Today I drove all over hell and laid out a mildly absurd amount of money on lighting for photography. Being a cheap bastard, I tend to balk at this sort of expenditure, but enough is enough–my non-digital work is becoming important to me, my scanner ain’t cuttin’ it any more, and our attempts at photography with household lighting are getting worse and worse. So James, who is a dear wonderful man, and likes gizmos, researched the matter (he’s sort of like the perfect responsible consumer–he researches EVERYTHING, and gets comparisons between brands and reads testimonials before he buys) handed me a catalog number and said “Go buy this.” I drove to Raleigh, to a megamall thing called “Crabtree Mall” which scared me, but managed to locate the camera store and bought a lighting kit.

I hate spending money on things that are so inherently unaesthetic, but I suspect the things will prove worth their weight in art, since I have been noticing the problems so badly of late. Experiments so far have been exciting and had some good results, although mostly what I’ve learned is that iridescent paint doesn’t photograph well no matter what lighting set up you have. But James is stoked, and we’re already managing to get good photos without glare spots, so expect improved photo quality in the future.

Also, you have no idea how much like a bat in a cave you live until there’s 500 watts like the stabbing finger of Photon blasting through the bedroom. Phew. I need more lights.