Philip Small Photography

Those of you with any photography experience at all know that your camera's flash is hardly adequate. I spent a good deal of time looking into off-camera flash aka strobist photography. I LOVE what some photographers do with it (check out dustin diaz's flickr page http://www.flickr.com/photos/polvero/). After googling the heck out of a few flash choices I settled on the Vivitar 285HV. I ordered it from Adorama along with an umbrella, a light stand and an adapter to mount the flash onto the stand. Everything arrives in the mail. Here i am all excited to get started and i realize...."hmmmm, if the flash is not on the camera, how will it fire"? Smh. Sadness. Back to the internet i went. I discovered Pocket Wizards, which everyone seems to hail. For those who don't know they are wireless devices that allow your flash and your camera to shoot simultaneously. Beautiful. Unfortunately they can cost upwards of $200. After more searching I discovered the Cactus v4's made by the hong kong based Gadget Infinity. At 40 bucks, they can't be beat (I'll probably be singing a different tune when I get a little more money in my pocket).

After the 15 days they took to get here from Hong Kong, I captured a semi-unwilling participant to practice taking pictures of. At about 10pm, we go to a park. I set everything up and as I open the umbrella, suddenly I am aware of the immense wind that had been blowing all night. The umbrella, stand and all nearly blows into the lake we are next to. Feeling nothing short of foolish, I take a few face saving shots and went home. Well, if at first you don't succeed, wait until its not windy.