This past Saturday attended The Clockwork Ball held at Southern Rail. The Clockwork Ball is a bi-monthly Steampunk gathering held in Carrboro/Chapel Hill, NC. area.

I was not aware of the event until the night before so I pieced together an outfit from what I had available to try and blend in the best I could. Basically I wore black pants, my motorcycle boots, a old stylish looking white shirt with the sleeves rolled up and a oldish looking tie. I thought I had a vest but could not find it. The next gathering is going to be at HELL in Chapel Hill, NC on 9/27/2008. I should have plenty of time to get something better put together for that one.

Any ways, the ball started at 10pm and went until 2am inside the bar at Southern Rail. It was funny to see the reactions of people who were regulars to the bar coming in and seeing all these people dressed up in victorian / old-fashion clothing. I chatted with some people I knew from Animazement as well as from Flickr and made some new friends as well.

There were two other photographers there and I teamed up with one of them to setup a multi-strobe lighting setup by combining our gear. We setup the lights next to a rail road track switch and had several people come out and model for us in their costumes. I did learn that I really need more practice at positioning the lights and adjusting their power output and camera settings to get a good exposure. One of the big issues I had with the pictures I took were the hard shadows that the flashes produced on the wall behind the models. I think I know how to fix them but will need to try and reproduce the setup and see if it works.

The ball officially ended at 2am but a bunch of people headed over to the 24/7 Harris Teeter, which from what I was told was the only place in the area that was still open, to grab some food to snack on while chit-chatting out side. I headed home at around 3am and passed out in the bed by 4:30am. Over all a very good night.

More Photos Here (PicLens )