Marine Barracks (2) - small groups and candids

I wrote before about the Marine Barracks at 8th and I parade I covered last summer. And covering the General Petraeus event last week reminded me about some of the extra photos I wanted to share.

It's always interesting getting photos of reception attendees. Once in a while just as I interrupt whatever discussion is going on someone says something that gets everyone in a good mood. I know it couldn't have been me because I'm not that funny of person, but I do try and capture it properly.




Whenever I'm working events I usually don't have the ability, space, or time to set up off camera lights so I'm working with on camera TTL flash. Even when using off camera flash, I'll always use on camera TTL for at least some amount of fill. I set my camera to manual, setting my aperture to at least f/5 to ensure some depth of field with groups and set my ISO so that I can get a reasonable shutter. If I'm flash dominated I'll even go to 1/20 or longer depending on the situation. If not I'll set it at something reasonable to ensure I'm not blowing highlights. Then I'll only adjust my flash compensation depending on the situation.

Here's a standard "excuse me, may I trouble you of a picture". This is of Joe Mantegna who happened to also be in attendance.




It's also important to grab candids of participants interacting. It's very difficult to position yourself so that the back of heads don't distract. Remember because those back of the heads are usually closer to your flash, their heads will be brighter (inverse square law), to minimize this, I will try to angle my flash away from the closest head.



And finally, a podium shot of Lt. General Dunford who was the host for the evening and then serving as the Deputy Commandant for Plans, Policies and Operations, Headquarters, U.S. Marine corps, Washington, DC.

General Petraeus - Auditorium events

I provided coverage for a General Petraeus event last week which gives a great opportunity to discus my theory on auditorium events which, unless someone throws a shoe, are usually anything but exciting.

A lot of this depends on your freedom to move around the event, but luckily I usually get free reign and try not to abuse that privilege. It's always good to make friends with security ahead of time. I almost always position myself up close to one side where I can get an obligatory close up of one side.  Nothing fancy, nothing special, just safe, not even that well exposed.




While in the front I sneak into the back corner and grab a set-up shot.



Once I get a "couple" of frames of something nice and safe, it's time to get a few different perspectives as I make my way up and around the auditorium. I do my best to use external passageways so as not to disturb anything.




I try to stop in the balcony if I have time to give another perspective on my way to the other side.



And finally make sure to grab some up close shot of the other sides of the main event along with shots of some audience participants. This time because I know I already have useable material I can focus on getting things done a little better.









Nothing earth shattering or mind blowing, just some thoughts.

Capitol Dome - Directional Light

This is a shot from just after my photo session with Rody last week. This was taken around 4:15 where the sun is coming in from a nice direction creating individual shadow detail making for a a nice 3D effect. Shadows are just as important as light. Because of the slight cloud cover I also got some of the setting colors reflected nicely.

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.

Look what's behind you

Last Spring I woke up early one morning during cherry blossom blossoming week to try and catch a sunrise over the water. Low and behold the morning was dismal grey, I was able to grab a few shots I liked anyway. Just as I was about to pack up I turned around and saw all these really interesting trees that were mostly going ignored by the 1000 photographers out that morning.

Anand Grover Speaking - Podium speaker

I was covering a talk given by Anand Grover regarding his judicial battle to decriminalize homosexuality in India.

Both of these photos are shoot hand held available light. The first f/2.8, ISO 400, 200mm, 1/60s. I feel like 1/60th is usually fast enough in these situations to keep everything sharp except the a moving hand, that way you can see a slight bit of motion bringing some action to the picture.


This one ISO 500, f 2/8, 70mm, 1/50s, starting to push the limits of hand held without lens motion clur, but I can grab this sitting down and bracing, I kept the foreground dark to prevent blowing out the speaker.

Camera Bags - My Design

So as anyone who takes pictures will know, photographers are never satisfied with just one bag....I know I've gone through several before I even figured out what it is I wanted, and then it doesn't exist. Someone knowing my grief forwarded me on to a contest put on by Kata to design a custom bag and if you win they'll make it for you and give you a bunch of other stuff.

This is my stab at the design. I've never been able to find a day-to-day bag for going around the city or to small events with that's fashionable, not too bulky, and doesn't look like a camera bag. I usually go with random bags that I find, through a towel in the bottom and hope for the best. This is my take on solving the solution.

But I do need your vote (and hopefully 5 stars) to make it to the next stage.

Unfortunately you do need to register to vote. But if you don't have a throw away email address you should make one for these types of things and other things where you're worried about spam. Please note, you must register like you're going to submit a bag, you just don't have too. In exchange for your vote I offer you these steps to create a throw away filter in gmail:

a)go to settings
b)go to filters - > create new filter
c) in the "to" field type username+reg@gmail.com (so if my email was alex I'd type alex+reg@gmail.com)
d) "next step"
e)check "skip the inbox" and "apply the label" and create a new label titled "registrations"
d)"create filter"

Now when you use your email address use username+reg@gmail.com, the email sent to that address will skip your inbox and automatically be labeled, so if you need to see if you got something you can check it.

