fri, 18 Feb 2011 13:58:51 +0000

This is what happens on road trips in lonely hotels…

Artificial light is something that I’m kind of nervous about. There is so much involved with it…umbrellas, softboxes, transmitters, receivers, stobes, speedlites, light metering…it seems overwhelming to me. I’ve learned a decent amount about a one-light off-camera flash setup for doing simple photobooth kind of things at events. My buddy Rick Young helped a lot with that. I am doing that again this weekend at a charity event and this time with my very own Speedlite EX II and Alien Bee transmitters.

I think it was Rick or Ken…but one of them told me to just practice. Photography is fun, and supposed to be fun…so enjoy playing and trying things out.

This is what you get when I practice

I dragged all my gear to Las Vegas last week, but left the umbrella and light stand at home. Figured I’d find a way to make it all work.

I had the camera on a tripod using a remote trigger. To the right of the picture was a giant mirror, so I decided to setup there and use that as a way to kind of bounce the light to the other side of my face. I held up the flash manually with my right hand, and used a white sock as a diffuser.

Yeah, a sock.

I asked my wife if I should even post this, she said totally. Maybe she hates me, I dunno. I also have no idea what face I’m making…I believe it’s a goofy, exaggerated wink that my wife and I sometimes do back and forth to each other to get the other person to laugh.

Either way, I wanted to have some fun on Friday. Hopefully this doesn’t give you nightmares tonight!

(exif: canon 5d mark ii, 50mm 1.4, f/10, iso200, 1/80, speedlite exii off left)

Me

Mike — Sat, 09 Jan 2010 19:19:10 +0000

It’s all about me right? Here’s a self-portrait I did which is part of a little project I’m doing elsewhere.

Some recent random photos

Mike — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 15:51:50 +0000

I take a lot of weather photos and pictures of family, but I’m also branching off into whatever else I find interesting. This website I joined (my profile right here) constantly challenges people to photograph different themes, like Decay, or Halloween, Nostalgia, etc. That motivates me to think more and look for stuff to shoot that I wouldn’t ordinarily go after.

This first photo is an entry I did for their Halloween Fright theme, which looks like it was tough, but it just required two photographs and some Photoshop magic.

Ghost in the Mirror

This next photo was taken on Gilbert Road through a fence where a bunch of tractors and trucks sit around waiting to be purchased I guess. I thought the graffiti added an interesting element to the scene and this is what came of it:

An old, decayed wall near by office building downtown.

Taken this morning (Oct 21st)…the main bright star you see is Venus against the sunrise over San Tan Mountain.

Took this one a few weeks ago with my old camera. It’s enhanced a bit with Photoshop to give it a sort of “metallic” feel, but it’s the perspective and clouds that make it I think.

This last one is kind of cute I thought…as I was out trying to photograph a meteor shower this morning, these horses in a farm next to me woke up and one of them stared at me for awhile *grin*