I visited my parents in December for Winterfamilytime. Pleasantly, the weather was really nice in Charlotte—it hardly felt much like winter some days (not that I minded).

Among the photos I’ve posted, I used the same lighting setup that I had used last year—I used one flash with a Lumiquest LTp Softbox that I attached to the second-floor walkway railing and I used my other flash with a Lumiquest Softbox that I attached to the mantle.

Cross-light often accommodates a fair degree of flexibility when photographing an environment, though for reasons that elude me, it seemed to work a little better for my shots last year than it did this year. (With a cross-light setup, two lights face each other on a diagonal axis to the subject that’s in-between them.) Although it’s somewhat a hunch, what may have happened this time is that I may have had too wide an arc between the subjects and my lights.

On one hand, it’s hard to say where people are going to sit, and on the other hand, there’re only so many places from which one can hang flashes. So as I daydream around how I might set things up next year, I’m pondering the idea of maybe getting a third flash to offer some fill-in light along the axis that may be getting the short end of the stick lighting-wise. (You could think of the lighting setup I’ve been using as similar to a “/” shape and the one I’m considering might look a bit like a lowercase lambda, “λ”.)

I’ve known and been friends with Christine for almost as long as I’ve lived here in Dallas. She moved to San Diego a few years ago and that’s where she met Steve. And they decided to get married in Maui.

I hadn’t been to Maui before, but it was a trip I had been looking forward to for months. And even though I was only able to go for a Saturday-through-Tuesday trip, I had an awesome time. Hawaii is basically picturesque everywhere, all the time. You can glance in nearly any direction and you’ll see a beautiful lush landscape.

The wedding was on the back lawn of the Wailea Golf Club on the Sunday around 5 p.m. It wasn’t an overpopulated wedding—I believe I counted twenty chairs—but that seemed just right for the setting. Christine and Steve were both beaming with happiness and they said their vows just as the sun was falling into the horizon. It was pretty special.

I visited my parents and brother in Charlotte last month, and even though it had only been a few weeks since I had seen my parents for Thanksgiving, it was great to see everyone again (especially my brother, who I hadn’t seen in about a year). It happened to be a bit on the chilly side in Charlotte—the highs most days were in the lower 40s, if memory serves—but it wasn’t anything a little bundling-up couldn't solve.

I decided to try out some new lighting gear since I knew we’d be spending a good chunk of Saturday in the living room. As a key light, I hung a Canon 430EX with a Lumiquest Softbox to one corner of the mantle with a Gorillapod. (The Lumiquest Softbox was the smaller of the light modifiers I had on hand so I thought that would be a good fit for that spot.)

Then, as a back light (or fill light, depending on how people were facing), I attached a 430EX II with a Lumiquest Softbox LTp to the railings of the second-story walkway above the living room using a Gorillapod SLR. (The LTp is a 10×14 softbox—Lumiquest’s largest model—and I was really impressed by how much soft light it put out.) So, in all, I had two lights set up in the living room and I’m generally pleased with how things turned out; I’ll probably try a setup like that again sometime.

We happened to get a little snow while I was there (perhaps on Saturday?), and while Charlotte doesn’t typically get much snow, it was enough to cover the ground and trees. I didn’t exactly have the proper footwear for trudging around in the snow, but my one regret for the trip is that I wish I had managed to get some shots of the treetops (and other portions of the landscape) covered in snow; it was a pretty sight. Oh, well—there’s always next year.

I visited my family in Charlotte for Thanksgiving, and in addition to my mom and dad, we had something like seventeen other guests join us for the meal. There were cousins, aunts, uncles, family friends, neighbors—it was a full house, but good fun to see everyone.

On the other hand, my brother has been living in Cape Town for the past two (?) years, so he wasn’t able to join us. (It would have been too short of a stay to make the trip there and back, understandably.) He’s a cracking good chum, though, and I’m looking forward to seeing him over Winterfamilytime later this month.

Photography wise, I tried out a couple new lighting setups for some of my shots. For the exterior grill shots, I used my Gorillapod SLR to attach my Canon 430 EX II to one of the gutters (with a LumiQuest Softbox attached to it). That actually worked out better than I thought it would. (For instance, I think that helped fill in some shadows on shots such as this one of my dad checking on the turkey’s thermometer.)

