Strobe'n on my mind.

Slowly, all the pieces of the puzzle are starting to come together and this off camera strobing has started to get really interesting. At the time I shot these photos, I shooting with my 40D, a Nikon SB-26 attached with a really long sync cord. I think the flash ran me about $60 bucks and the cord $10 so all in all I have 1 off camera strobe for about $110 with a light stand...not bad I'd say.

These are test shots I did in my living room just to play around and get familiar with lighting and what not. I chose to shoot in front of my living room window cuz I wanted to play around with a strong blacklit source and flash. At first I fired about 10 shots and they all looked crap. I wasn't getting what I was hoping for (although I usually never do with flash photography), but with a swift click, I set my camera on M mode (A mode was blowin the deal) and continued to play around. I was deliberately trying to blow out the background to create an all white background and use flash to fill in the face and create shadows. After about 20 minutes of running back and forth changing the power setting on my flash...I was able to produce something that I didn't mind too much.

Dood, being the camera guy and being the test dummy sucks massive ballz especially when the sync cord would just keep slipping off. Why in the hell did they design it like that? It doesn't even click in. Makes no sense. Engineers can turn 0's and 1's into digital information but can't design a plug that plugs in? Well whatever.... Stay tuned because there is more to come!

My Final Day at Hakkoda

May 3rd, of 2008 marked my final day at Hakkoda. The sun was out, the sky was blue...perfect right? The only problem was that it was about 20 degrees Celsius! OMG the snow was definitely melting and unfortunately for my two friends who came all the way from Tokyo to check out Hakkoda was misinformed with a 2 week old Hakkoda snow report. It said 105cm at the base...when we got there, there was no snow at the base! SHOCK!

But whatever...I jumped out of the car and spoke with the head ski patrolman and asked him about the snow condition and he says to me, "Well, there is snow.....you just have to walk down when you get to the bottom half." I laughed so hard...."Are you freakin' serious?" He laughed and I could no longer see his eyes, "I'm serious. If you wanna snowboard, this is all thats left." You know, was dead right. Hakkoda is the last place to have snow before it all goes bye bye, but this season the snow melted a little faster than previous seasons and we have no one else to blame but us humans. Shame on us huh?

When we got to the top and made our way outside...The snow was still there but all the trees were visible. This was a sight I've never seen before because in winter, the trees are massively covered with snow. Hakkoda looked entirely different. It was filled with tourist wearing t-shirts and sunglasses putting on sunscreen. We set our boards down to take a few pictures and when I turned back around a Chinese tourist lady picked up my board and was posing with it! I kept thinking ........uhmmm, yah thats my board and not yours. Heh, I couldn't help but be super amused. Then the Chinese lady's friend posed with it...and then her friend. I tought about it a bit and I actually started feeling a bit touched to know that these ladies will forever have pictures of Hakkoda with my board in it. Hahaha...mark of the living legend.

We decided to strap on our boards and head down. Ski patrol told me that the Forest course was wider than the direct so thats were we headed. Surprisingly, the snow wasn't too sticky and we had decent speed. Probably about the last 1/4...the snow trail was slowly getting smaller and smaller and soon it became a tiny stream. Holy......here?!?! We unstrapped and took pictures. Unfortunately the only camera I had was my cell phone, but still I think you get the picture.

It wasn't much for snowboarding, but it does make a good story. Life is about the stories and the wacky moments you remember. This one here......my last Hakkoda day.....I'm gonna definitely remember this one for as long as I live. I'm just glad my friends had a good time. We didn't stop laughing even after 2 more runs!