Tuesday, May 22, 2012

Stepping Out of My Comfort Zone





One thing I try to do not only as a photographer but as a person is to recognize my weaknesses and turn them into strengths. That being said one of my weaknesses as a photographer is photojournalism, and taking portraits of complete strangers. I prefer being in a studio setting where I have complete control of the lights. If I want a shadow to fall a certain way, or if I want soft light I have control over that. I can direct the model and have them look in a particular direction or move how I see the image in my head. Take me out of that situation and I am uncomfortable. I have great respect for people who can go out and capture great photojournalism and street photography. I want to get better in this aspect of photography so this past weekend I decided to go to the Renaissances Festival in Nashville and practice doing more photojournalism and editorial portraits. I figured it would be a good place to get some nice characters and it is more controlled environment rather than just going to the streets and start shooting (when I get more comfortable with street photography and photojournalism I will then do that). Here are some of the images from my experience of stepping out of my comfort zone. I don't know if I would consider these images photojournalism, or more environmental/editorial portraiture. 
The Beast

A glass artist working at the festival

Wood fairies blowing bubbles

This was the first actor I encounter walking to the festival

This wood fairy looks so happy that she caught her bubble

Recent Composite

This is my most recent composite I have done. The original concept fell through so myself and Keely (another talented photographer the model for me) were sitting at my house after a long day of shopping for wardrobe and props were talking about what else we could do. We then came up with the idea of a wife trying to be the perfect bride with a slob of a husband. We started to talk through the idea and the concept and came up with the bride is finally getting fed up with the husband and is about to through the eggs she just cooked for him on him. I wanted to have a more cinematic feel to the image. So I used multiple lights. I used a large parabolic umbrella, a ring flash, and a reflector with a 20 degree grid. I was also able to get the composite done in two shots, which makes putting things together in post a heck of a lot easier. Unfortunately though with how I ended up positioning the models in the final composite some of the props we purchased ended up not being used.
The first shot is of me, I guess I fit the role of the jerk husband.
The second shot was the last one we shot of Keely as the eggs fell out of the pan right after that shot, some how she managed to catch the eggs and not get any on the dress, I was quite impressed.
The last one is the final composite.




Monday, May 14, 2012

Lincoln MKX Shoot


ƒ40 @ 1.6 ISO 400

ƒ22 @ .6 ISO 100
Last week I got access to a brand new Lincoln MKX. So Robert Glover (if you haven't seen his work or been to his website I highly recommend it RGPhoto.com) and I decided that we would take it out and photograph it. We set up a couple of rigs to capture motion blur while the car was moving, unfortunately for us we chose the wrong day to shoot in Percy Warner park, as they were getting ready for the Steeplechase being held that weekend and traffic was unusually heavy. But luckily we did get a few good shots from the motion rig. As the sun started to go down we went to an open field to do some still shots as the lighting was getting just right. As each minute passed by the lighting just kept getting better, to be honest at that time of day in that location you would have to try really hard to get a bad image of the car. After the shoot I started coming down with some bug so I haven't had much of a chance to edit a bunch of the images we took, but here are two images. One from the motion rig we set up and one in the field. For the image in the field I waited for the light to be balanced with the headlights on the car, I then positioned the tripod so I would capture lens flare from the headlight. I knew I wanted a star burst type effect so I stopped my lens down as low as it could. I believe that image was shot at ƒ40 @ 1.6 ISO 400. When I get some more edited I will add them .

I have recently been asked by multiple people when am I going to post my first tutorial, I must apologize I have been pretty busy lately, and  just haven't had time to post one, but it is in the works. When I get over whatever bug I have I will start recording it. I will keep you updated as to when it is up.