Ivan and I were killing some time in downtown, and I decided I wanted to shoot something.  We ended up in Old Sac, and he had the brilliant idea of trying to get access to the third deck of the Delta King, with the iconic Tower Bridge in the background.  The manager was nice enough to let us up there, and so we just put together a fun experimental shoot at night on Sacramento’s beloved Delta King riverboat hotel and restaurant.

I’m still working with my very less-than-adequate strobes, and it was pretty dark, so I was working with fairly long shutter speeds, between .5 and 4 seconds, depending on other settings.  Overall it was an interesting experience.  Basically, I learned to not wait until it’s actually dark to make a dark background.  A 30 minute jump on the shoot and I’m sure it would’ve come out better.  Either way, it was fun, we got some relaxing productive time, and basically had a good evening to end the weekend.  I’m just thankful that Ivan puts up with my crap while I’m trying to figure out crazy stuff like this, it’s much appreciated.

Anyways…  Technical details, summed up (it’s late, I’m tired):  The Minolta firing through the shoot-through camera right up close, the Phoenix firing bare about twice the distance as the Minolta, from camera left feathered behind him a bit.  Canon EF 50mm f/1.8, ISO 800, .5/sec @ f/11.

So, I don’t normally go for the crazy post-processed artificial look, but because of the MASSIVE flare coming from the VAL’d light back camera right, I thought I’d go for it instead of attempting to fix it.

Dragged Ivan, Krissy, and Luke up to the top of the 27th Street Parking Garage on Saturday and made them brave the crazy cold winds so I can take silly pictures of them being, well, silly.  Good times though.

The more I look at this photo, the more I like it, but I know it’s definitely not my M.O., so to speak.  Either way, as long as I enjoy it for what it is, and Luke likes it, I guess that’s what matters.

I may put up more from that night later, but for now, I’m doing exactly what I said I wouldn’t do tonight and am up WAY too late.  Night!

Yeah, lame title, but that’s what Steve tends to call these shoes…  This is from when Matt and I went out photowalking in Old Sacramento.  Nothing too terribly special in this shot, but it came out alright.

Primarily, I’m just testing out a bit of a new workflow.  Color-calibrated monitor now.  Haven’t hooked up the Huey in a while, but looks like I’ve been operating pretty close to calibrated previously.  Also a few other things as well.  But that’s for later.

I took this shot a few years ago on the way home from my job as a web designer for Smith Gallery/K Street Gallery in downtown…  Infrared filter on the old Fuji Finepix S5100, 3 sec exposure at f/2.9.  Good stuff.