Druids may get all festive around Winter Solstice, but you can bet your typical cubicle worker is equally pissed off. That's because most of them arrive at work barely after sunrise, and don't leave until after dark.
For that same reason, it is also when architectural photographers are most willing to go out and
freeze their nu brave the cold weather to make skyline shots. At least in the northern hemisphere.
Buildings with their lights all aglow at mix light are much prettier than they are at mix during other seasons. In June (at 39 degrees north, where Baltimore is) you'd have to wait until 9:30pm to get this shot. And the buildings are mostly empty and dark by then.
Mix light is wonderfully unpredictable when it comes to the color of the ambient. And on top of that variable, here's a little tip courtesy the architectural photographers: When you shoot dusk skylines, try a few with your camera set to the FL white balance as in the example above. (Click the pic for a bigger version.)
Why?
Because it does two things. First, it cleans up the indoor fluorescent lights in your photos, taking out a lot of the grody green cast. And second, it adds about 30CC of magenta to whatever your post-sunset ambient light is doing. Even though I shoot in raw, I always shoot it in daylight, tungsten and FL balance just to get a feel for which one I might like the best while still on the scene.
Okay fine, Building Boy. What's all this this got to do with lighting?A lot, actually ...
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Fancy yourself a bit of a … modder?
While you were busy digesting turkey and watching football this weekend, you may have missed Brad Trent* (at left, photo by Kazuhito Sakuma) dropping into the Strobist Flickr group to answer lighting Q's about controlling contrast. Definitely worth a read. 
Just a quick-hit post today on when and how to use your umbrella as a faux ring light -- and when it may be even better than the real thing.
Photo ©Mark Heayn
A Strobist reader who cryptically goes by "bleeblubleeblah" last year posted may what well be the nicest walk-thru to date of hacking a Nikon SB-600 speedlight to get a remote 1/8" sync jack. 
While in Denver late this summer I got to hang out with David Tejada, a corporate photographer from the area and frequent blogger/teacher. (Dave needs no introduction for long-time readers of this site.)
So, if you were looking to shoot a campaign for a local hair salon you'd probably be running down some questions in your mind as you worked up your concept. Here are two of the questions Wisconsin-based photographer David E. Jackson asked:
Well, this is just neat.
Nikon just announced a new speedlight designed to complement the flagship SB-900. The Nikon SB-700 Speedlight will cost $329.95, and includes some mouth-watering features.
Any time Gregory Heisler gives one of his iconic photos the BTS treatment we pretty much pre-empt the regular programming and turn the joint over to him. And his photo of NYC mayor Rudy Giuliani for the 2001 Time Magazine Person of the Year cover certainly qualifies. 
Quite a few people asked me about the small boom that was used for the key light in the photos of J.D. Roth.
After months of rumor-fueled anticipation, I finally got my grubby little hands on a production model YN-560 speedlight. 
See that black blob? 
In part one, we talked about the differences in optical slaves, and why internal slaves were usually better solutions.
