New MySpace

I launched a MySpace this week for BDW Photography after reading a magazine article on promoting your business. I'm not sure if it will ever result in any clients around Central Florida, but it's free and people who have not seen any of my work will probably see it now.

So check it out by going to www.myspace.com/bdwportfolio, and if you have a MySpace, ADD ME!!

Motion Assignment

I hope you enjoyed getting out and shooting this week's assignment. Our job was to photograph a moving object and keep it in focus by panning the camera and by doing so, putting everything else (even stationary items) in a blur. It definitely takes some practice to nail this technique, and I really want to see some of your shots. Here's the keeper of my bunch:



Not a very cool car I guess, but I got the side in sharp focus and the racing stripe made the picture for me.

So... this next week we are going to do the exact opposite. This time we want the stationary items in focus and the moving objects to be blurred. You'll need a tripod for this assignment. The way you do this, is to use a very slow shutter speed while your camera is on the tripod. Your focus needs to be on something that is stationary. This works very well at night when the blur from the car lights gets stretched out like neon. Very cool! See you next week.

Family Portrait Session

This past Saturday I got to do a family portrait session in The Villages for a friend of mine named Justin. He has a beautiful family and we worked quickly to keep his little girl happy. It was very muggy and rained during most of the session so we didn't get to take the shots that I had originally wanted to. But sometimes things don't always go the way you planned and you still have to get good pictures!

So, instead of being out on the dock overlooking the lake, I put them inside the gazebo at the very end of the dock so we could still get some sky in the picture but not get wet! I used my off-camera lighting for this shoot again because I'm really becoming a die hard Strobist. A couple of SB800's and Lastolite diffusers and we were good to go. Here a few of my favorites:

Maternity Session

I did my first Maternity Session this past weekend with a great couple, Erin and Shane. We had a lot of fun and got some great photographs. I bought some white and black pieces of fabric to use as a background. I liked the ones with the black background the best.

For most of my shots, I had an SB800 shooting through a Lastolite Tri-Grip Diffuser at a 45* angle to camera right. I also used another SB800 bare to the left and behind the subjects for a back or rim light. I fired the strobes wirelessly with the SU800. Here are my three favorites:



This first one was by far my favorite. It's a shot that came to my mind earlier in the week and I couldn't wait to try it. Most of the other shots are all very traditional poses that we've all seen before. This one kind of took on a spiritual, peaceful, or yoga type of feel and Erin pulled it off perfectly!





Thanks Erin and Shane for letting me be a part of this special time in your life!

Bounce Flash

Direct, on-camera flash is usually considered to be the most unflattering light that you can use when shooting a portrait. One of the easiest ways to combat that is to use a hot shoe flash, such as the Nikon SB800, but swivel the head so that it bounces off a wall (preferable a white wall) and then hits your subject. Just bouncing it straight up to the ceiling will most likely give you shadows under your subject's eyes. So I choose to aim my flash where the wall and ceiling meet to either side of the camera. The small light source then becomes a big light source and it has been softened quite a bit.

Take a look at these two photos I took yesterday using this technique:





Great, soft, directional light! Try this technique. Try bouncing the flash behind you, off to the side, or wherever to see what difference it makes.

New Assignment Wednesday

Ok, so back to our weekly assignments. I really hope more of you will do these and post your results next week.

I gave you a hint yesterday as to what this assignment would be so here it is...

Take a picture of someone or something in action. Put your subject in focus and choose a slow enough shutter speed to put the rest of the picture in motion blur. Make sure you give your subject somewhere to go. For example, in the picture from yesterday, Brooke was running from left to right in the frame so I made sure she was on the left third of the picture. If she was up against the right side with her nose, it would look uncomfortable for the viewer. So give your subject some room to breathe!



This assignment is due next Wednesday. Have fun!

