Nearly all of my photography falls into one category — outdoor. I shoot a lot of wildlife images. I also shoot travel and sports.

I seldom have an opportunity to do a “studio shoot” — set up a background, position the subject (either a person or a thing), configure suitable lighting, etc. That’s an enjoyable creative challenge, but it also takes a lot of time. And extra time is something I seldom have.

But a couple of years ago, during a long stretch of bad winter weather, I decided that shooting indoors beat not shooting at all. So I set up a temporary studio in the basement, threw up a black background, mounted a couple of Canon Speedlites on light stands and grabbed my daughter’s violin to use as a subject.

I spent much of two days changing the position and angle of the violin and the position of the lights, then looking through the camera’s viewfinder to see if I found the scene interesting. If I did, I’d grab a shot, then take the camera card to the computer to check exposure and look for issues I hadn’t seen through the camera. Then I’d return to the basement, move things around again and repeat the process.

I used the Canon EF 100mm f/2.8 macro for some of the images and the Canon EF 28-135mm zoom for others. Two Canon Speedlites equipped with LumiQuest softboxes provided the lighting, with an assist from a couple of reflectors.