As you may be aware by now, Sublime Light has seen a little down time the last couple of days because I’ve changed the site over to a new host and new software. This means you haven’t been able to get to the information you wanted right when you wanted it.

On the internet this is what is known as a “tragedy”.

I don’t want to let this crime go by unpunished. So my peace offering to you all is the opening of the new Sublime Light forums. This will be a great place to hang out, learn and talk about photography, post photos for others to comment on, and much more.

The only way the new forums will work and be beneficial though is for you all to go there, register (it’s free of course!), and start posting. So head on over and have a look. With a little participation from you all, the Sublime Light community of readers can be one we can all be proud of!

Best wishes,

Tim

When you change over to a new hosting service, there’s an unfortunate side-effect: down time. I flipped the switch yesterday to bring traffic from the Blogger version of Sublime Light over to my new Wordpress driven site on my own host. When you do this, it takes up to a few days for servers the world over to recognize the change. Meanwhile, the server that you’re using to find your way around the internet tells you that you can’t get to Sublime Light. Heck, even I didn’t have access to my own site for about four hours yesterday.

So I apologize for the gap in availability over the last 24 hours or so. Traffic is trickling back in. As of right now, about half of the world has access to this site. In another 12 hours or so most of the world should be good to go. Tomorrow, we should be back to business as usual.

I should also mention that if you subscribe to the Sublime Light feed, you won’t see any of my new articles until this issue is resolved. Feedburner hosts the feed for this site, and they don’t have access to it yet like many of you. Until they have access, they can’t forward the articles on to you. This should also be fixed later today or tomorrow.

Thanks for reading!

I’ve talked a lot about backgrounds and how to use them in the last few days. I want to finish up the discussion with a little tip I picked up over the years for getting the wrinkles out of muslins.

A great place to store your muslins is stuffed in a bag. The downside to this is that when you pull them out, they look awful…terribly wrinkled. In the past, I tried using some of those commercial spray on wrinkle releasers but found that they caused a buildup of gunk after repeated uses. I eventually found an even easier solution.

Get yourself an empty pump spray bottle and fill it with some filtered or bottled water. I like to use filtered or bottled because it cuts down on deposits building up on the muslin. Now simply spray an area of the muslin after hanging it up so that it’s slightly damp. Grab two handfuls of cloth a few feet apart and pull it tightly a few times to stretch it out. That’s it, the wrinkles will come right out. Just repeat the process for the whole muslin. I can get the wrinkles out of a 10×20 foot muslin in about five minutes by myself using this trick.

It’s been a dizzying week here at Sublime Light HQ. As you can clearly see, the site has taken on a bit of a new look. I’ve been working hard to change over from Blogger to new blogging software. In addition, I’ve moved the site to my own hosting service. Some great new features are on the way. But first, I have to get back to regular programming. The next installment of the Portrait Lighting For Beginners series is due up in a couple days.

So enjoy the new look and feel. If you see anything wrong, or just hate the heck out of something, drop me a comment and let me know.

Photographic backgrounds come in many types and sizes. For a new photographer the different types can be daunting. In this article I’ll walk you through the main points you should know before buying.

Cost
First off, how much do these cost? Prices vary depending on the size and type of background, but if you’re a savvy shopper you can usually find amazing deals on backgrounds on eBay. There are lots of backgrounds to choose from there. I’ll try to give you a typical retail cost with each type.

Sizes
Backgrounds are available as small as just a few feet across to the more group friendly 12×24 foot sizes. If you plan to do head shots only, you can get away with a smaller 5×8 foot background. For full body shots, you’ll want the extra length that a 20 foot long background provides as the subject will be standing on the background. My advice here to is get the biggest background your budget will allow. You never know when you’ll want the extra size.