Strobist DVD

David Hobby has released a series of DVD's related to the stuff he teaches on the Strobist blog. Here's an excerpt. The cool thing? With a little thought, a little time, and a very little investment, you can do this too.

The only down side to Strobist stuff is that you kinda need more than one light. And then you gotta sync 'em up. Which means you either need the wireless stuff that Canon and Nikon do, or you need radio transmitters (Pocket Wizards, the cheap-o eBay transmitters, or maybe the new Radio Poppers). The Pocket Wizards are industry standard, but not cheap.

Cool video, though. I need a new flash.

Disturbing the Scene

I really like the "I Am Sorry" photograph in the last post, but I want to make it better. I want to be able to get the "S" on the word sorry in the picture, but the angel blocks it out. I either have to change perspectives or move the angel. I like the perspective, so moving the angel is the only choice. Given that this is a death scene, and given my concern about disturbing anything, is it acceptable to move the angel to get the shot?

What do you think?

I Am Sorry

Here is the second shot from the "Love Lived Here" series I'm working on. I have determined that I need to go back and shoot some more, now that I know the angles. Thank God for digital. This is actually an alternate version of the shot I started working with. The first shot is a boring, straight on shot of the angel statuette against a porch post.

I think this is a much more intimate shot. The angel seems to be surrealistically speaking the words "I am sorry" that are scribbled on the white porch post. I think if I had actually captured the "s" in sorry, this might be a much better shot.

There's a fair amount of processing on this shot for just a plain ol' black and white. First, I used Curves to punch up the contrast. Then the black and white conversion using Channel Mixer (the blend is 40, 20, 40). Then a levels adjustment layer to set the white and black point. Then sharpened.

Metallic paper

Mendy recently sent some of us an email that she had ordered a print from Mpix on metallic paper. She sent me the picture she had printed--the kids playing on the beach at sunset. I never would have thought to do that, even though both places I print (Mpix and White House Custom Color) offer this paper option. So, on a whim, I ordered two prints on metallic paper. One was a 6x9 of "Point Loma Glow" and the other was the color version of "Off Duty."

I have to say, I was impressed. Mendy made a great call on using metallic paper with sunset colors. I can't wait to get the Point Loma picture printed at 10X15 for display. What surprised me more was how good the color version of "Off Duty" looked. It's hard to tell from the black and white, but there was just a hair of sunlight striking the life guard hut. The metallic paper really makes the grays of the clouds and rough water pop, and shows off the little bit of sunlight.

Mpix doesn't recommend metallic paper for portraits, and I can see why. But keep this option in mind for sunsets and where you have gray, silver, blue, yellow and red colors.

Thanks, Mendy!

Cha-Ching

I have this illusion that I'm going to make money with this photography thing. I've made zero money at my other hobbies (not that I've really tried), and I'm determined to make my photography "habit" pay for itself at some point (or at least for that new Nikkor 24-70 2.8 and 70-200 2.8 VR, about $1800 and $1500, respectively). So I'm fooling around. This is all purposeful. I chose flickr to host images because it's a rather large microstock pool. I chose Google Blogger because it's simple. There are apparently opportunities to make money doing this as well, so over the next month or so (provided this blog still exists) I will be exploring advertisements. So, don't get too annoyed over the advertisements. At this point, I'm not choosing the content. I'm not sure I even have the option. The first ad for something involving Sally Struthers and I promise I'll pull it.

Love Lived Here

Speaking of fire.

You'll remember my earlier post about the tragic fire in Bentonville that claimed the lives of 5 little girls, one of whom my mother tutored. I have been yearning to photograph the house. Call me morbid. I just think it needs to be remembered. When it first happened, I wanted to go in the house to shoot.

I didn't.

I have driven by the house a few times, mostly right after the fire. But there was too much going on. Too many TV cameras. Too many people leaving flowers and writing farewell notes on the house. Too many peers leaving flowers. Too sad.

I'll be the first to admit that I'm no photojournalist. But there's a story here. There's the report that meth and pot were found in the house. This is disputed by the family. There's the public rush to judge. There's the loss of these innocent little girls. The loss to their family. The loss to their friends. There's the reports of how many time police and DHS were called to the house over the years.

And then there's my mom, who is convinced the parents loved those little girls. Kristen, the girl my mom worked with, was always talking about her dad, and all the things they all did as a family. The girls all loved each other it seems.