Motion Blur

Don't you love those pictures where moving objects are in focus but the rest of the photograph is blurred due to their motion?! The way to do this is to actually move or "pan" your camera with the subject that is moving while focusing on their face or whatever part of the subject you want to be the sharpest. Choose a slower shutter speed to get the amount of blur you are looking for. I shot this one in Shutter Priority and chose 1/30 of a second.

It takes some practice to get it right. Even in the picture above, I wish her face was a bit sharper, but thought you could tell what I was going for so I kept it. Get out and practice this; it just might be an upcoming assignment (hint...hint)

Sometimes you have to be patient

You can't always get the shot you want, and it's not always your fault. Sometimes you are ready, in place, prepared, have the right lens, and the color in the sky is not right, or the water is too rough, etc. Last week was one of those times, and luckily, I was on location for 6 nights, and on the 5th night, it all came together. I had this shot in mind most of the week but everything needed to be perfect, so on Thursday night when the water was still and the clouds gave the sunset the color I was wanting, I told Jake to get in the canoe and row me out there!



Now that's what I'm talking about! It is also another reminder that the camera doesn't matter as much as the photographer. I took this with my new point and shoot, the Canon G9!

First shots with the Canon G9

Still in Canada and things are going great. I haven't had a lot of time to take pictures but I thought I'd show you some of my favorites so far. Remember that all of these were taken with my new Canon G9 (pictured below) which is a point and shoot camera. It just goes to prove that no matter what camera you have, if you learn to use it, and you have a good subject, you can take great pictures.

Oh Canada!

Well, I did find an internet connection at this camp here in Alberta, Canada so maybe I will get to blog this week after all. However, it's late tonight so I thought I'd just share a picture with you from last night's sunset. I took this with my new Canon G9 which I bought on Friday so I wouldn't have to take an SLR with me on my trip. The camera is great so if you've been trying to decide whether or not you should get one... go ahead and get it.

I exposed for the sky and then dialed down the flash to get just enough light on the dock. Colors in the sky could have been better so I may try again later this week.



Enjoy!

Inspiration For The Weekend

Before I leave town, I thought I would send you to another photographer's site. Jeremy Cowart is photographer in Nashville but works all over the country shooting celebrities, artists, TV shows, and more. His stuff is awesome and I know you'll enjoy looking through his portfolio.

Canada

I leave for Canada tomorrow and I don't know how much internet access I will have while I'm there. I will try my best to blog but can't make any promises. Remember, there is no assignment for this week, but make yourself get out and shoot. Practice a specific technique over and over until you are excited about the pictures you are taking. See you next week!

Light Takes On Color

You've heard me say many times that the best way to use your flash is to get it off your camera. And then when it is off your camera, you need to diffuse the light by shooting through an umbrella, diffuser, or bouncing the light off a wall, ceiling, reflector, etc. Today's blog is a warning and tip on bouncing your flash.

When light is bounced an object, it takes on the color of that object. For instance, if you bounce your flash off a wall that is red, your subject will be lit with red light. This may be cool if you mean to do it, but usually people don't look good with weird colors on their face. So pay attention to what you use for bounce. If there is no close wall that is white or at least close to white, use someone wearing a white shirt... seriously!

The inside of our front door is white and I bounced my flash off the door to take this picture of Ainsley on Easter:



I ended up with beautiful, diffused light and, other than her not so excited expression, a great picture. So pay attention to what you are bouncing your flash off of the next time you are out.

Macro Assignment

Welcome back to Assignment Wednesday! I really want more of you to post pictures of these assignments! Use this as an excuse to make yourself get out and shoot. We will all get better because of it.

Last week's assignment was to shoot something with your Macro lens or to try and fake it if you don't have one. Before I show you my picture, I should say that I have nothing to do with Bulgari, and they did not ask me to take this picture. It's just for fun!



If you want to know how I took this picture, just look at this post here. I did exactly the same thing. I added the tile texture trying to go for a bathroom feel, although I'm not sure I like it. Anyway, after I had the shot, I felt like adding the text really made it look more like an ad. I had fun anyway!