Indoors, I used my second 430 EX (albeit not an “EX II”) to set it upon various spots on the countertop in out kitchen (with a Gorillapod functioning simply as a tripod). Partially through process of elimination—as I only have so many light modifiers—I used my LumiQuest Quik Bounce atop the flash in the kitchen. The idea with the Quik Bounce is that you can bounce some of the light upward while allowing the rest to project forward, creating—in theory—a balance of soft reflected light off the ceiling along with a dash of more focused light.

I have no qualms with the Quik Bounce as a product and I’m sure it often works quite nicely. In my case, though, I think the 9-ft ceilings in my parents’ kitchen probably weren’t ideal for bouncing one’s flash. Come to think of it, the ceiling in their kitchen might even be painted a soft creme color rather than plain white (which may affect the color of any light bounced off it). It’s a pretty great kitchen, but I may have to try a few more ideas in case there may be a lighting arrangement that works even better.

I think nineteen people may be a record for a Bischoff-family Thanksgiving and it worked out pretty well. The turkey was tender and I enjoyed many a conversation with family and friends. Thanksgiving has always been my favorite yearly holiday and this one didn’t disappoint.

SXSW Interactive apparently had over 12,000 attendees this year, more than this year’s SXSW Music. And I still had just as much fun this year as I’ve had any year. It was great.

Once again, Grant Hutchinson helped organize a “Found Type Photowalk” around Austin. Ostensibly, it’s about typography—and there is quite a bit of typography talk—but it’s also a fantastic mid-conference respite where photographers of all types can enjoy a leisurely walk around Austin while taking shots along the way.

I brought along my trusty Canon 40D and it held up pretty well. If anything, the one thing I noticed is that even an image-stabilized lens (like the 17–55mm f/2.8 IS that I was mostly using) can’t save every shot—several of my shots during panels ended up around 1/13sec (at ISO 400) and shots that slow just don’t have a great chance of coming out sharp. (I could have theoretically bumped up the ISO to 800 or 1600, but my 2007-era doesn’t do that well at high ISOs.) Maybe I’ll consider Canon’s rumored 60D if that comes out in time for next year?

I wouldn’t be surprised if there might be even more attendees next year. And that’s okay. I’ve made so many great friends at SXSW over the years and I wouldn’t miss the chance to hang out with them again.

I visited my family in December and it was great seeing all of them. I hadn’t seen my brother over Thanksgiving (as he’s been living in South Africa) and it was especially good seeing him again since it had been a while since he and I last had a chance to hang out.

I grew up in Pittsburgh and it’s been several years since my parents moved to Charlotte, but I'm still getting used to the weather there (in a good way). Usually when I’d visit them in December it'd be pretty cold in Pittsburgh, with snow more often than not. In Charlotte—at least for this most recent trip—we had a few days with highs in the 50s. Rather pleasant, that.

Photo-wise, I’ve posted a baker’s dozen shots (not that I was aiming for that number—it just worked out that way). (Bonus trivia: Apparently, a baker’s dozen is also known as a Roughrider’s dozen. Who knew?) I brought along one of my new flash toys for the trip, Lumiquest's Quik Bounce reflector. What’s nice about the Quik Bounce is that it can either be configured to send all light forward or it can be configured to send 80% upward (for bouncing off the ceiling) and 20% forward.

As it would happen, my parents’ family room has vaulted ceilings (while the kitchen has normal-height ceilings) and so a flash reflector/diffuser that relied upon one or the other wouldn't have really worked for me. (For instance, if I hypothetically had a Lumiquest 80-20—which is hard-coded to always send 80% upward and 80% forward—I would have been up a creek in the family room since the upward-sent light would dissipate before having a chance to bounce off the ceiling.)

With the exception of the on-the-trolley shots (like this one) and the ice-skating shots (like this one) I used a flash—predominantly fill-flash—on all the other shots in the set. Overall, I’m fairly pleased with how the Quik Bounce performed. I can see myself using the Quik Bounce again, and if anything, the one thing I’d consider changing—and this doesn’t really have anything to do with Lumiquest—might be to try setting up off-camera strobes for some of the shots. Maybe next time.

