2011 Work

Pentax *ist D, smc Pentax-M 85mm f:2 manual focus lens. Single Bowens Bo-lite studio flash with honeycomb & grid to creat the spotlight effect, self-portrait. I liked the negative space and the tight crop.

So I laid a Fibonacci spiral on the image and noticed that the right eye (viewer's left) fit into the spiral. As seen here.

 

 

 



Divine Composition With Fibonacci’s Ratio (The Rule of Thirds on Steroids)

2010 in review

The stats helper monkeys at WordPress.com mulled over how this blog did in 2010, and here's a high level summary of its overall blog health:



The Blog-Health-o-Meter™ reads Fresher than ever.

Crunchy numbers

 

A Boeing 747-400 passenger jet can hold 416 passengers. This blog was viewed about 2,400 times in 2010. That's about 6 full 747s.

 

In 2010, there were 39 new posts, not bad for the first year! There were 140 pictures uploaded, taking up a total of 28mb. That's about 3 pictures per week.

The busiest day of the year was February 20th with 53 views. The most popular post that day was Sky Fire.

 

Where did they come from?

The top referring sites in 2010 were darrelllarose.ca, networkedblogs.com, digg.com, facebook.com, and slashingtongue.com.

Some visitors came searching, mostly for darell larose, darrell larose, stieglitz clouds, alfred stieglitz clouds, and darrelllarose.wordpress.com.

Attractions in 2010

These are the posts and pages that got the most views in 2010.

1

Sky Fire February 2010
1 comment

2

Human Form February 2010
5 comments

3

The Eyes Have It February 2010

4

Final Camera Club Slide Competition of 2009-2010 April 2010
1 comment

5

First Visit to Mud Lake May 2010
3 comments

Season's Greetings

Here I am as Santa... Best of the Season.

Still More Self-Portraits

I am fine-tuning the lighting in the series. Digital B&W has a different "feel" to it over film. Here are my most recent efforts. Shot in PEF RAW mode, converted with PhotoShop CS2.



Two Bowens Bo-Lite heads, main light with 18" softbox at 45° to subject 45° angle to create the triangle of light on the left eye. 36" square silver reflector fill. Second head with silver honeycomb/barndoors as a keylight. Self-Portrait. Pentax *istD SMC FA-Pentax 50mm f:1.4. 1/60 sec @ f:16.

A similar shot, different angle.


Two Bowens Bo-Lite heads, main light with 18" softbox at 45° to subject 45° angle to create the triangle of light on the left eye. 36" square silver reflector fill. Second head with silver honeycomb/barndoors as a keylight. Self-Portrait. Pentax *istD SMC FA-Pentax 50mm f:1.4. 1/60 sec @ f:16.

Some tweaking to B&W.



Two Bowens Bo-Lite heads, main light with 18" softbox at 45° to subject 45° angle to create the triangle of light on the left eye. 36" square silver reflector fill. Second head with silver honeycomb/barndoors as a keylight. Self-Portrait. Pentax *istD SMC FA-Pentax 50mm f:1.4. 1/60 sec @ f:16.


Finally, this time around.

Self-Portrait revisited

A bored afternoon, I set up my studio strobes and parked myself in the lights.

Single  Bowens Bo-Lites, both with silver honeycomb & barndoors. Mainlight at Rembrandt (45° and 45°)  feathered towards the camera. Shadow fill with a 36"
Pentax *istD dSLR, SMC Pentax-M 85mm f:2 lens.
1/60 sec @ f:16

Two Bowens Bo-Lites, both with silver honeycomb & barndoors. Mainlight at Rembrandt (45° and 45°) keylight over my right shoulder feathered towards the camera. Shadow fill with a 36" square silver reflector from the left.
Pentax *istD dSLR, SMC Pentax-M 50mm f:1.4 lens.
1/60 sec @ f:16

Two Bowens Bo-Lites, both with silver honeycomb & barndoors. Mainlight at Rembrandt (45° and 45°) keylight over my right shoulder feathered towards the camera. Shadow fill with a 36" square silver reflector from the left.
Pentax *istD dSLR, SMC Pentax-M 50mm f:1.4 lens.
1/60 sec @ f:16

Two Bowens Bo-Lites, both with silver honeycomb & barndoors. Mainlight at Rembrandt (45° and 45°) background light behind me .
Pentax *istD dSLR, SMC Pentax-M 85mm f:2 lens.
1/60 sec @ f:11

Two Bowens Bo-Lites, both with silver honeycomb & barndoors. Mainlight at Rembrandt (45° and 45°) background light behind me .
Pentax *istD dSLR, SMC Pentax-M 85mm f:2 lens.
1/60 sec @ f:11

Two Bowens Bo-Lite heads, main light with 18" softbox at 45° to subject 45° angle to create the triangle of light on the left eye. 36" square silver reflector fill. Second head with silver honeycomb/barndoors as a keylight. Self-Portrait.

Nominated 2010, Canadian Weblog awards

Worth 1000

I am a member of Worth 1000 for several years. I have entered two pieces so far. Both have done well.

What is Worth1000?
Worth1000 is a collection of online arenas where the worlds best artists compete daily in creative competitions. Worth1000 has hosted thousands of daily competitions since it launched and is well known across the web for inadvertently triggering hoaxes, celebrity amusement and even major media scandals when an entry created here is mistaken for real. (Seriously, the Pentagon once issued a statement distancing itself from Worth1000 images).

That being said, here are my entries:

Here I entered a Photoshop Contest, and placed 12 out of 48 total.

http://www.worth1000.com/entries/452938/me-as-zeus

Contest Rules

Sculpture can be beautiful and stunningly realistic. Photoshop can breathe new life into these stone-cast images preserved forever in suspended animation, and that's just what we'd like for you to do. For this contest, take a manmade sculpture and show us the life held captive within it.

Have fun, keep it clean, be creative. Don't forget the cliche list. As always, quality is a must. We will remove poor entries no matter how much we like you. You'll have 48 hours for this contest, so make your submission count.


I merged my face into Zeus, and chipped away the stone so have my face emerged. PhotoShop tools included drop shadow and freehand selection to remove the stone.

My best entry was in a pure photography contest, here I placed first out of 39 entries. Worth 1000 gets more entrants in the PhotoShop and Illustration classes.

http://www.worth1000.com/entries/416901/autumn-sumac

This is a Advanced level contest
_______________________________________

In this contest we want you to bring us closer to autumn, show us the details. This does not necessarily mean we want macro shots, although they will be allowed, but simply that we don't want the whole forest. If a whole person could fit in your image, you're too far away.


I am happy with both images.

Darrell Larose