Self Portrait - Strobist attempt

SSS

I originally posted this in the Refinery but have received no feedback after a week. Maybe that wasn't the right place for it? So I move it here. Thanks for looking.

I've been trying to apply what I read at Strobist and have found my subjects lack the patience required to allow me to get my lighting just right. So this morning as I planned to change the filters in my car I realized it was a great opportunity to practice my lighting.... on me. I probably spent two hours setting up and adjusting before I finally settled on this shot.

This is in my garage, in daylight. Exposure is 1/320 @ 3.5 ISO 100, EOS20D, 17-55 f2.8 IS USM. There is one speed light camera right at about 6' zoomed in enough to light the engine bay and just barely spill onto me. Another speed light camera left, snooted to light just me. One last speed light camera left with an umbrella in an attempt to get some detail in my black tee shirt, that one didn't work so well. The camera is triggered by a PocketWizard, hidden in my right hand, in relay mode, two speed lights also triggered via PocketWizard, last speedlight triggered in slave mode. PP is BW conversion in Photoshop and a high pass filter applied to a second layer - blending mode = hard light, opacity = 40%, again ala Strobist.

I am pretty happy with this one, maybe the headlight area could be a little darker/less distracting and I should have a back light to separate me from the background..

What else should I learn from this??

Thanks for looking,

Steve
ssskid.smugmug.com

Morris On Location

The only nit pick I have is the background. Would prefer to see a solid gray. But other than that it looks really good.

SSS

Morris - Thanks. I had a blue gelled strobe on the white background but had turned it down and then converted to b/w. Maybe I should consider what the b/w conversion will look like while I'm shooting.

Steve