This is our almost three year old (her birthday is tomorrow), and yes... she is sleeping. Sonia is going through the stage where she will stay up quite a while after we put her to bed, but at least she stays in her room and plays quietly. Every now and then we find her asleep in some weird, un-natural position... like last night.

As soon as Laura called me I knew there was a memorable photo waiting to happen. As I got my gear ready (Nikon D300, Tokina 11-16mm f/2.8 lens and SB-900 flash) I begun thinking about framing, lighting, etc. and I realized it would be very hard to take a plausible photo that shows the exact context Sonia was in. There is about one foot (12 inches) between her bed and an old chest, so I didn't have much room to play with other lenses, and that's why I chose the 11-16mm. The first photo I took was OK, but not convincing enough. You can see it here. I lit the room with a Nikon SB-900 flash, but there was too much light, too many details, etc. So I brought in an umbrella and set it up on the opposite side of the bed. This time the photo looked much more like what I had in mind, but there were still too many details and the light was still too bright in the background. I should mention that the flash was zoomed out at 200mm, relatively close to the umbrella. Here is the second shot.

What I really wanted for this shot to turn out perfect from start, was a softbox, but "with the way things are with the economy..." (you get the point). So I settled for an improvised snoot, since I am too cheap to buy a pre-made one. Usually when I am on location, I find the closest cardboard box and transform it into a snoot that meets my needs for that particular situation. In this case, there was no box around, or time to look for one (wife recycles...), so I grabbed my camera bag padding and improvised quickly something that proved to work quite nicely. You can see the ghetto snoot here. I promised the Wife (due to deliver any day now) that I will paint the baby room in our new house and I got her to hold the umbrella stand (support legs closed) above Sonia, and Voila! the photo turned out exactly as I wanted it. See the original here. A little curve adjustment, color balance, and pasting here and there, and the photo was all done.

And here I did it again... simple photo, obvious lighting, and long description. Sorry ;). I am getting to the stage where I know what I want my photos to look like, I have (somewhat) the necessary equipment, and I am beginning to get them right after several tries. That is huge! If you don't believe me, try it yourself :).

In any case, if you think my insights are helpful in any way, follow me on Twitter for daily, sometimes hourly advice on photography. I am not the greatest technician or artist, but I enjoy sharing my progress with people who are one step or more behind me. Follow @titusbartos.

Many thanks for stopping by! Let me know what you think about today's photo, or if you have similar photos, feel free to post a link in the comment area.

Titus