Wedding Photography - Outdoor Strobe Flash

I'm home and tiiiiired! I shot a wedding most of the day with Dave assisting me. We got home and went through all of the shots and there were so many awesome ones! We were excited about the images and also about some new lighting setups that we created along the way. (Thanks for the help Dave!)

Equipment
I often get looked down upon by other wedding photographers due to the equipment I bring along. I apparently bring too much, but I can carry it all by myself at once, so I don't believe it's too much. And, when a shot (posted here) can be created with equipment that I can carry myself, I have a hard time seeing how it's not worth it.

I used one strobe with a grid to get the vignetting. I used portable power to power the strobe. I metered to capture the clouds how they were.

I often get asked by photographers "how do you have enough time to set this stuff up?!" Simple, first I plan ahead, weeks before the wedding, a time to focus on such shots. Second, I learned how to meter quickly. Third, I work better under pressure. Fourth, I keep my clients informed during the shoot precisely what I am doing and how long it will take. (That makes the pressure of time much less for me and them.)

This took about 8 minutes to hook up the light, meter, pose, and shoot. There were many other shots, this was only my favorite out of the bunch.

Post Production
I used raw tools to saturate the color and change the greenery to a more rust-like color. (clients request) I also pushed the vignetting a little further (on the bridge wood) than my strobe/grid had done. It did a fine job on her dress though.

New childrens book on digital retouching!

I have been extremely busy retouching and thought "isn't there a machine that could do this work for me?!" Then, I thought of Paul Bunyon. Then, I thought "maybe I could write and sell a childrens book! Here is the idea:

Animated adaptations about two legendary folk heroes. "The Legend of Joshua Bunyon" relates the adventures of the mighty retoucher, a man who, as legend has it, could stand in Illinois and cast a shadow all the way across Missouri to Kansas. "The Legend of John Henry" is the story of the greatest computer-programmer of all time. Joshua takes the challenge of retouching faster and cleaner than computer retouching software can, in an test of man against code.
[original here]


The lady posted today is Angel. She left me quite a positive comment on a photography website the other day and I wanted to share.

""Josh is a AMAZiNG PHOTOGRAPHER 2 Work with! One of my favorites!!!!
Just thought I would let everyone know that! And, once again thanks 4 the new images!!!
YOU FREAkiN ROCK!!!!****
Can't wait to work together again=)
Angelleigh""

...amazing AND freaking rock. Sweet!

Photography Inspiration

Today I was thinking "what inspires people to shoot certain things?" Sometimes photographers will copy something they have already seen. Or, capture it in a slightly different way. Some simply guess and hope for the best. Others draw up every detail and create what was in their mind.

Although I have a folder on my computer that is also on synced to my PMP of images of other photographers that I really like, I have not once went to shoot and looked at them. I have ideas in my mind, but they are always foggy at best. Usually a generalization of an idea. I like this and it works for me. I believe it's because I have a small foundation for what I want to shoot, but I don't tie myself down with too many details for during the shoot things can move more naturally.

Just about every shoot I have done in the past few years feels very winged. I try and make the best with whatever situation, equipment, clothing, and weather was available at that time.

I'm slowly getting better at looking around and seeing what would and wouldn't look great in an image. I'd imagine most things could look great in an image if it were captured in some interesting eye-catching way.

I think it would be fun to get a few photographers together and all shoot the same scene, like this old loading dock in the image above, and see how each person interprets it. Of course the other photographers couldn't watch what the others are doing because that would alter the natural creativity of each person during their time to shoot.

In the end everyone could compare and discuss their ideas during their shoot and what it looks like in the end. I believe this could quickly open doors for everyone into thinking about capturing/creating images in a different way.

Then, everyone go re-shoot the same scene together and see what comes of it. I don't have time for any of this, but it seemed like a great idea. If you do it, e-mail me results and I will blog it! :D

Why focusing and recomposing is a not-so-great habit in photography.

(Any image in this post that is hard to see...click on it. It will load a full resolution version that you can see much better.)

