Beetle!, originally uploaded by mark.mortensen.

At least I think it’s a beetle as it seemed more like something not of this world. This past weekend my wife and I went to a bed and breakfast in Nathrop Colorado (La Roca de Tiza). This strange little guy was climbing on the Christmas lights hung on the deck next to the hot tub.

Technical Ramblings: This turned out to be my first real shooting with the Nikon creative lighting system in the Nikon D700. I put my SB900 flash with a Lumiquest Softbox III attached into my wife’s hands. She held the flash above and I got down on the deck at beetle level and used the D700 in commander mode with its built in flash. The D700 worked like a charm wirelessly controlling the SB900. I turned off the D700′s flash as being part of the exposure and just used the SB900.

Uploaded by mark.mortensen on 15 Jul 09, 7.34PM MDT.