Kitty Portraits

A few days ago I purchased a set of Elinchrom SkyPort radio triggers, a Wescott double-folding umbrella, a Justin clamp, and a Manfrotto Nano light stand. Naturally, that meant that I had to play with my new toys, and who better to try my first portrait lighting setups on than my cats? :)

They're not really camera shy, more camera curious; they like to investigate the gear when I pull it out, especially when I turn the lens in their direction.

So, I set up the light stand, flash, and umbrella, and waited. In case you're curious, I put the flash, with a hot-shoe adapter, on the ballhead on the Justin Clamp, bolted the Justin clamp onto the light stand, and used the clamp to hold the umbrella.

After setting the gear up I waited until the cats got over their curiosity and started napping. Loki took up his usual spot on the back of the futon, and I took the opportunity to get some shots. He didn't seem to be bothered much by the flash. I used my 105mm VR macro lens and my D300. The SkyPorts triggered the Metz flash flawlessly once I set it to manual mode, and gave me plenty of light.

Usually Calypso is the easier of the two to photograph, because she's more placid, but last night she was being either frisky, or in my lap. Even so, she did pause long enough to let me take a picture or two, and I realized that I should have turned down the power on the flash even more; her white fur is very white :)

Mount Baker

It has been much too long since my last post. I haven't been doing as much landscape photography lately either, so it was about high time I did some.

I had planned on doing the Boulder River hike today, but it's not accessible right now; apparently not many of the Darrington area hikes are. So instead, plan B became a trip to Orcas Island.

When we left Seattle, the fog was almost thick enough to cut with a knife. It stayed with us for the entire drive to Anacortes. About five minutes after the ferry pulled out of the quay, the fog cleared and gave us great views of the island we were passing. It also gave us a nearly crystal clear view of Mount Baker.

It seemed like a promising start.

At Orcas Island, we headed for Moran State Park, and followed the roads toward Mount Constitution. There some snow on the road, but not much... until we reached a closed gate. We parked there and walked the remaining 1.2 miles or so; it was a pretty easy jaunt up the road.

When we arrived, we found a dazzling view of the North Cascades. Though it was almost lost in the haze, we could even see Mount Rainier in the distnance, and one peak that we think was Glacier Peak.

The layer of clouds over the straight was also interesting; throughout most of the afternoon, it broke up as it passed Orcas Island, but as the evening progressed, the ragged edge started moving eastward, eventually filling the strait below us, yielding the sight I showed above.

In other semi-related news, I now have six prints up at Energy Cafe in Ballard. Printed by Neil Buckland at Luemars, coated with a protoctive and glossy coating material and glued onto 24x30 inch pieces of plexiglass, they look very detailed and very vibrant. If you get a chance, head over and let me know what you think :)

I hope that the sheets I exposed today come out well, so that I can add some images of Mount Baker to my small but growing collection of prints.

My FIrst Print is UP!

Although this image is not new, the print is. Neal Buckland at

www.mimeosquare.com printed it for me on canvas at 42x50 inches,

coated it, and had it stretched onto a frame for display.

It's now hanging at Energy Espresso in Ballard, and it looks

quite impressive, better than I had anticipated.

It was expensive, but hopefully someone will like

the results enough to buy it :)