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Archive of ‘Technology’ category

Personal, Photography, Technology | 0 comment

Shooting From the Hip – Tech Thursday

Family Get Together

It has been about a week since my last posting – I have not fallen off the face of the Earth! We took an extended weekend to attend a wedding out of town. Of course, I took my camera with me. Now I have a whole slew of images that will make it on the blog soon. Today, though, I want to go back to a family get together to describe a looser, or a freer way of shooting to get a different style of images.

Playing-with-Waterguns-©TimeLine-Media
Playing-with-Waterguns-©TimeLine-Media

This late afternoon was very warm outside. What better way to cool off, than to play with some water guns? The ammo is unlimited, and everyone is a friendly target! This was a perfect time to try a specific technique for photographing kids that I have seen a few times but have not tried myself. First thing to consider – my professional camera bodies are weather-sealed at all of the openings. The connection between the lens and the lens mount is covered by a piece of rubber. This will keep the opening sealed for light water exposure. I have photographed with this camera and lens combination in the rain while covering a football game with no problems. I keep a towel handy, and would stop if there is a chance that much more water will be close.

Side Holstering

Playing-with-Waterguns-©TimeLine-Media
Playing-with-Waterguns-©TimeLine-Media

Knowing that I my camera could stand the water from the guns, I set the camera to a manual exposure so that the settings would not have to change as I fired off frames, and I had the shutter speed set high enough to ensure there would not be blurred photos while running. I had my nephew chase me and shoot at me with his water gun while I ran backwards with my camera pointing towards him. It was easy to get some neat shots of the water coming right towards the camera!

Playing-with-Waterguns-©TimeLine-Media
Playing-with-Waterguns-©TimeLine-Media

Be prepared to delete a lot of photos when you shoot this way. Lots of times, the composition was not perfect, and sometimes I would miss him completely, but so many of these came out nice. I do not think I could have composed these spontaneous images with my head behind the camera, and directing the scene. Sometimes, you have to just let that control go, and hope for the best. It’s just like having fun – you cannot plan every detail, but you may have better results than you planned!

Playing-with-Waterguns-©TimeLine-Media
Playing-with-Waterguns-©TimeLine-Media

TimeLine Media – www.timelinedc.com
703-864-8208

Event, Photography, Portrait, Technology | 0 comment

Updating Headshots – Tech Tuesday

College Park, Maryland

Last week, I was booked for an assignment for updating headshots on location. This is yet another different kind of photography project that has its own challenges compared to the events I have been covering lately. In one sense, I had a lot of time to setup for this shoot arriving early at the location, with plenty of time to situate myself before anyone had arrived. You can make a portrait lighting setup as simple or as complicated as you want, but this was a very special event, so I brought out all the big guns. I setup the on-site studio with 4 monolight flashes. If you were following me on Twitter or Instagram, I sent out photos after I had set everything up.

Headshot portrait setup for updating headshots - ©TimeLine Media
Headshot portrait setup – ©TimeLine Media

This setup made it very easy to make headshots for everyone quickly which was the goal. The organizers were expecting 300 attendees, so I did not want to have a line of people that did not have the opportunity to get a photo at the end of the night. Having lots of lights setup correctly before the first photo was taken was essential to making as many photos happen as possible. Having a dedicated light meter on hand to measure the output from the flashes ensured that everything was setup right where it needed to be – from the placement of the posing chair, to the kicker light that would separate the subjects from the background.

Mobile Lighting Setup

Using a hand-held meter really reduced the amount of “test shots” I needed to make with the camera. When I took the first shot after metering everything manually, the lights were ready to go! I was so happy with the setup, and I hope that the people that came in for their new portraits like the results. Thanks to the University of Maryland University College Alumni Association for having me provide this service for them. I had a great time with their recent graduates, and made some awesome photos of them! If you need updated head shot portraits for commercial work or social networking, please let me know. I had a great time making these portraits, and would love to make more for you if you need. Tell me – would you trust this man to make your portrait? 🙂

Updating Headshots portrait setup for self portrait - ©TimeLine Media
Headshot portrait setup for self portrait – ©TimeLine Media

TimeLine Media – www.timelinedc.com
703-864-8208

Photography, Portrait, Technology | 0 comment

Light Modifier Reflections – Tech Thursday

Musician Portraits

I have been doing a lot of great portraits lately! Luckily for me, the people that have been in front of the lens have been great subjects. It seems like it would be easier to have a person giving you all the attention for the photograph. Compared to event or dance photos where it is more up to me to catch a great image. Making portraits is a different challenge. It is a true collaboration with your subject that needs input from the photographer to make it happen.

Portrait with Nikon D4, SB-910, Westcott Rapid Box - ©TimeLine Media
Portrait with Nikon D4, SB-910, Westcott Rapid Box light modifier – ©TimeLine Media

Studio Portrait

This setup on a black background was at the suggestion of the subject. The easiest way to have the most control over the light is to use a strobe to light a subject with the dark material as a backdrop. For this, I used a Nikon Speedlight firing through a Westcott Rapid Box Octa. The flash was triggered with the FlexTT5 from PocketWizard. The great thing about these triggers is that they use the TTL ability built into the Nikon camera body. Thus the computer in the flash will set the power. This is different from shooting with moonlight strobes that I typically use as those are set manually. But for this, the TTL worked very well as I setup the flashes, so I kept using them so that we could change backgrounds, and setups quickly as needed.

Portrait with Nikon D4, SB-910, Westcott Rapid Box - ©TimeLine Media
Portrait with Nikon D4, SB-910, Westcott Rapid Box light modifier – ©TimeLine Media

When photographing people with clear eyeglasses, it is not typical that you would want to have the light reflected from the glass. With sunglasses, and the kind of photos we were making here, the reflection actually turned out to be a nice element to the face!

Portrait with Nikon D4, SB-910, Westcott Rapid Box - ©TimeLine Media
Portrait with Nikon D4, SB-910, Westcott Rapid Box – ©TimeLine Media

I did make images that also did not have the reflection so that the subject would have options. In case the later use of these images would not work with the octagonal light reflection, we had both in the can. My favorite, was when he just moved the glasses above his eyes so we could see underneath – this was the best of the session in my opinion.

Portrait with Nikon D4, SB-910, Westcott Rapid Box - ©TimeLine Media
Portrait with Nikon D4, SB-910, Westcott Rapid Box – ©TimeLine Media

TimeLine Media – www.timelinedc.com
703-864-8208

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