Practice, practice, practice

Its been a while since dug out stuff just to play.  Its another of those things you have to do I think.  Practice.  I never really considered photography like a sport, or a performance art until I starting shooting a lot.  Now I realize that just like a dancer, singer, or a baseball player I need to practice regularly or my "real" stuff starts looking the same as the last time I shot.

I've been neglecting lighting practice recently.  Practicing composition, seeing, and things like that is easy because of my phone. But lights aren't so easy to carry around.  Plus its harder to use them with the phone. 

A friend of mine started doing some pretty cool stuff.  This reminded me of my current state of laziness. 

I saw Tobias' mask hanging on the banister tonight, and felt it would be a cool subject to mess with. 

Setup is pretty simple.  I mounted the mask to a tripod.  A shoe flash aimed into the back of the mask makes the yellow part somewhat translucent.  It also helps pick out the cut out bits of the mask.  A gridded strobe at the camera's right-45, high, feathered, and close provides the keylight.  I have a reflector to camera left.

I did a lot of this kind of practice last year.  It takes me much less time to get to reasonable result now.  But I still need to do it.  I also probably need to find a way to push myself harder and reach beyond what I can do easily now.

Yes, it is bit creepy, it looked that way on the banister too.