I see this done often and I still do it myself from time to time. When one tilts their camera upwards to focus on the eyes of the model then tilts the camera back down to compose the image. Seems harmless, and it may be harmless if you are shooting at f/8'ish to f/16 or more.

(remember shooting at apertures of around f/8 - f/16 and more results in a wide depth of field whereas shooting from f/5.6 - f/1.8 results in a shallow depth of field...click here for a visual example)

Now let's take a look at what happens if we are shooting between f/1.8 to f/5.6'ish.




















Imagine holding the camera in this diagram that I spent 20 minutes drew up real quick for reference. We point the camera up to the eyes of our subject, which are 6 feet away. Perfect, the eyes are in focus. Since we are shooting in open apertures, lets say for this example, f/2.8, we have the eyes in focus and about 2 or 3 inches on each side of the orange line going through our subject is in focus. Beyond those few inches things are out of focus. Now, let's keep that focus point and tilt our camera down for our three quarter shot.
























Now that we have tilted our camera, notice where the orange line of focus on our subject has moved to. It's not focused on the eyes anymore. Now our focus has moved several inches behind the eyes. Remember those few inches we had? Now the eyes are out of focus.



In the image of Tiffany above I did this very thing. Here is a close up of the focusing for you can see this error in action. CLICK on this image to load a bigger/clearer version!

The collective ideas of several are better than yours alone...sometimes.

I have talked with Tiffany for several months now and we finally got to meet up and shoot. Just like any first shoot things start off with typical cookie cutter type of shooting and then eases into an artistic blend of every one's ideas and expressions. This first shot I took about 15 shots and never felt like I totally got the pose right. I showed Tiffany the shot and she said "oh yes! it would look better if I moved this leg here." See, Tiffany saw what I was trying to do with this shot, picked up my slack saw my vision, and then added her valuable input to make it better than if I had done it solely on my own. Good work Tif!

In post I did some special steps for the feel of this image would be custom. I shot this using 4 stop bracketing and a tripod. Next I made two different HDR's and mixed the properties of those two HDR images. I then painted back in some parts from one of the original images. Last I did the typical retouching that most images receive. A lot of work, but not so bad with a new computer. I simply wanted to try something new.

Fire Spinning

I was shooting an event downtown on the Peoria Riverfront a few weeks back and became fairly excited when the fire spinners came out. They came out when the sky was dark and the fire lit up the face of the person spinning. This little guy came out and was like a miniature crazy ninja on steroids with spinning chains of fire. It was totally awesome!!!

In a few months I will hopefully still have the honor of shooting the promo images for this group who spins fire. I'm definitely looking forward to shooting it! And, I already have a plan for it will not be the usual shutter-drag-fire-drawing-in-the-sky type of thing. Look for this later this year, September'ish.

On the beach, 50's style!

I had the honor of working with Zairia from the St. Louis area recently on a pin up shoot. It was a really great time shooting. The models had the looks and great attitudes! All of them did a great job! The image posted here is of Sandra. It took her and I about 5 seconds before realizing that we worked together perfectly as photographer and model. Everything came easy. That doesn't happen all the time or even often.

I used one strobe with a 48 inch umbrella to camera left, up near the height of the models forehead, and slightly pointed down. I used warming filters/gels on the strobe to enable me to get a warm skin tone and pull the kelvin down on the camera to achieve the blue water. I spent only a few minutes in post. Wallah!

Live Music

One of my most loved subjects to shoot is live music. I definitely don't shoot it enough. In fact, I shoot any and everything else more than live music. Why you ask? Because, I'm an idiot. Actually, I only haven't found a way to make it as profitable as I would want it to be, so I stick with other genera of photography that allows me to put gas in my car and eat. I have been getting little sleep, shooting a bunch, and retouching even more. Stick around, I have many images to post! :D

Outdoor Wedding Photography

Since I shoot weddings solo it was a ton of work shooting two in one week. So many files and post production to work on!

