Wednesday, April 8, 2009

Window Light and noise.


Corral-34
Originally uploaded by Josh Bobbitt

Embarrassing failures have always been great teaching tools.

This is one of my favorite images from a shoot I did this Sunday. I had several complicated lighting setups, but we did this one with just some window light and a gold reflector to open up the shadow side of her face a little (and just a little, as you can see).

However, if you view this image at any size, you'll see that it's pretty damn noisy.

If you check out the EXIF data, you'll see why. I shot it at ISO 1600. Because I'm a bonehead who forgets to check important camera settings before he starts shooting.

The whole shoot was in 1600. I tried to process in ways to minimize the noise, but that's just a stop-gap.

However, shooting right now, for me, is about learning. This wasn't a client that had invested a lot of money in the shoot, so I could afford to experiment and even fail. It took a pretty significant mistake, but, without a doubt, I learned an important lesson.

It's kind of like the time my high school Latin teacher forced me to stand in front of the class and drilled me, military style, on 3rd declension endings because I hadn't learned them like I was supposed to. (I can still recite them at will.) Or the time that a manager forced me to carry around 10 bottles of steak sauce in an already full apron during the rush at restaurant because I had forgotten to ask a table if they would like any. I never forgot again.

That, it seems, is the learning process. Though I'm a hard-headed dumbass who doesn't always get it right, sometimes I have to fall on my face to remember to look at my feet.

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