Rachel's Senior Portraits

I shot senior portraits for Rachel tonight at her dad's building in downtown Leesburg. It was a great setting for the pictures, and we had a great time. For most of the shots, I used two SB800's and Lastolite Tri-Grip Diffusers. We got a little creative with some of them, but most were very straightforward. Shot all night with the 70-200 2.8 lens. It's definitely become my favorite lens for portraits. Here are a few of my favorite shots from the session.

Thanks Rachel for allowing me this opportunity!

Bubbles Assignment

We had fun with the bubbles assignment last night. What's a better way to use bubbles than to take a bubble bath?! Shame on you who were at the fall festival and didn't use the bubble machine and all those kids to get yours! Ainsley couldn't pick her favorite so here are a few:





Next week's assignment:

-- Product of your choice --

That's right! You've just gotten a job to do a commercial shoot for some product you love. You pick the product, you pick the idea. Make it good if you want to work again! Go ahead and add some text to it as well so your client will have the ad ready to go. Have fun!

Weekend Wedding

I had the opportunity to shoot a beautiful couple's wedding this weekend in Lady Lake. We had a ton of fun and got some great shots! Here are a few of my favorite:

Photography Class

I've been asked to teach a workshop at The Villages Public Library on Thursday, November 13th from 1:00-2:30pm. The class is free and open to everyone who is interested in learning how to take better pictures with their digital camera. Just show up! We will focus on things that pertain mainly to digital SLR (single-lens reflex... or those cameras that let you switch lenses) cameras but anyone is welcome and will leave a better photographer.

During the class, we will discuss camera settings, how to get proper exposure, and the two easiest ways to make your pictures better. Having your camera at the workshop will be a benefit to you.

The library is located at:

325 Belvedere Boulevard
The Villages, FL 32162

Here is the link to the Sumter County libraries page.

This will be the first workshop, but we hope to make it a consistent event at The Villages Public Lirbrary. Hope to see you there!

Night Photography Assignment

UPDATE!!!
In case you already read this today, I wanted to add a link to my sister-in-law's night picture. It's incredible! Here's the link.

For the night photography assignment, I wanted to show you how to take a picture where the headlights on a car look like long neon lights and the car kind of disappears. Here's the picture:

The key to getting this type of picture is to use a slow shutter speed. In this example, I was shooting at 1 second. Because of the slow shutter speed, you will need to use a tripod in order for your shot to be in focus. The car disappears because it's moving while the shutter is open for that long and the light from the headlights is hitting your sensor for the entire second so it gets stretched out. Try it tonight and see if you can pull off the same shot.

Next week's assignment:

-- Bubbles --

This week's assignment is "Bubbles", a fun frothy assignment to take us through the change of seasons. It's definitely a more wide open subject than you might think. Consider using them for or in portraits, reflections, and macros.

Neville Simpson

While I was at the Cliff Mautner workshop back in August, I met Neville Simpson. Neville is a gifted photographer as well as a brother in Christ who is using his gifts to bring glory to God. I thought I would share his link with you today. Make sure you check out the Fine Art page and see some of his work that he has matched with scripture. Here's the link.

Don't forget that your night time photography assignment is due tomorrow. See you then.

Depth of Field Assignment

Last week's assignment was to explore depth of field by trying to blur your background. The way to do this, is to move your subject away from the background itself. Distance creates depth of field. So does aperture. So you should shoot at a large aperture (small number) to get the shallowest depth of field.

I took this first shot of Ainsley at f/1.4 leaning against the stone wall. It's a nice shot, but I think you will agree that the second shot has such nice bokeh and shallow depth of field, that it becomes the keeper of the two.



Another way to make your background even more blurry, is to get closer to your subject. If you tried the assignment, comment to this blog with a link to your pics.

Next week's assignment:

-- Low light or night photography --

See what kind of creative shot you can get with little to no sunlight. Have fun, and I'll see you next week!

Quick Family Picture

My parents were in town this past weekend and wanted to get a family portrait on Sunday after church (since we all looked so good, ya know). It was hot, but I agreed to set up a couple of lights and a backdrop in the garage.

For those of you who are intimidated by off-camera lighting, it's really not that hard... or scary. I set up one SB800 high and camera right shooting through a Lastolite Tri-Grip Diffuser. That light was set to TTL (through the lens metering) with the exposure compensation set to +1.0. I set another SB800 high and camera left but further back than the light on the right. It also was shooting through a Tri-Grip. I set it to TTL and adjusted the exposure compensation to -1.0.

With the further distance and less power, the left light becomes my fill light.

I set the camera in manual mode, 5.6 and 1/60th. White Balance to "Flash" since I was using.... wait for it, wait for it.... flash. I took one practice shot and I nailed it. Why? Because it really is THAT easy.