It wasn't too difficult to shoot the first wedding when the two getting married both model and are friends of yours. Makes things a tad bit easier! Kris and Ty (in the image posted) chose this area to shoot in which I have never been to before. I brought with me portable power and two strobes.

I needed both strobes on almost full power to balance out the sunlight in the background. It was really REALLY bright out that day! I used my camera and light meter to get exposures correct buuuut my light meters battery is dying and it's readings are not accurate. So, I had to squint to see my histogram and used my instincts.

To my surprise the exposures came out excellent! All I needed to do was bump the color warmer and clean up some junk on the ground.

Congratulation Kris & Ty on your marriage! You two totally rock!

Canon 20D
1/125 @ f/10

Photography Workshop - Hit The Lodge

The most profitable photography workshop I have attended is one that doesn't have rows of tables trying to sell me items. It isn't held in a huge hotel conference room with hundreds of people where you feel alone in a crowd. It doesn't even require you to have a fancy wrist band to get around the area. If you have not heard of such a workshop it's named "Hit The Lodge" and is only one amazing workshop out of many put on each year by Supershoots.

Here are some things you will be able to learn about at the Hit The Lodge event this year!

• Learn techniques in Fashion, Glamour, Commercial, Beauty,
  Photojournalism, Portraits, Fine Art Figure, and Swimwear.
• Outstanding instructors and mentors who are there to help you.
• Learn different lighting styles in Studio and on Natural Light
• Photograph beautiful models prepped with professional make up artistry!
• Enhance your portfolio, galleries, window display and self promotion pieces
• NEW for 2009 - Fine art figure seminars with dK

and...

• Light Room, Adobe Photoshop, and Retouching Seminars taught by...ME!

Yes, come see me teach on post production retouching techniques using Lightroom and Photoshop. It will be a great time to ask anything you are curious about with this software!

The duration of this event is 5 days. Plenty of time to fill the brain with all of the information you are looking for! The dates of the event is June 11-15 and is located in Pike County, Illinois.

If you can not make this event there are plenty of other events this year. Come to Supershoots.net (instead of .com) to be apart of the Supershoots community. Post images to your portfolio, post to the forum, write other users, take a walk on the runway. Come see what the hype is about! And, if you create an account, don't forget to add me and say hello! My portfolio is here!

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Read a post I made about last years Hit The Lodge event here.

Stimulating Creativity

I was recently reading a models portfolio (I enjoy the articles too.) on a web site and came across this...

"I don't want to take photos that excite people sexually, but stimulate them creatively."

I realized that this is the same thought I have when creating my images.

It's difficult to determine what sexually excites from one person to another. So, there is leeway in what is and is not sexual.

Each photographer has their own way of expressing what makes them feel excited. (Same with models.) Whether it's a sexual excitement or not. Some like faces and shoot amazing head shots, some like full bodies and shoot Playboy-like, some like props, others leather, some rope, some clothing and others makeup. It can also be of technical things like lighting, color tone, or composition. Different things excite different people.

When shooting I'm always looking some something that displays the model as epic. Even if there are two amazing females in an image (like above) I'm looking not for a sexual reaction, but the reaction of a not so sexual "wow!" due to the style, lighting, posing, scenery and processing.

The above is Kaila and Kris in Las Vegas. Shoot in 2007.

Image Manipulation and its Effects

In the past few years there has been much hype in the subject of images being manipulated to show something that is not. From false global perceptions on war to personal self image. Image manipulation causes a false ripple in the minds of all who see.

Here are a few examples of exposed image retouching in the mass media.

2006
This subject hit pretty hard in 2006 when Dove released their video showing a model from a just-waking-up-look to the final image used in an advertisement. This video can been seen here.

2006
It's bad enough that images are manipulated so poorly, but adding cloned smoke clouds over a city to make it appear in worse condition that it really was. Wow, really? As if blowing up a city isn't bad enough we have to manipulate it to look even worse.

