Digital Apple Juice

For sometime now I have been meaning to talk about a website that is a must for all photographers to have bookmarked. Digital Apple Juice is in part the brain child of Dr. Michael Roach along with a few of his former students. Dr. Roach without question used to be one of the top five photography instructors in the U.S. I'm not bragging, the accomplishments, awards and photography of many of his former students will back that claim up. A few years back he retired from Stephen F. Austin University after enduring decades of daily wars that probably made his multiple   Vietnam War tours seem like a picnic eating pieces of cake before a Sunday stroll. Now the world can gleam from this mans brilliance along with the team he has recruited. No offense to Scott Kelby, but just Dr Roaches basic tutorials on Photoshop blows away anything I have seen at Kelby Training or anywhere else for that matter.

If you need to know anything about Macs, I suggest you just go ahead and start here, because if you don't, chances are you will end up here. Pretty much anything Apple or digital Imaging related can be found there. I now consider Digital Apple Juice pretty much my online photographic Swiss Army Knife.

One last thought and then I'll give you the URL. Be sure to check out Robbie Lacombs article on Composite Art. If you have not seen her work, you are missing out on one of the best Photo Composite Artist in the world! I kid you not, some of her composites just turn me into a zombie. I can and have sat and looked at just one of her photos for an hour admiring it in part and trying to figure out what all the elements are...and I'm really good at finding Waldo! Ok here is the url...http://digitalapplejuice.com/ GO!

Lighting with FourSquare

Every year I attend the Southwestern Photojournalism Conference in Ft. Worth, Texas. Every year this conference recharges my batteries and inspires me. This years conference was incredible and will be the subject of a future writing. Today, I want to touch on last years conference when one of my all time favorite photographers spoke, Dave Black. Not only is the man an amazing photographer, he is a wonderful person with some pretty good wisdom. I'm hoping soon to write about Dave in this blog with his permission. Stay tuned for that.

Last year Dave introduced everyone to a cool little item called the Four Square. This little tool is very cool and a must have for those of you who like lighting with hand flashes. I traded my masses of Dynalights and packs in for Nikon Smartflashes a few years ago and never looked back. What FourSquare does is hold four flashes which is great for increasing your lighting output. Which comes in handy when shooting in the bright of the day. here's a link and few more shots using this wonderful tool. Oh yeah, I don't work or represent this company or gain anything for bragging it up. I just love well thought out and useful photographic tools. I rank this one up there with the Bogen's Magic Arm! Here's the link...http://www.lightwaredirect.com/ ...and a few more photos...

 

Just for the record, you can learn how to shoot using these lighting packages in my Masters of Light Workshop and the Art of Telling Stories Workshop at  http://www.texasphotoworkshops.com

PERSONAL PROJECTS

I'm a big believer in personal projects for photographers. The main reason for this is it keeps the creative juices flowing. Many of my personal projects have also turned into actual assignments. For example, I just found out a Magazine called Christianity Today wants to buy my photos for a story they are doing on refugees in the U.S. This has been a project I've been shooting on for about three years now.

Here's what I do starting a project. First I must have a personal interest in the subject. Regardless of how popular the subject might be, if my heart is not in it, then neither will my commitment to do what it takes to complete the project. That way, you will be shooting for yourself and not others. Whatever you like, go for it.

Like all communication, the more you can address the who, what, when, why and where questions, the better. So, as you prepare for starting to shoot, think about how to visually communicate the message of the story.

If your project is about some natural beauty like mountains, then you may want to first decide which mountains you want to shoot and from what angle. I like to shoot subjects many others have done before me in ways few before me have done. Most mountains are shot in clear sky conditions. So, first I'll wait for a day with clouds that will give me some dramatic sky structure. Then I decide the time of day. If most shoot at dawn, then I'll shoot at dusk. If most shoot at dusk, then I'll shoot at dawn, etc. In short shoot them in a unique and different way than others have.

If your project is about people or a person, then your approach will be different than when just collecting a series of beautiful shots. You will want to actually tell a story with photos. You'll want to shoot your subject loose and wide to show their surrounding environment. You'll also want to shoot closer to isolate your subject but still leave a sense of their environment. Finally you'll want to shoot your subject up close to provide details that reveal intimate info for the viewer.

All this takes time, but if you stick with it, you will in the end collect some great shots and continue to grow as a photographer. My workshop "The Art of Telling Stories" is a great workshop to take for learning and sharpening these skills. As an award winning former photo editor for Texas Highways Magazine, I'm just the person you want teaching you these skills. Here's a link in case your interested...http://www.texasphotoworkshops.com/node/222

TP&W Cover continued

I felt like it would benefit all if I also posted here many of the photos submitted for the request so you can see what kind of variety was sent. Along with the cover, the magazine also selected another version of the photo used as a full page photo inside the story. For this photo, I shot with the white balance set for daylight and used a warming gel on the flashes. However, I positioned the one light at about the 340 degree mark. The photo had a completely different look, even though it was basically the same shot published for the cover. This is one reason why I usually always change my lighting package up when shooting assignments. It many times will lead to more sales. The magazine also used the cover for their online edition and in the end hundreds of dollars was sent to my mail box.

As I mentioned before, I teach this stuff in my workshop called Masters of Light, which is without question one of the best lighting workshops offered. Here is a link...http://www.texasphotoworkshops.com/node/212 I also teach many of my lighting techniques on our expeditions. The next one up is Glen Rose, Texas and it will be an amazing workshop. Here is a link to that one as well...http://www.texasphotoworkshops.com/node/222

God be with you all!

