Leap Day Giveth, Delta Taketh Way

I had hoped to be landing in Dubai for GPP 2012 right about now, but our mechanically challenged plane yesterday objected. Rather theatrically, I might add.

So instead, I'm encamped next to the airport in Atlanta at a hotel sufficiently downmarket to have free wifi. So that's something good, I suppose.

To that end, my homage to Andrew Hetherington's ongoing Room With a View series. But cool as those photos are, he never tells you the lighting details. So we can at least accomplish that much today.
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But first, the plane stuff. For those of you who have never experienced an aborted takeoff on a commercial jet, I highly recommend it. I got to do that ride yesterday at the Baltimore Washington International Theme Park.

You'll enjoy that familiar pressed-into-the-seat acceleration, followed by sudden deceleration as people notice sparks coming from the engine and (quoting the pilot here) a "whole lot of indicator lights" going off in the cockpit.

At the end of your ride, you'll be surrounded by lots of fire trucks and guys running around the plane in shiny space suit-like gear. (This ride is not recommended for people with a heart condition.)

After a delay sufficient to miss your international connecting flight, you will then take off on the same plane to Atlanta, wherein you get to spend the night as a ward of Delta.

Not ideal, but arguably better than crashing.
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So, the room pic.

This photo bridges together two different ambient levels with the use of one bounced flash. As do, I suspect, many of Mr. Hetherington's.

Outside is overcast daylight. Find that exposure first. Then look at the lamp -- not as a light source but as a softly glowing piece of subject material. You want it a tad over, but not blown out. The rest of the room will be dark.

Get your best compromise ambient exposure between the sky and the lamp, then under-fill the rest of the room with flash. This was about 2 1/3 stops down from a full flash exposure.

Now, it looks like it does the way your eye sees it. Outside a little bright, inside a glowing lamp and the room is darker but with nice detail.

The flash is on camera (I know, but it was the best place for it) zoomed to 105mm at 1/16th power and 1/2 CTO gelled. I wanted it to emulate the color and position of the lamp.

I scrunched low, to hide the reflection of the flash underneath the window, rather than see it in the glass.

The original hope was to make use of Leap Day as a travel day. Now, it's off to the Airport in ATL, where I get to play the role of Tom Hanks in Terminal Man for 10 hours. Then, hopefully, Dubai.

Think I'll browse some of Andrew's Room With a View series.