2008
An article was ran around the world displaying an image of four SAM's being shot into the air. The image was release first by Sepah News, the media arm of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard. Here is a clear cut manipulation of the image used. And, it's not the only thing they manipulated poorly.

2008
Sometimes manipulations attack a certain person(s) or business. In this case Fox and Friends news program decided to post some 'doctored' images of a few New York Times reporters for an article they wrote that wasn't in favor of Fox and Friends...well, friends. This manipulation game went back and forth. Childish, but still manipulated.

2009
Ad's in a Berlin subway get ad busted with Adobe Photoshop palette stickers. This is most interesting for printing all of these large stickers cost money. These are some fairly serious ad busters here!


• On a lighter note, to see the most in the world of image manipulation head on over to www.worth1000.com and flip though some of the contests like levitations or hair do nots. (where you can see Obama with a Mr. T hair do!)

• Photoshop Disasters Blog is also a great place to see current manipulated chop.

The above is Terrace.
Shot in a Nevada dry lake bed in 2008.
Don't be manipulated by the things in this image! ;D

Camera Firmware

I'm working on a children's book. This is the opening line...

"Once upon a time, camera's didn't have computer chips inside..."

*the kiddies eyes get really BIG*

"REEEEEALLY?!"

Okay, I'm not really working on a children's book. But, our cameras are now small computers with a shutter and lens. No longer just a regular dumb old donkey camera.

Our camera's are controlled by its Firmware. This is the code inside the camera that sets the rules of what the camera can do and how to do it.

After some time a new camera is released, a firmware upgrade will pop up. Sometimes the upgrade will fix color issues on the screen or maybe when you purchased your camera it didn't support high-capacity CF cards. That doesn't mean it CAN'T. It only means the firmware is not written to support such a card.

(For instance, with the Canon 5d you can upgrade the firmware to allow it to use high-capacity CF cards when it originally did not.)

Here are links to upgrade your firmware. Each camera model firmware corrects and/or changes different functions of that camera. It may be that some firmware updates are updates which are totally useless to you. Others may be very useful.

::READ ALL INSTRUCTIONS FIRST::
CANON
NIKON
MAMIYA
OLYMPUS


The above image is Maria looking awesome as usual! But, this time in front of an awesome car, which makes this image double awesome! Shot with one unmodified strobe to camera right.

Updating and upgrading your photographic knowledge for 2009

If you are like me there is a list in your mind of things you want to learn or try with photography. Doesn't it seem as if there is always something that gets in the way of learning those new things?

Well, it's a new year and it's time to move forward in our photography thinking!

For some it might be as easy as finding the information that you need to execute a new photographic tool. For others there may not even be a list yet for you don't know what to learn. There certainly seems to be a whole lot to learn! Don't allow that thought/feeling to overwhelm you. Start small!

If you don't know what to learn I would suggest learning everything about your camera first. It's the central device that will be apart of every photo shoot you will ever do. You could learn about external flashes, but you don't always need those for a shoot, but you will always need your camera.

Read the manual, find something you don't know about and make use of it. I still read my manual for my camera and flash from time to time to refresh and apply tools that I haven't used before. Take it with you when you do laundry or to the DMV, it's usually a gurantee you will be waiting there for awhile!

The image above is of Ty. Since there was one prop nearby and I didn't want to use it as it's typically used I had Ty hold it to the side. He rocked this shot in only four frames!

Shooting with Vision

While having a conversation with friend and studio owner Jeremy Sparling from imagei we came to the same conclusion of how we create our favorite images.

Our conclusion was that there has to be something to inspire us. Something to create a vision in our minds before we can fully jump into a shoot and create what we want. It's hard to shoot when you can' t feel what you are shooting. You have to have a vision that will drive how you will shoot that next image. Without vision you get that feeling...

You know, that feeling you get when behind your camera and you have no idea what to do. You start to look around for no reason and play with camera buttons and say things like "uuuuuuhhhhhh" ...and nothing else.

VISION is the key to warding off that above awkwardness! How do you obtain vision? PRACTICE!

