I skipped Becket last night after watching another fifteen minutes or so (I'm sure I'll go back and finish the damned thing, probably this evening) and watched Taking Sides instead, an interesting examination of Right and Wrong (believe me, with capital letters) in the role the world famous conductor Wilhelm Furtwängler played as Hitler's favorite conductor during the Third Reich. It's not a mindless little “good guys” - “bad guys” walk in the park. Very little sugar with a lot of calories, but a good movie for that.

A book I ordered earlier arrived today on using small strobe lights when shooting portraits and other setups out in the field. By strobe lights I mean the strobe light you mount on top of a professional level camera: small, light weight, runs on AA batteries. The advantage is you can pretty much go anywhere and travel light without the need of assistants and still get first quality pictures.

In looking through the book I realized I have all of the equipment they describe and realized I just haven't had the energy to really use it. I need practice. Do some simple little set ups, take pictures, get my act together. (I know, I know: hup! hup! hup!) I futzed around with it when I was in Portland in January and had trouble figuring out how to use the menus to synch the lights (you generally use three or more mounted on tripods with umbrellas that fire together when you take the picture) as I'd forgotten to bring a manual. Maybe a project for the next couple of weeks? I did buy the book. I did open it this afternoon and glance through the pages, looked at the pictures.