I don't know enough photographers locally to try this out, but I've been toying with the idea for a while, and since Slynky posted the pointer to your self-portraits I thought I'd share this idea even if you all are unable to get together in RL to try it. The idea is to get a group photo of a bunch of photographers in the midst of doing their photography thing. Imagine if you will, a time exposure of a group of people in a dark alley all with cameras and flash units. The ones in front are on one knee and the others are standing. They are positioned so that their flash units are aimed so as not to wash out the image (some are aimed up and to the side, and others are aimed down and to the side). A long exposure time is used so that timing won't be critical as everyone fires their flash unit during the exposure, posing as though they're taking a picture of something. Bounce light from the flashes off of the walls of the alley will illuminate the group. The trick will be to aim the flash units at just enough of an angle so as not to over expose and wash out, but at the same time to convey the idea that the flash units are indeed being used to illuminate the scene. It'd probably take some patience and several tries, and of course everyone would have to stay very still during the exposure to avoid motion blur, but I think the resulting image would look pretty cool. Have any of you ever experimented with anything like this? Does it sound feasable? Dumb? Nutz?

I've never done it, and the only way to find out if it would work is to try, so get off yer bum go into a crackhead infested alleyway, and snap away lady! lol.

LOL! I thought I'd been transported to the twilight zone there when the message got to "imagine if you will..."! Good idea, but I know a total of one other photographer in the whole country that I could talk into doing that with...and somehow I don't think it would have the same effect...oh well... :-)>

Aw, Poor Punks. Everyone send him five dollars, he can go buy some friends....... (",) Sounds like a cool idea, though!

Listen, why do you need a group of people for this ? Just read my upcoming tutorial about low light photography ;) No, just kidding, I only used a few lines on this matter, but it's interesting enough to make a whole guide on low light flashing alone. What I was thinking of is this: if your camera has a Time setting, set it to that and at f/16, or else on Bulb together with a cable release that you can lock - so you don't have to keep the shutter pressed (btw with Time you have to press again to shut the curtain, so you can leave it open without even touching it). Now, have someone else operate the camera that'll take the photo (so you'll only need one friend, or at least someone who won't steal your camera ;) and go stand in your own picture. Fire the flash (you could even use a flash on the main camera at low power, to fill in yourself, instead of using the 2nd camera's flash alone), and have your friend hold the black paper infront of the lens. Then you move to another position, take away the paper, and flash again, etc. So, you could make a photo with only yourself in it.

Yeah, I can just see it, a shot with myself replicated 10 times! Not only would it be horror-movie stuff, it would really confirm Jordy's hypothesis that I have no friends! :-(>

And if you take a very large piece of black paper, you can make a few shots with only your head or a leg or so ;)

I had a classmate who took a pic of his left foot while walking. What he did was point a strong flashlight on his foot every two steps. The result was creepy but good :-) Wish I asked him for a copy so I can show you what I am talking about :i

Slynky: When I got my first video camera, I wanted to do
something different with it. Most people tape their kid's
birthday parties, or their trips to Disney Land. I wanted
to do something more gripping, interesting, exciting. So
I took it into the worst, most dangerous part of New Haven.
A garbage strewn street called Howard Ave., in the Hill
section. This was the epicenter of the race riots of the
sixties, mentioned in that old Doors tune which goes "Blood
in the streets of the town of New Haven", etc. It's
currently a neighborhood infested with drug gangs. I'm
genuinely lucky that I didn't get shot. I had one guy yell
at me to "Shut that fucking camera off!!"

So anyway, a dark alley with some crackheads in it is no big
deal. Just snap your flash in their faces and they'll be
blinded for half an hour, at least! :-)

Oh, and "lady"?? What makes you think I'm a woman? I don't
presume that YOU'RE a woman just because you look good in
black fishnets, now do I? :-)

Asalina, where did you see a pic of Slynky in fishnets? I wanna see it too! BTW I think your idea is really cool

Caledonia: I'd love to show the photo to you, but I promised Slynky that I'd destroy it after looking at it. :-)