Self Portrait

An evening of debauchery with Jacob

This is my best friend (left). He's changed a lot since our first year of college, and this is the first of him I've seen in almost four years. He's radical, unavailable, poor, and flaky; I am overworked, stressed, and a little reclusive. We have way too much fun together.

Joe 11-22-2011

Joe. Canon 40D, 50mm f/1.4, flash. 

CowboyStudio Remote Flash Trigger: Review

At the, uh, middle of this semester, I finally got around to selling my old textbooks from semesters past back to Amazon. With a couple hundred dollars in Amazon credit, I had some serious shopping to do.

I'd been reading David Hobby's Strobist blog for a while, and I figured it was time to give off-camera flash a shot. I knew I didn't need to spend hundreds of dollars on a set of PocketWizards, but maybe if there was something a little bit cheaper I could justify the expense.

There was: this. Cowboy Studio has a range of really cheap remote flashes. For less than a Canon lens hood (damnit, Canon, why don't they come with the lens?!), I bought a set.

Canon 40D, 17-40 f/4 L, 430 EX II flash shot into umbrella

After reading a bunch of David Hobby's articles at strobist, I decided to get myself a light stand and umbrella, and oh what a difference it makes.

I don't really go for the self-portrait thing (I'm beardy and I don't have perfect skin), but this photo served two purposes for me: 1) it was a great way for me to experiment with my new equipment in comfort, and 2) it convinced me to trim my beard. I'm definitely better off after both of those.