Photo Friday: Robert Stackhouse

Hey everyone! This post is a little different than the average Photo Friday -- this one is more a DIY than just a list of photos, but when Robert proposed this idea, I thought it was too cool to pass up. Enjoy! 

I guess it was serendipity that one day in two thousand and nine I happened to see an article on lifehacker talking about a fellow who had improvised a ring flash from fiber optics and his DSLR's on board flash (http://lifehacker.com/5148948/diy-fiber-optic-ring-flash). It was serendipitous, because my wife and I had recently discovered that we would be having a child, we had seen an instructable on how to create a star-field ceiling (http://www.instructables.com/id/How-to-create-a-fiber-optic-starfield-ceiling/), we were planning on following said instructable, and we knew we were going to have leftover fibers.

Making the flash was a bit cumbersome since the original article seems to gone offline, but as they say, persistence pays off.

One use of a ring flash is to cast a soft shadow around the outline of your subject if it is shot in close proximity to a backdrop.

I'll let the images speak for themselves.
On board flash:

Hacked ring flash:

Though I haven't done it myself, if you plan to improvise a ring flash of your own and have an external flash, I might go the two bowls and an external flash route. Perhaps that's a future exercise for me.
There are other uses for a ring flash. I personally want to see how it does for outdoor night portraiture. Happy shooting.

 Robert graduated with a B.E.D. – Visual Studies and has been involved with the design and implementation of various types of web applications since October of 2004.  A husband and father of one, Robert is a staunch advocate for localism and supporter of local businesses.  He is involved in local tech groups that freely exchange knowledge of best practices when he can be. He can be found blogging, on twitter at @rstackhouse, and on facebook.  

[Interested in guest blogging on Simply, Valorie?]

Photo Friday: Tyler Anderson

A Study In Instagram

Photography is something I only do as a hobby, but I love being able to find subject material in my every day life. As a result, one of my favorite iPhone apps is Instagram. Below are a few of my favorite photos, and here are the stories that go with them.

1. One night I looked in my fridge and discovered I was low on, well, pretty much everything. All I had was some root beer and some ice cream (I'm not even kidding on this). I despaired, but only for a moment, when the brilliant idea to make ROOT BEER FLOATS suddenly sprang to mind. Thus, a delicious yet unhealthy dinner was had, and Tyler was happy.

2. I've always been envious of photographers that can take good beach shots. I've tried and tried over and over again, and am never happy with the result. Finally, this year on my spring break trip, I got a shot that made me overcome with how much I liked it. This is that picture.

3. Always a fan of the rare and unpopular, seeing this VW van in my university's parking lot made me immediately lust after it, while simultaneously making me loathe my "common" Mazda Tribute. I had to take a shot and I had to put an old filter on it, just so I could live vicariously through the photo for a while.

4. Brian Williams came to talk at my school's senior convocation this year. I was able to be good for almost all of the talk, but finally at the end I could stand it no longer, and snuck my phone out for a quick shot. I was so close, I had to do it, right?

5. This is another shot from spring break 2011. The shot is pretty grainy and blurry, being taken in bad lighting conditions, but I actually liked the low-fi way it turned out, and how the lighting frames my friends singing on stage.

6. My roommate and I have an ongoing deal: We take turns buying beers, trying to see how obscure and crazy we can get with our choices. I saw this at our local Lowe's Foods and couldn't resist. Being from the Minnesota region, I had to get a brew from the Great Lakes company!

7. *Sigh* As much as I sometimes hate to admit it, I'm a member of a fraternity. Everyone once in a while I get what some of my brothers call (un-ironically, mind you) fratriotic. For those of you who are normal people, that's patriotic with a "frat" shoved in at the beginning. Anyway, one morning I woke up with a fierce fratriocity (I don't even know, I'm just making up words now) and took this photo.

8. My university's (Elon University in North Carolina) campus is absolutely gorgeous, and that's coming from a not-so-outdoorsy person. Still, walking past this flower bed, I had to take a shot. It was simply too pretty not to.

9. I've never really enjoyed photos of text, and I've also never liked the horrendous Instagram border that can be found in this final photo. Despite this, somehow these things I dislike came together in a wonderful photo of the back cover of a Paul Simon lyric book that I have. Looking at the back of the book caused inspiration to strike, and it's quickly become one of my favorite photos.

Tyler Anderson is an iOS/Mac software developer at the Iconfactory. You can find him on Twitter under the username @TandyQ and you can sometimes read thoughtful stuff from him on Tumblr (http://tandyq.tumblr.com) or his personal blog (http://tqanderson.com/blog).

Photo Friday: Katie Patzke

Hey Hey Hey, blogging buds. The name’s Katie and I am currently a student/part-time employee in wonderful Las Vegas, Nevada. I moved here almost a year and a half ago and it certainly takes some getting used to. I manage The Therapist. I suppose the word, “manage”, is an exaggeration. I only have about 8 loyal followers and about 500 pageviews a month; however, my blog IS my therapist (hence why I called it that). I write about random things, I rant, and I process life. It’s mostly for me, but if you like, feel free to enjoy.

Photo Friday: Sam Sands

Hello people :) My name is Samantha, and I am so excited to be writing this post!  Photography has always been something that I loved.  I remember when I was in 11th grade, we watched a movie about a National Geographic photographer and his journey through photography.  He talked about looking for opportunities everywhere to take pictures, and I fell in love with photography right then and there.  My dream job would be a photographer for National Geographic (traveling and taking pictures.  Does it get better than that?)  I love the idea of being able to show people how I see the world.  I see things in terms of pictures, always framing things in my mind.  I always want to take something that no one pays attention to, and show it in a way that makes it hard not to stop and look.  There is a silent poetry to to even the hideous things.  

When I got to college, I wanted to take a film photography class, and my parents were nice enough to buy me my first film camera.  I was able to process my own film, and develop my own photos, and I came to love the smell of chemicals on my hands because it meant I was creating something.  I am not a professional by any means, but I do love the art.

These are a few of my pictures taken in my photo classes:

I'd love to have you stop by my blog (samsands.blogspot.com)!

Photo Friday: A World Tour

I'm leaving for China today. 

I can't believe this trip is finally here. 

Wow. 

Well, I don't know when I'll next get to do a real post for you guys, but I hope you enjoy the guest posters while they're here and have a wonderful, wonderful summer.

If you want to email me at any time (including an interest in doing a guest post), I can be reached at:

valorielovely {at} gmail {dot} com

For this week's Photo Friday, I'm posting a photo from every trip I've been on in the last five or so years. 

Enjoy! 

{Costa Rica}

{Kenya}

{Russia}

{Ireland}

{England}

{The Caribbean}

{Chicago}

{Italy}

{Mykonos, Greece}

{Turkey}

{Egypt}

{Athens, Greece}

{Czech Republic}

{Germany}

{Quebec}

{El Salvador}

You can see more of my stuff here.

<33 

Photo Friday: Allison Blonder

My good friend Allison let me borrow her for a few hours on a [very humid] San Antonio morning to practice taking photos with a subject other than myself or an object. These haven't been fully edited because I just haven't had the time (finals!) but I like these the way they've come out so far.

What do you think? 

Thanks again, Allison! :)