Hall Wedding

On Saturday I had the opportunity to shoot at a wedding as a third photographer. It was nice because there was absolutely no pressure. I took the D700 with my 70-200 lens and that was it. I shot with available light all day and wound up with some very nice pictures. Here are some of my favorites:

Ducks

My kids love ducks. I love my Canon G9.

Affirmative Assignment

Welcome back to Assignment Wednesday! Here is a quick refresher of what your assignment was:

-- Affirmative --

This should be a fun assignment. Basically it's just a goal to take pictures of things that suggest something showing an affirmation or approval. Suggestions of thumbs up, applause, those foam "we're #1" fingers, etc... Make sure you have some fun yourselves as well!

On Saturday night, Rachel and Tyler had a private, gourmet meal at her home cooked by her parents before we did our portrait session. I'm talking lobster, filet mignon, the works! So when Rachel's plate was set down before her, without even prompting her, I got this:

Classic! It didn't make the "keeper" stack from the shoot, but it was the perfect shot for my assignment this week. I hope you were able to try this assignment. If you did, just post a comment to this blog and add a link to where you keep it.

Next week's assignment:

Review my post from a few days ago on "Depth of Field" and try making two portraits of someone. One where the background is very close to them (think leaning against a fence or wall) and one where they are much further away from the background. It should be an obvious difference in the depth of field and one of them will probably be a much more pleasant portrait.

Homecoming King and Queen

On Saturday night I had the opportunity to shoot the Homecoming King and Queen of First Academy before they left for the dance. The setting was her house that had access to a dock out by the lake. We took some shots in the yard and then went down to the water. We started pretty late and had hardly any sunlight left. Here are a few of my favorite shots with a quick explanation on how I got the shot. I used my 85 f/1.8 the entire time.


This shot was in the backyard, no flash. I just dialed down the exposure compensation to make up for the dark background. Great formal looking portrait.

This was our walk across the street toward the lake. I got on the ground to allow for the street to lead up to them. I usually don't like keeping some color in a black & white picture but the shoes being red turned out pretty cool and Rachel loved it so the shoes will stay red!

For this shot, I got up on top of the railing going around the dock. Getting a different perspective will really make your pictures more interesting.

My favorite shot! I feel like this could be an ad for some fancy perfume or something. I cranked up the ISO on the D700 for most of these shots on the water because it was DARK!!! I love that sensor!

Flash. If you know what you're doing, you can make great looking shots at anytime of the day. I had Tyler (Rachel's boyfriend... I mean King) hold the SB800 high and to camera right while standing on the bench going around the dock. I lowered my shutter speed to 1/5 of a second and held my breath like crazy! Any faster shutter would have made the sky totally black and I wanted to show as much color as we had left for this shot. I kept my aperture all the way down at 2.8 because any higher, and Rachel and her dad would have been totally blown out. It sounds like a lot of stuff to think about, but when you understand it, you can get this shot on your first or second try.

On this shot of Rachel and her dad, I exposed for the beautiful blue sky and the moon which totally put them in a silhouette. Nice moment.

Thanks Rachel and Tyler for letting me be a part of your special night. Congratulations on being the King and Queen of the First Academy Universe!

Depth of Field

We went to the pond the other day so Brooke and Ainsley could feed the ducks. While they were doing that, I snapped a few shots of Braxton sitting in the stroller. I was using my 85mm f/1.8 lens wide open at f/1.8. When you are wanting a very shallow depth of field so that only your subject will be in focus, the bigger the aperture (smaller number) you can get, the shallower your depth of field will be. I personally love this look and that is why I shoot "wide open" 90% of the time.

You will see that in this image, only Braxton's eyes are tack sharp and everything else begins to fall away very nice to give that great bokeh.

Most lenses that come as "kit" lenses with your DSLR do not have fixed apertures and usually don't have a bigger aperture than f/3.5. For this reason, I only have "pro" lenses with fixed apertures (the aperture does not get smaller as you zoom in) no smaller than f/2.8. My primes (50mm & 85mm) are f/1.4 and f/1.8 respectively.

Try shooting wide open as often as possible and put some space between your subject and the background for the shallowest depth of field.

Eyes Assignment

Wondering how your assignment turned out. I'd love to see how they turned out. Just post a comment on this blog and put a link to where you keep your pics.

Next week's assignment:

-- Affirmative --

This should be a fun assignment. Basically it's just a goal to take pictures of things that suggest something showing an affirmation or approval. Suggestions of thumbs up, applause, those foam "we're #1" fingers, etc... Make sure you have some fun yourselves as well!

I have a few small jobs this week so I will let you know how they went. See you soon.