Blog

Just put up a new gallery on the website. Check it out: Fractal Memories of a Desert Trip

I always try to listen to my models. I mean, not just keep in conversation. Conversation is just a matter of floating some little part of your brain off separate from what you're doing. You know, you're thinking a thousand miles a minute about photography. Not even in words, because photography is visual. You're looking at a person, making visceral judgements about light direction and shadow and the way angles line up and you happen to like standing on your left foot instead of your right today and HOLD THAT POSE! *pop* Oh and by the way, what did you think of that local sports team? No,...

Further Confusion. Of all furry conventions, this is the one with the ego-stroking shorthand moniker, "FurCon". It's the largest furry con in the liberal west, placed squarely in the very center of the digital world: San Jose, California. If you're in a hurry, here's the links to the galleries: Flickr: FurCon2012 - Highlights From Throughout My Trip  (69 photos) Flickr: FurCon2012 - Dance Competition  (67 photos) Flickr: FurCon2012 - Fursuit Parade  (181 photos) For those of you still reading my words, I'll continue.  :) I had to attend, of course. The hubby had a merch table,...

About a year or two back, I took a welding class with the hubby.  Nothing big.  Just a weekend long thing, enough to be able to drive a MIG welder around the garage. Tonight I hauled it out and knocked a couple tasks off the project list. First up: light clamps. Home Depot sells these 12-inch aluminum reflectors with a light socket and a crappy spring clamp. Lovely things, add a white-balanced CFL bulb and you have a cheap continuous light source. I use these all the time. Problem is, the silly spring clamps are useless, you have to clamp them with a sturdy A-clamp to make them stay...

Happy 2012, everyone! The last year had a few downs, a lot of ups, and a whole pile of art.  Overall a pretty fantastic year for us here at Magelight. And!  With this January 1, I finally get to show you guys this music video, made by me and a few buddies.  Check it out! We all had so much fun in the making of this.  Shot it over the course of a few days back in the last part of fall afore the winds blew the last leaves from the trees.  It was one of those projects where the whole team gels, everyone feels their art taking new levels, and everyone's up for trying the craziest...

Just woke up from a good 15 hour nap here. That nap followed about 48 hours of intense obsession with a project, interrupted briefly by Christmas-at-the-in-laws (or C@TI).  I think I managed to sleep through more of C@TI than I was awake for, truly, though I do recall some delectable meatballs in sauce. Anyway, was my project a photo? Not even! Well, okay, here's a quick photo of it: (The video camera is just a big, over-priced microphone amp in this photo.) For whatever reason, I decided it was time to finally carry through on my personal promise, sit down with the hubby's...

I'm notorious for being late for christmas. It began the year I had to figure out how to get a fully framed -- with glass -- five by something foot mounted print across the country to my folks.  I'd gotten an opportunity to get a print made out of Google's highest resolution, raw off the satellite, Earth imagery.  So I'd had printed the section around the forest office my folks worked at, and wanted to ship it to their office.  Surprisingly hard to send a package that big.  I think I got it to them by July. Anyway, I set out this year to be early!  Bought presents.  Put them right in the pending...

"Be flexible." Good advice, that. This plan began and ended in two different ideas. But eh, when a rockstar is practicing yoga asanas on the edge of a cliff in front of your lens, you don't question too much how you got there. My buddies are crazy, bless them for that. :) My idea was to go hiking before dawn with some friends. Drag them up to Rattlesnake Ridge, a cute little overlook just outside town. Two miles up, a slightly painful amount of elevation gain in that. Two miles back. Plans changed.  We were a man down, and it was mid day instead of dawn, but we made it.  And...

Been feeling a bit of cabin fever lately here at Magelight Headquarters. So did a quick overnight camp trip a few days back to break things up.  Dry Falls, in Sun Lakes State Park.  It's a geologic landmark in the middle of Washington State.   Dry Falls owes back to the last ice age, when apparently melting ice sent so much water running down this river that it made a waterfall here that would have dwarfed present-day Niagra several times over.  These days though, not a drop flows over it.  It's just a huge arcing ridge of rock. Honestly I was stunned at how massive it was....

A lot of people have liked the 'smoke from a vase' still life I did a few weeks ago. So I cut together a rough video of all 141 frames that went into the making of the image.  Start to finish, no frame withheld, even the black ones where my lights didn't fire.  A few annotations throughout for what I was thinking at various points. Enjoy. :) ~W