Somethin' in the Oven

My brother and sister-in-law are selling their house. That means listings, and listings mean pictures. If you read strobist, or have looked at many real estate listings at the houses us normal people can afford you know most of the photographs are... really bad.

I was asked to take pictures.

If you've been reading this lately you know I'm a bit broken.

I thought about just sending my gear with my brother. I thought I could show him how to do the lights and set the exposure before he left. I already know he can see like an artist, so the rest would just be technical. Besides, pictures are all gear right? And anything would be better than a P&S with onboard flash, used from one corner of the room. However, perhaps the time to learn to light stuff isn't when you are making important pictures.


So, I did it. It was uncomfortable, I sweated buckets, my toes hurt, and I finished smelling more like an animal than a person, but they got done. Besides, I haven't done any serious camera-work for a long while, so it was nice. Here are the kitchen/dining room shots. Those and the bathroom are probably the most important pictures.

For the kitchen I put Smaug and Glaurung (my Alien Bee 800s) and bounced them off the back wall at full power. I then tucked Norbert (one of my Nikon strobes) into the oven with a full CTO gell on. For the dining room shot the alien bees were used as direct light, and I tucked the Nikon down the hallway to expand that space a bit.

This also marks the first time I bothered to use liveview. You see, its a bit difficult to duck down to use the viewfinder at the moment. It is also good to use all the features of your camera, you paid for them. Besides, if you haven't tried it, there is no possible way you understand how it works. Reading something (like the manual, or the interweb) doesn't give you complete understanding. You have to actually do it yourself. Sometimes that isn't even good enough, sometimes you need to practice a lot. Liveview, is pretty easy to use, so I understand how it works now.

Anyway, these aren't perfect. But they are decent, and not bad at all. Hopefully they will get some attention amongst the mediocre pictures they will be alongside. Maybe Jon and Jen will make me grilled meat when I can walk again? One can always dream.