So yeah , there's a story here. I'm certainly not the one to tell it. How does one tell a story of love being seemingly quenched (torched, as it were) by such a tragedy? I'm not sure. But for whatever reason, I feel compelled to try, so tonight I drove by the house and spent about an hour shooting about 50 shots. I had no idea how to compose. It was like shooting landscape--you're not going to get the whole Grand Canyon, so you have to compose for a foreground object and background subject as well. I tried almost everything in the bag. Ultra-wide. 50mm prime. Zoom. Flash. No flash. Shutter dragging (lots of that). I gave it an hour. I needed 3. I needed an assistant. I needed more lighting stuff (reflectors, umbrellas, softbox, etc.).

I hope I'll follow up and finish this before the house gets torn down or whatever. For now, here's the first fully processed photograph from a series I will call "Love Lived Here."

Into the Fire

A dear friend of mine recently got married. The morning of the wedding, the bride asked if I had brought my camera (the wedding was out of town), and would I mind taking pictures.

Panic.

The bride had asked her son's girlfriend (college age) to take some pictures. I'm not really sure why she wanted me involved, and if she knew me better she'd know that shooting a wedding ranks right up there on the list of things I probably should not do (demands more patience than I have, lack of control, dealing with bitchy people (not at this wedding, mind you), etc. Really just not my thing). But the groom is such good friend (and we dig his wife, too). You know, the friend that you could call from jail in Mississippi in the middle of the night and by morning he'd be there with your bond money. Yes, I brought my camera, and yes I'll shoot some pictures at your wedding. I'd be happy to.

Panic.

I have a small library of photography books. Books about exposure. Books about portraiture. Books about lighting. Tons of books on landscape and nature photography (which is what I think I really like). I have nothing on weddings. There was no rehearsal. (Wedding was in the couple's newly remodeled house. Old house. Like, turn of the century old. Has its own name old. Survived The Flood old. You get the picture.) I had no idea what was going on during the ceremony. No checklist. No roadmap.

Panic.

We were over at the house a few hours prior to the wedding, helping to clean up and get things ready. I had my camera bag. The cake was out, decorations were set. People had scattered and it was sort of quiet. I managed to get a few shots where I actually could think about lighting and exposure. When you're called on to shoot something out of your comfort zone, remember the basics of what makes a good photograph--patterns, leading lines and repeating elements. Pay attention to composition. Pay attention to the light. I like the simplicity of this photograph of wedding programs in a basket. It has all the basics, and has the gold bands (not unlike wedding bands) as the focal point in the middle of the lines and repeating pattern of the programs.

EXIF data is a little disturbing:

Nikon D80; Nikkor 18-135 lens at 66mm; shutter priority mode; f5.3; 1/200; ISO 200.

This photograph has had some major lighting fixes in Photoshop. It was side lit with tons of natural light and I used a fill flash. Straight out of the camera, this picture was much darker and much more out of balance that what it should have been. The good is that I had a lot of available contrast. The bad is that the ambient light got smashed. I can't remember if I had the flash set for rear sync or not (which is one of my fall backs to balance ambient light). One trick to correct this is to "drag the shutter" by taking the shutter speed the meter tells you is correct, and then slowing down a stop or two. I should have done that here. 1/200 is way too slow for a stationary indoor shot. This would have been a perfect shot for manual mode.

Speaking of basics, it's still about the triangle of ISO, aperture and shutter speed. Remember that, too. A well-composed shot that is not properly exposed is a bad shot, and most times you can't save it. I got lucky here.

The End of the World

Audra recently reminded me of a Flash animation entitled "The End of the World." I remember the first time I saw it--I was crying laughing. You've probably seen it before, but it's worth seeing again, just for the laugh.

Of Floodgates and Drainplugs

Until now, I have not "advertised" this blog very much. A few people know of it. Even fewer post anything. So, in an effort to test the viability of this adventure, I'm going to open it up. This blog will now be findable by search engines, and I am going to send the link to more people. Don't worry, though. With the exception of the picture on the first post, pictures of the kids will only be on the Flickr page with access to friends and family only (unless you have given me permission to use the photograph for, say, portfolio purposes, model release, etc.), and only people I know will be permitted to view those areas, so that should be safe enough. Let me know if you don't think so.