Aprils "2 Minute Workshop"-Time Exposure Portraits

I have several very hard working interns and when I can I like to set up a photo shoot as a private workshop for them to say thanks for their hard work! So, recently we made arrangements with a carnival company to shoot on one of their Ferris wheels. Since my seventy something mom is the craziest actress I know, I asked her to be our model. As you can see, she came up with a great outfit and some scary make-up.

My favorite portrait lighting style is something I call Time Exposure Portraits. Basically, this is where we light our subjects using a moving background, usually with artificial commercial lighting and drag the shutter so the background exposure is properly exposed. In this case, we will use the Ferris wheels movement as our background. The Ferris wheel basket we had also had a center poll mounted roof. Perfect! This will be a great place for me to mount my Nikon SB-800’s set on remote from. Using a couple of Manfrotto Majic Arms with Super Clamps on one end and a flash shoe mount on the other, I hung my lights on each side of the basket. They were placed slightly in front of my subject, pointing at her and locked down with diffusers.

I waited until dusk to start shooting and we shot through dusk to complete darkness. Since the lights were so close to the subject, we only needed about 25% power. Using the SU 800 Commander on my camera, I dialed down the flashes. I was also shooting with a Nikon D2x and a 17-35mm 2.8 zoom. The iso was set at 100. My f stop was F11 and when we started, the shutter was dragging at 1/10 of a sec and at complete darkness the shutter drag ended up at 4 seconds. Oh yeah, one last thing…I had the shutter set to go off at the end of the shutter, which is called a rear curtain sync. This means the shutter opened first and at the very end, just before the shutter closed, the flashed triggered. I also hand held the camera.

One little backend story… When I recruited my mom for the shoot, I had only told her we would be shooting at a carnival. When we got in the Ferris wheel basket for the first time, I could tell she was upset with me. Since there were interns with use, she was quiet, but her eyes said “Your Dead when I get through with you”. I think we all have moms with that look. When the operated cranked up the wheel and we jerked to a roll, my moms eyes almost popped out of her head and she screamed in complete terror. She then explained to us she had a sever fear of heights and had never been on a Ferris wheel before. So, the fear looks are not all acting on her part. As you can see, the shoot was a huge success and we all got some very funny photos…at my moms expense! Thanks Mom, now I know you really do love me. I’ll make it up to you on Mothers Day. I have a sky diving shoot I’d like to use you on:) Don't forget to checkout my workshops at www.texasphotoworkshops.com...Maybe we can use your mom on a workshop shoot.

http://www.manfrotto.com/
http://www.nikonusa.com/
http://www.thomascarnival.com/
http://www.kevinv.com/

Two Minute Lighting Workshop #2

In the not to distant past, I taught what is my favorite workshop to teach, "Masters Of Light". I won’t make some cheap pitch here for the workshop, but here is the url to my workshops in case your interested… www.texasphotoworkshops.com. I wanted to teach my students how to think wildly out of the box. My neighbor is Willie Nelson’s Golf Pro and he looks like he could be wild, but in fact he is gentle as they come. Well, unless you really piss him off and from what I’ve seen that is pretty hard to do. Anyway, I recruited Jeff to be our “Bad Ass Harley Model”. However, rather than shoot the typical location static portrait, I wanted my students to learn how to shoot action portraits using remote lighting. First I demonstrated the shoot with my Nikon D2X (yes, I’m a bit behind on updating my equipment. It’s called having too many children in college at the same time:). I also used the Nikon SB800’s. I mounted my camera on the back gate of my SUV using a Bogan majic arm. The Nikon master SB800 was attached to my camera's hot shoe, but the flash itself was in the off mode. I also attached another SB800 to the frame of the Harley using a Bogan Super Clamp. I've also connected the camera to my computer so I could control everything remotely from the front seat. I’ve left the flash in the shot so everyone can see its placement. For publication, I've photoshoped it out. From here, we took off and cruised 6^th street in Austin, Texas. Jeff followed with his cig hanging from his lips. Oh yes, I also dragged the shutter for one second. Dragging means to set the flash to trigger at the end of the shutter setting and in this case it was one second. My aperture was around F 8 and the iso was set at 100. My zoom was set at 24mm. As we cruised, sometimes we would hit small bumps and the camera would bounce a little, adding to the unique wild look of the photo. Now that’s how you shoot a “wow” portrait. Again, this is my favorite class to teach.

Story Behind The Photo #2

Years ago I shot a story on "Babies born addicted to crack". It was a very rough assignment and life changing for me. In the photo above this mother was brokenhearted her babies death sentence because of her addictions. Normally, I try to stay out of the story, but when I get nudged by God to try and comfort her, I obey. I had the shot and knew it, so I put my cameras away and began to tell her she could be forgiven. She was absolutely convinced she was going to Hell. I always keep a bible in my camera bag, so I pulled it out and spent an hour going through multiple scriptures about Jesus Christ's love for her. I knew of a church service in that town that night, so I loaded her and her family up and took them to the service. Only God would know that he had brought a preacher from New Zealand who preached on prostitution and drug use. It was tailor made for this family. After the service she and her baby received prayer and she gave her life to Christ and asked for His forgiveness. I wish all my assignments where like this!

WHATS WRONG WITH THIS PICTURE?

When I was growing up, most people kept their opinions to themselves unless asked. It was just polite. Today, people vomit opinions constantly...behind others backs. To their face its always niceties. Before, when you did ask for some ones opinion, you got it...the truth, good or bad. Today, it's all about BFF (for you older folks, thats Best Friends Forever). How can we grow when people only say the bad things behind your back instead of to your face. Personally, I'm looking for true opinions. The more detail, the better. So, I'm asking for your opinion! What's wrong with this picture?