I joined my family for Thanksgiving in Charlotte, NC. Well, not my whole family—my brother Adrian has been living in South Africa since August-ish and so he wasn’t able to join us. I missed him a bit; he’s a good brother. Fortunately, I’ll be seeing him (and the rest of the fam) for Winterfamilytime later in December, so I’m looking forward to that.

My family doesn’t often have big Thanksgivings—sometimes it’d just be the four of us—but this year we had something like fourteen people. My dad’s sister Angelika’s family was all there including my cousin Ian’s new wife Brianna—uh, would that be cousin-in-law?—and some friendly neighborhood folks as well.

In my effort to try to be a good host to everyone, I ended up neglecting my photography a bit. In all, I took a few dozen shots and I’ve posted four of them. Interestingly enough, my Canon 40D’s autofocus system ended up leading my astray on one of my shots (the one with my Dad and Angelika talking, which is also featured at the top of this post).

My intention at the time was to keep my Dad in focus while placing Angelika outside the depth of field. As I later found out—and this was when I was reviewing my shots on my computer screen back here in Dallas—is that Canon’s autofocus system (at least on the 40D) apparently places a focal-preference to objects that are closest to the lens (even if they aren’t the largest objects in the scene). To be fair, I’m not really blaming Canon for this; I could have (and perhaps should have) used manual autofocus-point selection to ensure the precise focal point that I had in mind.

In the end, I still kinda like the shot for some reason. Maybe it’s the canonical Dad Face that my dad has at the time. (He tends to have that look on his face when he's listening intensely to someone. It’s part of what makes him my dad.) As my friends are fond of chiding me about, I only post a fraction of the shots I take on Flickr; put another way, if I didn’t like a shot, I wouldn’t be sharing it with other people. Even though I can’t quite put a finger on it, part of me wants to be able to put a finger on what I like about it (and I can’t).

I look forward to SXSW every year—it’s heaps of fun. Sure, there’s the web-stuff learning (which is good), but it’s also nice to be able to see friends again that I’ve made over the years. (For instance, that shot above is with Kevin and I—I can’t even remember how many years ago he and I had met, but it’s always good to chat with him again.)

In all, I think I took around three hundred fifty photos and I believe I’ve posted around twenty five. Last year, I had rented Canon’ 17–55 f/2.8 lens and I was really pleased with how it worked out. I just happen to have bought one a couple months ago, though, so I didn't need to rent one this time around.

My new photography gadget, though, was a Lumiquest Softbox. Unlike a traditional softbox that one might have off-camera on a light stand or the like, Lumiquest’s Softbox is designed to attach right to one’s flash. Granted, there’re about a bajillion flash diffusers/bouncers on the market (and many an online discussion thread on which one is “best”), but the reason I went with this particular product is that I was pretty sure I wouldn't have much in the way of ceilings of which to bounce off.

I’m still getting a feel for flash photography and the nuances of manual exposure toward balancing one’s ambient light with the light from one’s strobe, but I think I’m getting closer. On the other hand, I’m sometimes unsure about metering modes (evaluative/matrix, center-weighted, spot, and so on) and which ones may be most suited for flash photography.

Part of me wants to lean toward spot-metering, but on my Canon 40D, the spot metering is always done off the center focal-point (as opposed to the active focal point). I’m sure that’s messed up my exposure more than once, but I haven't quite decided if maybe I just need to learn how to use spot-metering better or if another metering mode would be more worthwhile.

In all, though, SXSW was awesome. Part of me was a little worried that it could have been even more crowded than last year, but whether through room rejiggeration or maybe scheduling tweaks, the organizers seemed to have largely taken care of some of the crowding issues that had crept in last year. Plus, this year, my brother and I had a chance to get dinner together on the Tuesday night as I was heading out (from Interactive) and he was heading in (for Music). What a great way to round things out.

I visited my family in December, and even though it had been about a month since I had seen them last (for Thanksgiving), it was mere icing on the cake to be able to see them again in December.

