I am also currently obsessing over the idea of back-lit (and I guess side-light, if we’re being technical here) food.

Enter The Silver Snail. Last week Krysta and I we wandering downtown after meeting up at the Magic Oven with Julie and as we were crossing the street we saw the sign for “Silver Snail Comics & Cafe”. And there was a cut out TARDIS in the window. And that was that. We went in.

Inside people were gaming at their tables, there were statues of comic heroes (Batman OH MY GOSH), and an amazing metal replica of R2-D2, and a map of Middle Earth on the wall. It was AWESOME. I couldn’t stop vocalizing how cool everything was, I knew everyone in the cafe was pretty desensitized to the whole idea- but to me, seeing all the 20 sided die and cards littering tables was something I never thought I’d see! We sat and talked about life, swapped lenses for fun, and Krysta asked me if I’d Gibson Tuck her hair (I said yes, of course!). It was a great time and a fabulous way to spend a Sunday afternoon. I’m definitely know where I’m bringing my sister and friends when they visit again.

Looking back a lot happened in just the last two months. We had spring, followed by a week of really weird freezing rain and sunlight, and back to winter again. Target opened in Canada (just in time to help decorate the new studio space- which also happened this month). We’re also moving to a new city which is like a bigger version of Traverse City, the town I moved here from (and my mother and sisters still live).

Tom and I have a few “must take pictures of” before we leave checklist, and of course I’ll be sharing those as well. It’s crazy to think that five years ago we were meeting in person for the first time after knowing each other for seven years online. It’s crazy to think that five years ago we were living in a 350 sq ft space just to be together, and now we’ll be leaving our very first apartment together. It’s bittersweet, I’m excited and also a little sad. (But mostly excited for our new adventure together.)

The Little Toronto Photo club had a meet up at The Magic Oven, a small pizzeria tucked in beside a camera shop, with delicious personal pan pizzas as well as desserts! They even use dairy free cheese alternatives! HUZZAH DELICIOUS. (This is where I fist pump the sky.)

The same thing happened in my bedroom a few weeks ago. After Tom and I tossed around the idea of moving, I made it a slow moving goal to slowly clear out a lot of excess stuff we’ve accumulated. I started with the bedroom, clearing out a lot of old make up and junk in our bookshelf. Most of it was make up I didn’t use on a daily basis and old things I brought with me when I immigrated to Canada that I just kind of panic-packed. (Oh, you’ve probably panic packed before. You know, when you go on vacation and open your suitcase and say, I brought the ___ but forgot my underpants?)

The result left me with a barren top shelf that I ended up really enjoying personalizing.

This post is for specifically for reader Amy (hi Amy!), but it’s also for anyone who, like me, was afraid to add a flash to their gear list due to that whole “natural light shooter” thing. After realizing I’d be shooting a lot more personal events in lighting conditions I can’t control, I invested in one- and BOY IT IS SO AWESOME SERIOUSLY GUYS. Yeah, exactly. But, since I’m still a natural light snob in secret (ok, you got me), here are some tips on how to use this bad boy so it doesn’t look like you shot someone face on with your flash. Because that rarely ever looks flattering. In fact I think it’s safe to say that it never looks flattering.

With mountable flashes, you are able to point the light in different directions so you can bounce the light, which is what we’re going to do today. There are a lot of different directions you can send the light (even behind you!) so you can bounce light no matter where you are trying to shoot and what exactly surrounds you. It can create a lot of different looks and is really fun to experiment with, but we’re going to keep it simple today and start with a basic one: bouncing from above with a mini reflector strapped to the top of the flash.

Those of you that have been shooting in natural light for a while may have just leaned back from your monitor (or phone) and knowingly whispered, “Oooh.” because you know what we’re doing. If not, that’s okay, we’ll break it down. Just like we use reflectors to control the natural light from the sun by redirecting it back at our subject, we can do the same with the flash light. It creates light that is not so harsh as light from the flash pointed straight forward, and when paired with even a little bit of natural light- suddenly it looks like there are skylights in the roof and your subject being back-lit isn’t a bummer, it’s actually FABULOUS.

Examples, you ask? (Poor Tom was talking to me while I was doing this, sorry baby!) On the left we have Tom with no flash and no reflector. Now before we all get flash happy I feel like I should say if you’re doing portrait work in the comfort of your studio or even outside, you can stick with the reflectors to bounce real natural light, but I wanted to show you guys that (at least for me at this point) the flash is great for indoor events and receptions at weddings where you’re not in control of the lighting situation. Examples time, really. Notice how when shot with the flash straight on you can see shiny spots on Tom’s face like he’s just been doing five minutes of cardio? (The shadows his face will cast shot this way are really dark too, if you’ll notice under his chin.) I think Morn’s expression aptly depicts how I feel about straight on flash too. Thanks for that, Morn.

But when we tilt it up and bounce it from the ceiling and from the reflector -Whoa- suddenly it looks like I had four hands and was able to hold a huge reflector while still shooting. Cool, right?

Here are some other examples I took for you guys so you could see bouncing the flash light does in a working environment.

You can grab a small reflector for your flash at your local camera shop, on Amazon, or even make one out of paper or those stiff white folders you can get at any office supply store. Happy flashing! (I’ve been waiting this whole time to say that.)

• Watch out for subjects wearing glasses, sometimes the lenses can catch the shine of the flash
• You can also drap a sheer cloth over your flash to diffuse the light further
• Watch out for walls! They can be great to bounce light off of, but if your subject is too close you might get some weird shadows
• Babies = no flash

I think that speaks volumes, when a group of five girls all say the same thing about a person. It was an amazing friendship I was able to catch a glimpse of on Saturday. Congratulations, bridesmaids, on throwing a stunning shower, and congratulations to Helen, may you and your Charles have many long years of happiness ahead.