The image above is Laura. It was shot during this years Peoria Supershoots event. There were 4 big studio setups next to each other. I was two sets away when I looked over and instantly had a vision. Even though the lights were white and the background was brown, I saw BLUE all the way!

Critiquing Images

Have you ever analyzed what goes through your mind when critiquing an image?

This post could be a bit on the psychological side, but it's important to know why we think what we think, for if we know what our viewers (target audience/client) are thinking certainly that helps in knowing what to shoot to obtain the best images possible.

Critique's can change depending on if you were asked to critique an image or if you were doing it out of your own will. It seems to also depend on who's work is being critiqued. It could be a stranger, a friend, or someones work you admire or that you don't. Such things will change how we process an image in our minds.

The first thing I notice when viewing an image is lines, shape, and color. Next are angles, depth/DoF, and contrast.

From those six components, that only take a split second to analyze, mostly subconsciously, I form a feeling about the image as a whole.

From the above process I then start to critique certain aspects of the image. Example, a certain shape or color rubs me wrong and then I begin my critique of what would make the image feel better to me.

Similar to 2 posts ago, it's about the feel of an image. Find the right feel and you have found yourself the right image.

Corvette!

(click for larger version)

This past mothers day my father decided to sell his Avalanche truck for he could purchase my mother a Corvette. She drove around that mothers day giving people rides with a huge smile on her face. It was awesome! So, now it's September and we decided to take the Vette out to some country roads and do a shoot. We choose to shoot in the morning where the sky and ground would have some feeling. After we shot I decided I wanted to try the same sort of shoot with sundown to compare the differences on sunup/sundown. Hopefully we get to that next week and I will make a post of the differences.

The shoot went something like this. I shoot three shots, CAR COMING!, dad runs to move car, me and mom run to the side of the road, car passes, dad reparks the car and while he gets out I'm posing mom, shoot three more shots, do it all over. I only have this shot out of post so far. I'll get to the rest next week.

Shot with:
Canon 20D
Vivitar 285HV Flash

Digital Workflow

I get many e-mails about digital work flow. Some e-mails are asking me to give a work flow for they can get started, others ask for an evaluation to see if something can be done better.

I'm not sure if anyone noticed, but my work flow evolves and changes over time and my work flow doesn't work for everyone else. Nor can it. But, it's not a bad idea to listen to other's work flow. You can always find a gem.

There is not any one way a work flow can be done to suit everyone. There are too many variables that make each person’s work flow a little bit different than the next persons. Also, a work flow isn't set in stone. Because of variables the work flow system evolves. What variables you might ask? Here is a list to get you started:

• file sizes
• file types
• color spaces
• for print or for web, or both
• average frames per-shoot
• how often do you have sessions
• computer speed
• JPG (please no!) or RAW?
• Converting to DGN?
• storage capabilities
• seasonal or full time shooter
• time it takes to retouch
• what level of retouching needs to be done
• single user or multiple users
• MAC or Windows or Linux
• what software is being used
• work in one location, or many
• how many files do the customer see compared to how many you shoot
• how quick do the clients need to see their images

As you can see there is a lot that can make a work flow different and a lot that can make it change. Over the years I have come to realize the quantity of images is a good place to start on work flow. Most shooters that shoot 500-1000+ images per shoot will have a similar work flow. Not the same, but similar. Those shooters only shooting 60 images a session won't have to have such an extensive work flow. Also, depending on if you are a jpeg (shame on you!) or raw shooter, your work flow will be different.

Speaking of raw shooting, did you know that if you are in JPG mode your camera is still shooting a raw file then converting it to a JPG? Why waste that time and battery power in file converting inside the camera?! Why waste 4 to 6 bits per pixel of data when it's going to capture it anyhow?!

Above is Roberta. She always has a killer swimsuit to show off. This is the only shot I took of her on the beach, my camera broke immediately afterward. It's currently on its way to the company for repair.

Comment if you have work flow questions.