PBPhoto

Being the great Dad that I am (at least that's what I'm told), I am raising up some future Rock Stars.

I was inspired by these awesome hats that we got yesterday.  They say Rock Star In Training.  I love it.  Hezekiah is always striking his rock pose. 

So I got a little edgy with the light.  Both lights are slightly behind so as not to fill in the entire face.  My umbrella is at camera left and a bare old Sunpak is camera right.

Gave it a high contrast black and white treatment in Light Room 2.

Hezekiah actually asked for a portrait after he lost his second front tooth.  I was more than happy to set up 3 lights for the occaision.  I've been shooting so much ambient light lately just out of convienience.  So I lit the background with a red gelled strobe.  Used the shoot-thru for the key light.  And a bare strobe for the rim light.  Since I was set up I got Eli to stand still for a frame as well.

We had to return some stuff to the library.  It was going to be just Mommy.  Then Mommy asked Sister if she wanted to go.  "Yus".  Then Mommy asked Brother 2 if he wanted to go.  "Yes".  Then Mommy asked Brother 2 if he wanted to feed the ducks.  "YES!".  Then Brother 1 said "I want to go!"  Then Mommy asked Daddy if he was going to go.  "I'm not staying here by myself." he said.

So I grabbed my camera and off we went.  The sun was getting low in the sky and provided nice light for me.  In the direct sunlight above you get some good contrasty stuff going on.  Then you find some shade and you have awesome soft light.

Use the sun for backlight and you get wonderful hair accents.

And some interesting things happen when the sun is reflecting off of the lake.

For the first time ever (ok at least from me) we will take a look inside the kids tent.  It is created from kitchen chairs, blankets, pillows, a pack-and-play, and assorted cushions.  I remember spending hours building tents and forts when I was a kid.


So we built the tent and my wife said "You should take some pictures of the tent".  And I though "Yeah.  From the inside."  At first I tried with the flash inside the tent bouncing off the inside roof.  Then I thought "why not shoot through the blanket from above?"  It's definitely the most unique modifier I've used in a while.

For me that is.  For the bride and groom it was perfect.  What I mean is that all I had to do was photograph the ceremony itself.  No candid shots of people getting ready.  No rushing to set up for formal portraits afterward.  No shots of cake being smashed into someone's face.  So it made this a different kind of wedding shoot for me.  Of course I've only done one other wedding.  So I only have two data points.


But it was very relaxing knowing that I didn't have to set up any lights.  The ceremony was outside so it was all ambient light.  They were married under a gazebo.  That gave some nice flat light to the otherwise pretty splotchy light filtering through the big oak trees.

Even though I was only shooting for about 30 minutes, I managed to pop off over 300 shots.  I was really able to focus on capturing moments.  Like this one as they spoke to each other during the ceremony.

And this one as her dress was caught up on something.


Otherwise I tried to capture some environmental shots to give a sense of the entire venue.


The reason I got such light duty was because one of the pastors (the bride's brother-in-law) is also a photographer and wanted to do it for them.  But obviously he couldn't be in two places at the same time.  As I left, I saw him setting up his monolight and strobe with umbrellas and taking test shots as he got ready to gather up the 40 something family members for the group shot.  And I quietly thought . . . sucker!  Just kidding Kyle, should you read this.  I would like to see what you captured.

This is what happens.  Daddy starts recording the chaos on camera.  As many onlookers gawk at the sight. 

So we went to the art festival this past weekend.  We wanted to take in all the atmosphere so we decided to have lunch downtown at a new diner.  Pretty good burgers I must say.  I guess the excitement was too much for these boys.  They were really putting on a show for the huge art show crowd.


Photographically speaking, there was something cool going on here with the light.  We are in a diner.  It was very brightly lit from millions (ok, lots) of fluorescent fixtures overhead.  The table tops were white.  So no matter where you sit there is instant clam shell lighting.  Reflection from the white table tops fills in the shadows giving a cool studio look.  Even though these were taken an exceptionally busy diner in downtown Melbourne.

Just wanted to show a progression that I went through to get the yummy shot that you see at the top.  All the shots obviously didn't look that good.  There is some trial and error involved in getting the right combination of exposure and light source placement.

So I start by setting my camera to it's max sync speed . . . uh not quite.  My camera's max sync speed is 1/250th but with my Cactus radio triggers, I have found that I can only sync at 1/200th.  So that's always the starting point.  Then for aperture I know that I can get f5.6 if my flash is at 1/2 power or f2.8 with the flash set at 1/16th power.  Those numbers are just approximate based on lots of practice shots.

I took a first shot and it looked a little underexposed.  I decided to boost the ISO from 100 to 160 to get a little more exposure without changing the aperture.  I wanted to maintain f2.8 because my 50mm lens doesn't always focus properly.  The depth of field at f1.8 is so narrow that even the slightest error in focus causes the loss of the picture.  At f2.8 the dof gives a little leeway if the focus is off.

The result here is overexposed.  It looks washed out.  We've lost the amazing red of these freshly picked strawberries.

So I set the ISO back to 100 and now we have the delicious red I am looking for.  But I have the umbrella directly over the batch of strawberries.  The shadows are shallow and it looks pretty much like a snapshot.

So I moved umbrella further back to increase the angle and increase the depth of the shadows.  Now it is looking good.  I like the exposure and the light placement.  So now I just worked with composition and perspective to get the cover shot above.