Pixelstick Studio Work

It may also be worth mentioning that I actually put that earlier mentioned Pixelstick concept into play over Fur the 'More for the Photo Suite. It worked out, more or less, exactly as envisioned, with the caveat that there are a few technical elements I could do better with next time around (and I'm likely going to be doing this again for next year's convention).

Unfortunately, there were some shortcomings using Olympus' live composite shooting mode with the Pixelstick, but the end results looked great printed on a Canon Selphy that I picked up to pump out prints exchanged for donations to Friskie's Animal Sanctuary. Raised $600 in about 2 hours, so I'm rather proud of that.

If I remember to revisit this post when next year's event comes around, improvements would be:

• Use Live Time instead of Live Composite, just stop the camera down further (maybe f/11)
• Dial down the brightness on the Pixelstick so the light doesn't clip so aggressively on overlapping patterns
• Now that it exists, try using the Profoto monolight system for more reliable wireless flash triggering and shorter recycle times to keep things moving fluidly (had a couple technical interruptions on account of slow flash recycles when one set of batteries was dying while the other was still running strong)

I also have a fun vaporwave-inspired concept in mind using colored gels on flash/strobes with a white background. Or at least it was sort of inspired by one shot I got that had a very vaporwave feel to it with a mix of purple silhouetted light against some mint green and white patterns.

That's a whole other concept to prove out some time, though. Not completely sure I know how I'd reliably cast colored shadows to develop such hard shaped outlines while still keeping the subject in their original color structure. I'm sure I'll get a chance to set up the white backdrop and play that out, though - I have the equipment, it's just a matter of proving out the concept prior to employing it.

In the end, people are happy with their photos from the Pixelstick experiment, though. The most common thing I've heard is "How are you going to upstage yourself after this one", which is always a nice thing to hear when you already know where your flaws are and how to improve upon them.

Looking forward to doing this again, maybe even sooner rather than a year later.