Next week, there is no assignment. I'll be in Canada all week and I'm not sure how much I will be able to shoot or blog. So, just get out and shoot something for the fun of it.

Teens, MySpace, and FaceBook

With the millions of teenagers using MySpace and FaceBook these days to communicate with their friends, photographers have a new selling point for getting sessions for those teens. I was doing some senior pictures for a young man a couple of months ago, and of course, his mom wanted to frame some pictures and buy some extra prints for family members and friends of the family. However, Alex (the teen) wanted to make sure that I knew the most important thing was that he had some low-resolution files for his MySpace.

Most of these kids don't have great pictures for their online homes, but that is because they don't even think about the fact that they could. If you will spend a little of your advertising budget on helping teens realize that you could totally transform their MySpace page, I could easily fill up your calendar with a lot of short easy sessions. Here's some of the pictures I took for Alex:

Move!!!

This weekend I took some pictures of a good friend of mine, James Tealy, during his concert in Orlando. I set up a strobe on a speaker stand at the far right side of the stage and then clamped another to the monitor at his feet. I got some great shots during the evening, but my favorite came close to the end of the concert. James had moved to the piano and was talking to the crowd. I walked behind the screen and got backstage and voila!

Take the time to move around during your shoots. Don't be lazy and satisfied with the pictures you are getting from where you are. Try different angles, different views, different lenses, etc. You might just get the best shot of the day!

July 4th and Fireworks

Happy 4th of July! Most of you will be celebrating tonight doing a variety of things but no doubt that your night will probably include the taking in of some fireworks. So since you are photographers, why not take some great pictures of those fireworks? Scott Kelby wrote a great blog this past week on how to shoot fireworks, and I thought I would share the link with you here instead of writing it out myself because he does such a good job explaining things.

Here's the link!

Rule of Thirds

When I first started getting interested in photography, I started looking for websites that would help me get better. The one I stumbled upon in the early stages was Jodies Coston's Free Online Photography Course sponsored by the morguefile.com. It's a great place to start if you are looking for some help. Today's blog is about the Rule of Thirds and since I learned this rule from Jodies' website, I thought I would give some credit.

The Rule of Thirds is a simple rule that is easy to understand, remember, and implement, and it will immediately make a huge difference in your pictures. Without doing anything else, your pictures will begin to look more interesting and your friends and family will think you're becoming a good photographer, and they probably won't even be able to tell you what's so good about your pictures. That's one of the funny things about the Rule of Thirds because it's not rocket science, and when I tell you what the rule is you will think, "why didn't I think of that before?"

So here's the simple explanation:

To use the Rule of Thirds when composing a picture, pretend that there is a tic-tac-toe board on your view finder (some point & shoots even have this feature built-in). It would look something like this:



For some reason, when we first start taking pictures, we tend to put our subjects right in the middle of the frame. I don't know why we do this, but we do, and it's boring! We place horizons right in the middle of the frame. Again... boring! The rule of thirds will change that for you and give you not so boring pictures.

If you are taking a portrait, try placing the eye of your subject on one of the green dots. Putting your subject at one of the four intersections of the tic-tac-toe board is what the rule of thirds is about. If your picture has the horizon in it, place the horizon at either the top or bottom horizontal line of the board instead of in the middle.

I know it sounds simple and you may think that it won't make that big of a difference, but just try it and see how much more interesting your pictures become.

Black & White Assignment

For some reason I was drawn to this clock in The Villages yesterday afternoon. It was actually a great picture in color because of all the beautiful flowers around it, the palms, and the blue sky, but the assignment was for a black & white picture so that is what I did.

I processed this in CS3 using the Black & White adjustment layer. I started with the red filter to make the blue sky darker and then made some adjustments from there. I like the final outcome.

Please post a link or even your actual picture in the comment section of this blog.

Next week's assignment...

---Macro---

Use your macro lens (or fake it if you don't have one) and get a great close up shot. No rules on what the subject has to be. See you next week!