Quite pleasantly, it wasn't all that cold (well, for most of the time). Sure enough, it was around 30° the first couple days, but toward the end of my stay, it did get up near 60° for a day or two. And, as it turns out, it was on one of those later days when my mom, my brother, and I decided to head into downtown Charlotte and check out a seasonal outdoor ice skating rink that my mom had heard about.

I probably hadn’t been ice skating since the dot-com bubble (back when I lived in Alexandria, VA), but my muscle memory was still mostly there—I guess it’s a bit like riding a bike in that way. Oh, what fun that was. Sure, the rink wasn’t exactly NHL regulation-size and, while not crowded, there were a fair number of people attending. I got the feeling that most of the skaters—like myself—were on vacation and so there was very little stress in the air. I had a great time and I might just have to see if I can find an ice rink somewhere here in Dallas.

My brother is also into photography he had brought his umbrella along. If you’re not familiar with photographic umbrellas, they pretty much look like regular keep-you-from-getting-wet umbrellas, except that they’re designed so that one can shoot a flash through them or, in some cases, so that one can reflect a flash off them. The gist of it is that photographic umbrellas, while not exactly small enough to carry around for casual party shots, can often create a lovely diffuse light from a flash.

It may have been the even before his flight home, but Adrian generously let me try out a few things with his umbrella. I hooked up my flash to the umbrella, a 430 EX, and after shutting each end of a length of black velour velvet in some cupboards, I took a few shots of Adrian as he coached me through some of the ins and outs. As it turns out, Adrian was a pretty good subject even through—and this isn’t his fault—I struggled even now and then at avoiding the reflection of the illuminated umbrella in his glasses.

I always knew in the back of my mind that umbrellas could help create flattering portraits, but I guess I just needed to see one in action (and with my own gear) to really believe it. I think those handful of portrait shots may have even reenergized my interest in flash-based photography. I even recently bought the Strobist Lighting Seminar DVDs (from what may be the most talked-about flash-lighting blog out there, Strobist). At $129, it’s not cheap, but with eight DVDs, the price per disc is pretty reasonable. I think I’ve watched three discs already and it’s simply a phenomenal tutorial series.

My cousin Ian and his fiancée Briana got married last weekend (Labor Day weekend) in the Charlotte, North Carolina area. As it turns out, they live in the Chicago area (I believe), but they chose to have the wedding in the Charlotte area since many relatives (including Ian’s parents and my parents) live there.

Ian and Briana had their wedding at a botanical gardens in the area and it was lovely. There happened to be a 30% chance of rain on the day of the wedding, if memory serves, but it didn’t end up raining until quite later in the evening. The reception was held indoors, so the rain didn't have much of an effect on the festivities; and, even when people went outside for a smoke (or just to go outside), there also happened to be an awning around the circumference of the building.

It also so happened that this was one of the first opportunities I’ve had to make use of my Lightsphere flash diffuser. The basic idea with diffusers, if you’re not familiar with them, is that they serve to diffuse and scatter the light coming out of one’s flash in order to help reduce that portrait-in-the-headlights look that can be common to some cameras.

With the Lightsphere, like all diffusers, the enclosure attaches to the end of one's flash. On top of that, an additional strategy that’s often used — and one that I put to use — was to fire the flash upward to reflect it off the ceiling. In may sound a bit weird to fire, at first, but by firing the flash upward, the light becomes even more diffuse as it bounces off the ceiling (and then the walls and so on, a bit like billiard balls might travel across a pool table).

What ends up happening is that the light which may have formerly been harsh and direct is now much softer and generally absent of that yucky-flash look. This is all a good thing, but I can attest that it can take a little getting used-to. One adjustment (both on the part of the camera and its operator) is that the camera isn't always able to compensate for the longer distances that the light from its flash has to travel (up to the ceiling, off a wall, nothing but net and onto the subject).

Fortunately, this generally only requires a few minor adjustments to bump up the flash power; unfortunately, the operator has to remember to do so. In my case, I fell more into the latter category. Luckily, I was shooting entirely in RAW mode (well RAW+JPEG), so I had some leeway toward adjusting some of my shots that had ended up a tad underexposed as they came out of the camera. In the end, though, I was quite pleased with how things worked out. I had a great time at Ian and Briana’s wedding and the photography fun was just an added bonus.