First Class A Huge Success

I taught my first class today at The Villages Public Library on an "Introduction To D-SLR Photography". The room at the library was full and unfortunately, we had to send many people home. Thank you to all who attended. You asked great questions, and it seemed like everyone had a good time. I hope you will email me with pictures that you take while working on the techniques we talked about today.

Because of the great turnout and promise for future classes, we went ahead and scheduled another class for Thursday, January 15. We will take registrations on my website (www.bdwphotography.com) beginning December 1st and will close the class at 40 people. So be sure to sign up early as spots will be on a first come, first serve basis. We will also be charging a very small fee of $5.00 for the class in January based on the great response we got from today.

Thanks again to all who were there and especially to our host, The Villages Public Library.

So please tell your friends and check back on December 1st to register for the class on January 15th.


-Brian

10 Minutes From Home Assignment

Welcome back to Assignment Wednesday! This assignment was more fun than I thought it was going to be. I drove exactly 10 minutes from home, got out of my car, and started looking for things to shoot. I had my 60mm macro lens because it had been a while since I had used it and thought this would be a good opportunity... and I was right. I spent about 10 minutes walking around and taking pictures. Here are some of my favorites:











I hope you had a good time doing this assignment, and I'd love to see the pictures you got. Next week's assignment is:

-- Natural Framing --

This week's assignment is "Natural Framing". Basically borders, nature paths, windows, all of these setup a nice natural frame outline for the focus of the subject. See you next week.

Family Portrait Session

This weekend I had the opportunity to do a family portrait session for some good friends of mine. He is the Pro at one of the local golf courses so we did the pictures there where there is a lot of nice landscaping. I needed to use just a little flash because I wanted to keep everything else looking as good as it did. So I set up one SB800 high and camera left shooting through a Lastolite Tri-Grip Diffuser. Then I was able to expose for the landscaping behind them and put out just enough light to fill in any shadows on their faces. Here are two of my favorites:

First Academy Football

Last night I shot the First Academy Football game. I got to use the 300mm f/2.8 lens that I rented from LensProToGo and it was awesome! I had so much fun! I only had to focus on two of the players, Kyle Vann and Tyler Ross because it was their parents who hired me. I got some great shots and the Eagles finally won their first game! Here are my favorites:

LensProToGo

Tonight I'll be shooting at the First Academy High School football game. The job is for two seniors so I'll really be able to focus on getting some good shots since I only have to shoot the two of them. I didn't have the kind of lens I needed to do this job so I rented a 300mm f/2.8 from LensProToGo. This company rocks! The lens came in on Tuesday in the Nikon case (the lens is huge) and it works perfectly. If you ever find yourself needing to rent gear, LensProToGo is the place!

Product Assignment

Welcome back to Assignment Wednesday! I hope you had fun doing your product shoot. You never know when that big company is going to come calling!

I have to admit that I cheated this week. I did not take a new picture but the moment I saw the back of my camera after taking this picture, I saw this ad. So I've been wanting to sit down and make it for a while now. Here's the ad and after the picture, I'll show you how I did it. As always, you can click on the picture for a bigger view.



How to do it:

1. Take a great picture
2. Take your product picture
3. Take away the background of your product picture
4. Move it over to your photo
5. Copy the layer of your product and turn the copy upside down. Then move it directly below the first copy. Adjust the opacity of the upside down layer to create your reflection.
6. All that is left is to add text.

If you attempted this, I'd love to see it and share it with everyone. Just comment to this post with a link to your shot.

Next week's assignment:

-- 10 Minutes From Home --

This week's assignment is Ten Minutes From Home". Walk, bike, drive or fly exactly 10 minutes from where you live and shoot what's there. No 9 minute or 11 minute trips!

Fred & Bekah

This past weekend I had the opportunity to do a portrait session for Fred & Bekah. They were wanting a picture to use for their Christmas card this year, and I was happy to help them out. When I first talked to Bekah, she told me she wanted to do something with a "woodsy" type background. Once we chose the location, I knew I would need some lighting. Of course I could make a good picture with available light there in the shade of the woods, but would it stand out and "pop" the way it would if I used a little lighting?

I set up one light shooting through a Lastolite Tri-Grip Diffuser and balanced it with the ambient light in the shaded tree area we were in. Because they were both wearing black shirts, have dark hair, and we were in a relatively dark place, the camera was tricked and thought "hey, I need to slow down and let more light in because this picture is really dark." But the camera was wrong and ended up blowing out their faces. So I had to dial down my exposure compensation two whole stops to get the proper exposure. Here's the keeper: