Sarah, Charlie, and Olive - a family affair

This was on the tail end of the outside portraits from last year because it was getting a bit too cold. But the warm sunshine in the morning down in Old Town Alexandria got us through the cold.

What I loved about this session was the family had it in their minds that they wanted black and whites, but once they saw all of the colors their minds were changed!



I did bring a flash with me, just in case, but it turned out necessary and wasn't very practical trying to chase the little one around!







I did not, however include another one of my favorite pictures I grabbed while running backwards trying to keep up with Olive skipping down the pier......one of my lenses fell out of my lens bag and went bouncing down the concrete. Luckily it landed first on the lens hood and was caught before any rolling towards the water occurred, so no damage done - one great reason to use a lens hood.

Baby Mara

Terrific time with Baby Mara a few weeks ago where she was kind enough to share her parents with with me and teach me a little bit about "tummy-time"

We started off in the family room on the first floor.



You can see from the diagram below I was dealing with two windows. I had one window with a good amount of light coming in behind them, and one on the other side of the room that wasn't helping much. One of the strategies I always work when dealing with this type of shoot, is set up more then you need for one particular picture, that way when you transition there will be another light ready for something you didn't think of. Because I'm using radiopopper JRXs, I can adjust the lights if need be throughout the shoot without ever stopping the action.

As you can see below, I went with one light up into the ceiling by one window, and a second light in the dining room creating a chunk of lighting (can lighting chunk?) coming in through the door-way. That way when we were on the floor the first light would be my main light, and the second would be fill/separation, and while we were on the couch the second light would be main and the first would be separation.  Don't forget that back-light window is still a light source!



You can see the dining room light in this "tummy-time" photo


Next up was a great room upstairs that was in a wonderful blue color and had this great trunk that added some good elements in the photo. Here's a rough diagram (note there's a curtain in there). Again I use the two windows plus one light to reduce the contrast just enough to ensure they're all not backlit:

Once we got everyone on the floor, everything was great! Mara went for noses, she went for glasses, and had a great time.

This one's my favorite!


One of the criteria for the shoot was to work in two hand-made blankets that were made for Mara as gifts. We grabbed a few of the family (just enough blanket in this one, but I happen to like it)


I decided to get her laying on the second one to work in the radiator in the back for an interesting element. I like how all of the colors of the blanket and the wall really pop.  The non-curtained window is coming in from camera left rimming out Mara, while the flash is providing the catch light in her eye.  In the above photo you can see both the window and the flash in her right eye (camera left).


Last but not least we spent some time in the backyard on the swing and in the grass (but in the shade the entire time because it was 95F that day. I won't post any more, but here's one family shot that I enjoyed using their fence and backdrop.

Baby Abigail

Thank you to Abigail for giving up her parents and part of a lazy weekend amidst all of the eating and sleeping to pose for me for an afternoon. And although baby pictures can never be completely planned, she did great...and her parents held up quite well too :)

Most of these are a mix of natural window light and flash. The flash was on a stand and usually pointed up into the ceiling to provide a large fill source.


(Part of her name has been blurred for privacy)

We had to lure the dog in with some treats...but he was quite protective of her, and wouldn't eat anything close to baby....I guess that's a good thing!

More Light Than Usual

Typically, I'm shooting with only two or three lights, anything more than that gets complicated and I wind up spending more time worrying about lighting than the photo. But while I was at Shari's studio, I grabbed a few interesting shots of Dwayne (His MM profile - may not be safe for work).

Both of these photos were lit with 5 lights. Two large soft boxes on either side, one boomed and gridded beauty dish coming in from over the camera, and two snooted speedlights riming the back corners.

ISO 200, 1/200 sec @ f/9, 70mm and 32mm respectively

I love his warm expression in the first photo

A Ray from the Skylight - opposite directions

Two photos in the same spot shooting in two different directions down the hallway. The first using the skylight as a main light and the second using it as a back/hair-light. Not only is the light and direction opposite but my model, Ashley Jaranko, is giving us active motion using her dance training in one, and still calmness in the other.

Both shots are natural light.
48mm, 1/1250 @ f/2.8, ISO 400


35mm, 1/640 @ f/2.8, ISO 400, the floor and walls are acting as fill.

Rody and the Capitol

Rody, a very nice gentleman from NY, was visiting our Nation's Capitol and always wanted a picture in front of the Capitol Dome, so he contacted me and I was happy to oblige. Although we had a thrilling time dodging cars and getting out into the middle of Pennsylvania avenue during the crosswalk signals, the final Capitol Dome photo was taken on the capitol lawn on a quiet sidewalk. The other two on a bench along Penn. Ave.

All three photos were manually metered at either f/11 - f/14, ISO 125 - 250, at 1/80th. Key light is an umbrella held just out of frame camera right at about 3/4 power with fill light provided by an orbis ring-flash set at just under full power. Although the ring flash was set at a higher power, the orbis eats up a good amount of light and because it was so much further away from the subject it is effectively much less powerful than the key light, just strong enough to open up the shadows.

So many people say to buy an apple...

Debbie and I went down to Charlottesville, VA for our Anniversary last month and it was apple picking season. It was great being able to just use my camera without the over lurking fear of giving a client a screwed up product...of course I'm not sure if that's worse then giving my wife a screwed up product. More in another post about the place we stayed, this one is all about the apples.


I knew I wanted to grab a picture of Debbie, and although it wasn't completely planned to do a multi-framed image, I new that her nack for goofy expressions would come in handy. She has since given up on not getting her picture taken and has learned to just live with it as she knows I'm never going to make her look bad (not that I could if I tried).

I had a manfrotto 682B mono-pod with me that afternoon that I got used off of ebay. It's a little large for my taste, but it has little legs that come out the bottom if unscrewed so it can double as portable light stand when needed, although I wouldn't trust my kit on it without me very close. To this I screwed a justin clamp (the if I can only take one thing with me doo-dad) and put a lumiquest SBIII on the flash head and gelled it with a small amount of CTO, you can see this WB effect based on the blue shadow on her shadow side cheek.

I brought the whole thing in real close just out of the frame to the left. The lighting wasn't incredibly consistent with a few hot spots here and there. My excuses include: the wind blowing, the people we were holding up, and a lot of apples to hold, so I had to work quick. But in reality, I probably only notice them in comparison to each other. You can tell the effect of the flash based on the one in the middle which was shot sans flash continuous shooting to ensure I caught the right amount of apples in the air....again...there's only so many times you can get Debbie to pick up that many apples.

A couple ambient only shots:

Use of Natural and Continuous Light Sources Back in Prison

Another set from the trip to ESP I spoke of before.  This set features Danielle Guldin who did a great job it putting herself into whatever zone happened to be there.  both of these scenes were taken in the same room which just goes to show what the color and shaping of lights can do.

This first one was all natural light.  Manual exposure; 42mm; ISO 640; f/2.8; 1/250th;
The only trick here is that I had someone hand hold a LumiQuest SoftBox III, not as a softbox, but as a reflector card just bringing the left side of her face out of the darkness.


These next two were done at approx. the same settings. Only here I added a continuous video light light source that was being held off to camera right. Photographing into a mirror is always difficult, but it made it worth having the reflection of the crusty light fixture from the ceiling. Two photos two completely different feels based on the model.

Going to Prison

Back in May I was at Eastern State Penitentiary, where Al Capone was once held, for a shoot. We were able to gain access to a few off-limit areas to get some really interested shots. These two are of Peter in the morning. I'll share a few more on another post.

Both of the images had a gridded speedlight on Peter's face coming from camera left. Gel'd with a full CTO (plus an extra 1/4 I think) and then then programmed for tungsten white balance. The window is acting as a natural rim light.

Too Cool for Comfort

Pat, an old ship-mate of mine, got a chance to get away from his "demanding" job at the Naval Academy to enjoy some relaxing time on the Chesapeake.  I took this rare opportunity to catch him with a nice two day shadow to help instill fear in some of his students.

 

Rare Family Moments

Now that we live across the country from most of Debbie's family, there are rare moments when they can see each other, so a picture was a great opportunity.  Plus you can't get sunsets over the beach in DC.

I brought a small umbrella down the beach, gelled it warm to camera right and used some make-shift sandbags (there was enough sand to go around) to keep it in place as the wind blows.