Sunday. A fitful night's sleep. I say fitful in the sense of waking up now and again and then dozing right off. Sometimes, I guess, that's the way it goes. Up with the alarm at six, to breakfast and back before eight, getting ready now to drive down the way to do some head shots for a friend. I've done these, of course, they're something I like to do as a candid - portrait photographer (two very different sides of the same coin is my thought), but I need more technical study and practice. How to get it? Well, do these shoots has always been my thought. Do by doing. Rocket science stuff.

Rocket science stuff?

Once you've done any of it a few times it's pretty obvious and easy, although there's a lot of it, some of it more subconscious than rational calculation. You learn to do this and that, thinking in systems rather than to do lists. But this is going opaque rather rapidly, I think, just take the pictures and don't worry about it. Still, I did sign up for a four hour Nikon light class at the end of this coming week. If you don't want to do the work, throw money at it.

Later. We had a good room for shooting, reasonably large, some decent light, free of furniture and recently painted, so I set up and turned on the various lights. They didn't work. Still, again, good room, good light, so we shot a bunch of photographs and they seem to have turned out alright. Still. Well, a class this week and practice between now and then if only to come up with some coherent questions. I claimed I was going to test before I set out and I didn't. A long day yesterday is no excuse.

Now this is a friend from the old shipping company, no payment involved and she'll like the results, but still. I'm not thinking of doing any of this for money, but practice because I like it and want to get them right. Mumble, bumble, stumble.

You brought along a color card and took a test shot?

As I've done in the past when I've shot these things? The sure fire way to get the color balance right? No. Still, again, they look good, she'll like them, it could have been much more embarrassing and I'll keep the whining to the moment and figure out how to do these later.

Later. A needed nap, maybe another nap before the day is over, but the game has started and I suspect I'll check it out. I followed football when I was younger, watched the games, didn't spend a lot of time wearing the local colors, hung mostly with folks who didn't although many did, so I thought I was more than familiar with the kind of coverage Roone Arledge invented that made Monday night football so big: the flag waving, troops taking the beach, pushing through for god and glory, but obviously I haven't been exposed to it for a while. Or is that just Fox? Well, the Superbowl. Relax and watch the game. They're saying the Steelers and Packers. Should be good. Whatever the pyrotechnics around it, the game itself is always good.

Later still. OK, the photographs are looking good from this morning, no complaints. An eye dropper color tool solved the color balance problem, everything else fell into place. The light was right, no need for strobes for other than a subtle touch.