This praying mantis was hanging around the garden of my little bungalow in Bali. It was late evening so I decided to get out some flashes and get a few "portraits".
I had picked up a Nikon D300 a few months ago so I could start using the iTTL Creative Lighting System. (CLS). For the non-photo-geek, that means I can shoot with multiple wireless (infrared) Nikon flashes which I can control individually from the camera itself.
I've often used off camera flash but I have always used them manually, meaning that I physically set the power on each flash and make adjustments to eventually get it right. For each power adjustment, I had to walk over to the flash and make the change.
More shots and the lighting setup below.
In a follow up to my previous Zoo Portrait Post, I wanted to share this new shot from...the zoo. By shooting a tight frame, the lions could be anywhere. The late afternoon back light added some nice dimension and detail.
This praying mantis was hanging around the garden of my little bungalow in Bali. It was late evening so I decided to get out some flashes and get a few "portraits". 
Animal portraits can be hard to come by. Wildlife photography is a very specialized and challenging art. Not only do you have to be able to survive “out in the wild” you‘ve got to know your subjects very well and wait for them to appear. 
I was in Australia out on the Great Barrier Reef a few years ago. On a small spit of sand not far from Lizard Island. I came upon this young osprey chick that had been blown out of its nest. The wind was steady
It doesn’t take long to discover the limits of having a strobe mounted on a fixed arm. The first time I went diving with a Nikonos V and 105 Substrobe, I did like most people and mounted the strobe on the arm and base plate blah, blah, blah. It made sense, it was part of a kit and that’s how it looked in the manual. Good job.
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