Using a Reflector

In the weeds, originally uploaded by photogeek21.

Every photog knows the about the 'golden hour' for the gorgeous quality of light that is produced just after sunrise and just before sunset each day, but what most don't do (including me 'til now) is get enough fill on the subject to balance out the extreme side lighting that a low sun will create. I've usually been using a flash for this work but that can cause some variations in color temperature across the frame unless you gel your flash. A reflector is a easy (and cheap) way of doing roughly the same thing.
Above is a picture of Ryan where I placed the 5pm sun behind him to act as a hair light, then used the reflector to bounce the sun and create the main light for his face. I placed him in the edge of a shadow created by a near by house to throw the background tone into a lower exposure value and let his face stand out against it but kept the foreground lit to keep the interesting shape of the weeds. And, my favorite part of a portrait, catch lights in the eyes. With the sun behind him the reflector is the only way short of a fill flash to get those eyes to sparkle.
Contrast that with the following with out the reflector.

While I still get a nice side light, but the catch lights are gone, his face is flat without any shadows, his face falls into the same exposure levels as the background and even if I bump the exposure a bit, the side light would probably clip and his face would still blend with the background.

I'm pretty convinced that a reflector is a 'must have' item for any portrait photog - they don't break the bank either, but if you're really cheap like I am you can use a Car Sunshade, I got mine at target for $5.99 and its even silver on one side and gold on the other - almost like it was designed to double as a photo reflector!

Brad Presents

Enjoyed a great post over at Scott Kelby's blog today that relates points made in the reality show Kitchen Nightmares to your photography business. While it provided a bit of humor the points are well made and I found the article timely as I have been contemplating where I want to go with my photography...
Here's a link to the full post.
Brad Presents “Lessons From Kitchen Nightmares”

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Might as well post everything....

There's a lot of times a shoot an event for my own enjoyment without anybody acutally hiring me to photograph, which was the case a couple weeks ago when I shot the 3 gun nation shootoff. In cases like this I usually just post the shots to flickr and put a slide show of the coverage on my site with no intentions of selling any images. But in this case, my images caught the eye of one of the competitors (who also happens to be a photographer)and he contacted me about the photos in my gallery, said he really admired several of them and I ended up making a sale. Now he could have just downloaded the images off of flickr, but I guess the fact that he was also a photographer kept him from doing that or he was just an honest guy. Anyway, image protection isn't what prompted me to write this post, sales is. The fact is I should be posting all my favorite images from these personal events in my sales gallery - who knows how many sales I've lost by not giving viewers the opportunity to purchase, most won't be inclined to take the initiative to inquire about a purchase like my fellow photographer/shooter. While I always like it when people get enjoyment from my images even when they don't buy, that's no reason to not offer all my images for sale. Besides, it's a business and businesses are created to make money... Sometimes I forget that.

Remote Location Shooting - several firsts (for me).

Had my first location shoot with a paying client this past weekend. When they came to me and asked me to shoot their family portrait, they didn't have anything special in mind but said they trusted me and would let me decide - no pressure right?
Well, I love the outdoors and decided to do a outdoor shoot in the middle of the Arizona desert using the unique profile of the Superstition Mountains as the back drop.

Even though I was planning a 'golden-hour' shoot I knew we would get out there earlier and would shoot individuals in harsher light, I need fill light and my Speedlites weren't going to have the muscle to fight the bright Arizona Sun, So the 600ws studio strobes would be the key to this shoot and they would be powered by a newly built DIY pure-sine pack on loan from a Friend and my 725VA UPS as backup. I used a polarizing filter to cut through the haze and deepen the blue in the sky and it's 2 stop density also help to get the shutter speeds down to the 1/200 I needed for the strobe sync (I packed an additional 2 stop ND filter just in case though). I rented some pocket wizards to trigger the strobes - no way was I going to be at the mercy of my Cacuts V2s and their less than reliable performance on this shoot.

I used a second body for my 85 F1.2 lens so that I wouldn't have to change lenses and risk getting dessert dust on my sensor. I used this lens to close to wide open exploit it's wonderful boken, this put the shutter speeds way up in the 1/4000 + range while I could have used my 580exII for fill, I instead used a diffuser to soften the light (another first for me)and when I got it right, the light is magical. To really get the best effect you really need to get the diffuser as close to the subject as possible.

Lastly, the one thing that made this shoot go off so smoothly besides the prep was my assistant, Alma, who also happens to me my wife. She helped me by modeling while we were out scouting locations, manned the GPS to find our spot later, but what was invaluable was her people handling skills, she built a repore with the little ones while I was shooting individuals with other family members and made them comfortable when I was shooting them. I know I wouldn't have been able to make a 3 year old act natural chasing her around with a 52" diffuser and sticking a big lens in her face, but with Alma, it was just playtime...

The only big mistake I made on this shoot was that I forgot to set my second camera back to RAW after shooting jpgs when I was cleaning it's sensor earlier that week. Not a total blunder as all the shots were nicely exposed and I didn't need any tweaking.

This was one of the smoothest sessions I've had in a long time, and had allot of fun shooting it. One last first, I used the slideshow module in the Lightroom 3 beta to make a quick video of proofs for client and was able to deliver that by the next day which really hit a home run with them.

So, a recap:
Strobes on location - Rock.
Pocket wizards - Rock harder must add to the shopping list.
Diffusers / Reflectors - Sweet, add to wish list.
Awesome Assistant - Never shoot again without one!

Okay, I gotta remember to charge my batteries.

I aways drive by these farms every morning on my way to work. During the Winter when the temp drops below freezing, their irrigation equipment gets all these Icicles that form and they catch the rising Sun so beautifully. For years I've been telling myself to stop and take some shot but never did. But with my new focus this year I decided to freeze my butt off and get out there and get some shots.
I arrived before dawn and set up the 'big gun' 300mm on the tripod and waited for the light.
As the sun came up I started the shoot, changing positions, lenses, etc. I set up the camera for 1 stop bracketing with the intent of doing some HDR work. But just as the Sun rose high enough to really make the icicles glisten, my camera shut down! I've been spoiled with my mkII battery life that I rarely charge it - unfortunately it burned me this time! On a long shot I turned on my trucks heater and tried to heat up the battery thinking that it was the freezing temp causing it to go flat a little early. It worked! I was able to take about another 20 or so shots and my favorite was the last one!
Here's some of my favorites from the shoot:


Created with Admarket's flickrSLiDR.

Label those Cards!

You know I knew why they put the little labels on the backs of CF memory cards, I mean why would I label something that gets erased and re-written?
Well, last Saturday, I was shooting Ryan's Football game and they were really playing well and I was ripping off the frames. Filled my first 4GB CF by about mid way through the 4 quarter and had to swap it out.
After the game I was excited to get home and process an post the pics of the games my site. But I practically freaked when I reached into my pocket to retrieve my card and discovered that I must have lost it out on the field! I was so bummed I really didn't care about loosing the card at that point it was all the images on the card.
Alma tried to cheer me up by suggesting we go back to the field in the morning to look for it - but I knew it would be gone, someone would have found it during the games that were after ours. So early the next morning we used the trip to the field as an excuse to go out for breakfast. We got to the field and the whole family fanned out 'CSI' style searching the field. There were people getting prepping the field for the morning's soccer matches so just when I was thinking we should just get out of there and get some breakfast, I saw it, lying in the grass on the sidelines where I was shooting! What luck, the card was intact and undamaged. The pictures were posted - no harm, no foul.
Well now I know what that label is for now - It's just enough room for my name and phone number and that's exactly what's on each of my CF cards now.