Airplane Ears

 

Nikon D300s + Tamron 17-50 f/2.8 VC at 50mm f/5.6 ISO640 1/30 Second, SB-800 + SB-900

Here’s Suki sittin on her favorite spot in the house: a large leather chair in the living room (she doesn’t know it’s not hers, but we’ll let her keep assuming it is). Her ears seem to have minds of their own. They orient in so many different ways depending on what she’s doing. We call the position above “hikouki,” which in Japanese means airplane, because she gets them almost completely flat across the top of her head, like airplane wings. She’s such a funny girl.

For this shot, I had very little ambient light in the room. I used an SB-900 on a light stand behind me, aimed up at a spot on the far wall in back of me, camera right. I triggered it using a camera mounted SB-800 with it’s head oriented backwards to get the commander signal to the SB-900. A -1.0EV input in the camera made sure the dark areas of the frame stayed dark, while a +0.7EV setting on the flash made sure Suki was properly lit.