March 11, 2009

ululate \UL-yuh-layt; YOOL-\,

intransitive verb:
To howl, as a dog or a wolf; to wail; as, ululating jackals.


Busy day today, but it seems that I've managed to take advantage of this relatively awesome word of the day. I had to head to Charlotte for work (which was some particularly good Harry Potter on tape time - yeah, I said it), so I had limited time to get it finished up, but I think it turned out pretty well.

(Thanks to roommate Bryan for his screaming face.)

And as I was a little short on time, I couldn't find a pack of wolves or jackals. I thought it might be fun to take a picture of a crying baby for this word of the day, but it seemed a bit too ambitious to think I could persuade new parents to let me take photos of their sad child.

So I turned today into a lighting project.

To get the effect I wanted, I made my own softbox, which was only about a 45-minute project. I won't bog my many fans down with the step-by-step directions as they're plastered all over the internet, but I will give you this picture of the setup. It's made up of about 90 percent duct tape. The other 10 percent is made of some leftover matte board, a ripped up T-shirt and, on the inside, tin foil.

If you've got any photos of wolves (or, of course, anything loosely related to ululate), send me a quick email!

3 comments:

  1. i like how you discuss DIY / second hand / etc. techniques for creating environments to shoot in. too many people (especially students!) think that they need the newest/best equipment to take quality/interesting photographs when they actually just need a solid understanding for how their camera works (however snazzy it might be), light, and a bit of creativity.

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