So, I started looking into Nicole Olson’s stuff recently. Wasn’t really planned, just kinda stumbled across some images, I think it was on some design site or maybe a forum. Anyway, something about the mood, the lighting maybe? It stuck with me.
It wasn’t like, super complicated technical stuff, you know? More like a feeling. Made me think, “Huh, I wonder if I could get that kind of vibe in my own shots.” I mostly just mess around with my phone camera, sometimes an old DSLR I have lying around.
My first attempts were, well, pretty bad. I tried setting up a lamp in my living room, using a white sheet I found. The photos just looked flat, or the shadows were all wrong. Nothing like the smooth, sort of painterly look I saw in her work. It felt clumsy.
I spent an afternoon just moving the lamp around, trying different angles. Then I remembered I had one of those cheap ring lights I bought ages ago for video calls. Dug that out.
- Tried using just the ring light. Too harsh.
- Tried bouncing the lamp off the ceiling. Better, but still not quite there.
- Tried combining the lamp (behind the sheet) and the ring light on low power.
That last one started getting closer. It wasn’t perfect, obviously. My setup is junk compared to a pro studio. But it started to have a bit of that softness around the edges. It’s funny how you think you need fancy gear, but sometimes it’s just about messing with what you’ve got until something clicks.
Thinking About The Process
It reminded me of this one time at a previous job. We were trying to debug some weird interface issue. Everyone was convinced we needed some complex new monitoring tool. Spent weeks arguing about it. Then this one quiet guy just changed a single config setting somewhere obscure, based on a hunch. Fixed it instantly. Sometimes the simplest path is right there, you just gotta poke around enough.
So yeah, this Nicole Olson thing. I wasn’t trying to become her or copy exactly, more like borrowing an idea. Like learning a riff from a song you like. You play it, you figure out how it works, and maybe it sparks something new in your own stuff.
Right now, I haven’t really “mastered” anything. It’s more of an ongoing experiment. I took a few more photos last weekend, trying that sheet-and-light combo again. Some turned out okay, some were junk. Still feels like I’m just poking at it. But it’s kinda fun, you know? Better than just letting the camera gather dust. It’s a process, I guess. Just seeing what happens.
