Just Go For It

Cutie

Sometimes I spend a lot of time to make a photo look natural.  Sometimes it is fun to forget about natural and just go for it.

Blue Steel

Little Boy

The Wedding

Father & Daughter

I had the opportunity to photograph a wedding for a friend of our family.  What a great pair they make.  And great family and friends as well.

So here are some of my favorites from the event.  Above is Daddy and Daughter.  I really like the low angle and composition.  I shot this wedding with my friend Mark and he was bouncing a camera mounted strobe off of the ceiling and suggested that I bounce my lightstand mounted one.  So that's what I did.  The ceiling was reflective but high.  I had the strobe set to 1/4 power so I could get a lot of shots off.  But I still had to shoot at ISO 1600 because it was so dark at the reception.

Garter

Here's the retrieval of the garter.  He accomplished this hands free.  Nuff said.



I thought this one was funny.



This was taken just before the ceremony.  I have to give props to Seth.  He's the guy on the right.  He wanted this type of shot because they had done this type of thing at past events.  Great suggestion. 



This one was suggested by the bride and groom.  It was supposed to have a "Top Gun" feel.  But I guess they chickened out on the sunglasses at the last minute.  Still came out cool I think.  Another low angle shot.  I gave it a high contrast treatment.



I love the light coming into the limo in this one.  Amazing limo by the way.

Bride & Groom On The Beach

Thank You Again

Thank You

And a few of my favorite beach shots.  The lighting was perfect from the setting sun.


Fire!

FireFight1

Got a chance to do some product photography for a cool local business.  They make fire extinguishers for RV's and racecars.  Very cool I think.

So the idea is that his webmaster wanted some shots on black that he could separate for use on his website HERE.  So I brought some black foam core for background and some white foam core for reflectors.  In the above shot I used a strobe and shoot-through for key @ camera right and white foam core for fill @ camera left.  The metal cage around the nozzle didn't have a well defined edge so I added another strobe with a grid on it behind and camera left to help that situation.  This set up was great for the red extinguishers.  But not so much for the shiny aluminum ones.  The top left edge of the canister was still being lost in the black.  So I added another piece of foamcore behind and camera right to define that edge.  Here is the shot and setup below.

FireFight1

Fire Extinguisher Diagram

This IS My First Rodeo

Eight Seconds

Not the first one I've been to but the first one I've ever tried to photograph.  And I wasn't there to photograph it.  I was there as Husband and Daddy on vacation and just happened to have my camera across my shoulder.  But I am a photographer so I have to at least try to get some decent shots.

Here's the deal.  We are in the bleachers across the arena opposite the stalls.  It is 730p and raining.  The natural light level is dropping fast and we're gonna be left with nothing but the mercury vapor (or whatever they are) lights in the stadium.  I start with my 18-135 so I can get a little closer to the action at least.  I still have to crop to get an interesting composition.  So that's what you see above and here with these two.  All are at ISO1600 so it's grainy but hey that's actually a good depiction of the rodeo.  So f5.6 at 1/25 is not stopping action.  But you do get a good sense of motion.  So I took a lot of shots just to get a few that weren't so impressionistic.

Ride 'em

Cowboy Up

As the ambient light went away completely f5.6 wasn't cutting it so I switched to my 50mm 1.8 and was able to 1/125s.  But now I did a lot of cropping to come up with this.

IMG_8702

Bottom line, I wasn't even close to having gear suitable for this shooting situation.  But I made the most of it and got a few shots that I think are cool.

Be blessed.