Thanks for your 5 stars!: http://www.kata-bags.com/kataDBC/root/showBag.asp?id=1077

and here's the design:

Stage Performance

This series is from a theatrical production from last spring. There was some miscommunication about what time the rehearsal was beginning so I took the opportunity to grab a few frames of the directors.

Many despise the distortion you can get from angling your camera with a wide angle lens, but as may have realized by many of my photos I choose to embrace it, using it to change the focus of an image or exaggerate certain features.......just don't stick any significant others on the edges.

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:

Health Care Forum - Manual Metering

Everyone's getting into the health care debate. Here I was covering a forum mediated by Wolf Blitzer, Including Sen. John Barrasso, M.D, E.J. Dionne Jr., Judy Feder, Charles Krauthammer, and Rep. Stephen Lynch.

In situations like these, when the light will be constant it's ALWAYS best to shoot in manual exposure (some people disagree on this topic - just my opinion).  Set your manual mode for correct exposure of their faces, then no matter how you're zooming around everything will be fixed (assuming you have a constant aperture lens).  Otherwise the size of the bright faces compared to relatively darker backgrounds will change, fooling your camera into thinking the amount of light has changed and therefore varying your exposure.  Here's a good article on the subject.

Water Dog

Besides being famous for living in the White House, Portuguese Water Dogs are also supposedly good in the water because of their webbed feet and ancient training to assist fisherman. Now we humans know all about this, but try telling that to a young pup who hasn't spent much time in the water.

The shoot was for the owner's boat (always need good pictures when selling a house, car, or boat....well if you ask me you need goo pictures for anything) but I'll put those pictures up in a different post. This one is Nimbus the Portuguese Water Dog living in in Mass.

Marine Parade, 8th and I, Barracks Row

I was hired by a military support organization (Spirit of America) That takes requests from American military personnel in Iraq, Afghanistan and Africa for goods that will help local people, improving relations and ultimately making our troops safer. Their founder was being honored at the Marine Barracks in Capitol Hill for one of their Friday night summer parades. It was quite difficult to capture the festivities for the guest of honor when given about a two square foot place to stand where there's a flag right in front of you (see pictures 3 and 5) and you can't move...but you do the best you can, as always. Those Marines put on a great show, and if you ever get a chance to get tickets I whole heartedly suggest you take the opportunity.

All of these were taken using ambient light. Even with ambient light being field lights and spotlights I was still pulling 1/60 at f/2.8 and 1000 ISO. If you're shooting Aperture priority (Av) , anytime dealing with a dark backdrop with the subject spot lit, you have to ride your EV (exposure compensation) usually dialing in anywhere from -1/3 to -1 stops to prevent blowing highlights on faces and over saturated red skin tones.

I'll post more from reception earlier in the the evening on a later post.

The Pieces Come Together

It's a rare moment when the pieces come together. I photograph a lot of people talking in drab classrooms, and I try very hard to make some of them interesting. This one involved a rare opportunity combining the speaking sitting on the desk, something written on the blackboard, a relevant poster hanging, and students sitting along the aisle to give a line leading to the speaker. I would have liked to have captured the speaker looking up at the students, but he jumped up right after this...

No flash. Shot at ISO 800, f/2.8, 1/200, at 120mm.

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.

Help the Homeless Walk

Just got back from the Fannie Mae Help the Homeless Walk. The hardest part after photographing an event is trying to pick out 3 or 4 pictures to share and try tell the story. But luckily as I have some editorial control over this, I can share 6 if I want and share some lighting and composition tidbits.





I couldn't believe how long it took me to find a man-hole cover next to the line!



I decided to try and shoot some stuff not on manual, when you're running with your subjects the lighting is constantly changing. So I shot the photo below in aperture priority and shut-down my aperture ) to f/18 until I could get my shutter speed within my sync speed (not messing with high speed sync today). I dialed in -2 stops of exposure compensation on the camera to get the sunny sky somewhat manageable and held the flash with my left hand on TTL connected with a TTL cord and dialed in +3 flash compensation to try and register something over the sun. I kind of wish there was a +5 on the flash for this shot! But I got pretty close.


I could treat this a little differently as the street performers cheering people on weren't exactly moving. Didn't have quite so much sun to deal with as I positioned myself so the sun was coming in from the right (look at the shadows) so I could also get a little more blue out of the sky. Back to manual exposure, and TTL flash (+something). Flash held down towards the ground and fired up.