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March 5, 2014

Family, Personal, Photography, Technology, Travel | 2 Comments

Tatay and his Camera

My dad and his Nikon at the Grand Canyon

From yesterday’s post, you can see I still like to get in front of the camera sometimes. My father was the family photographer. His Nikon was always around his neck, and he brought it on every special outing. Looking back, I am now much more interested in what he was shooting, what lens, what camera body, perhaps what film he was using. I’m thankful that my dad did not shy away from having his photo taken. It would have been a shame to have so many family photos, and not have many of him on film.

Family Vacation Photos

If you are the family photographer, be sure to get out in front of the lens! Spending all your time behind will no doubt make your photos better, but after so many years, family will want to see you in there too. Since my dad only had the big SLR camera, all of these were taken with other point and shoot cameras, or maybe disposables. With these subjects, it really does not matter how they were captured, I’m just enjoying looking back and the times that we took time as a family to visit places away from home, and spend time together.

Just writing this post, I thought of a new assignment for myself. With the evolution of Nikon cameras, they have decided to keep the lens mount the same. I should do a shoot with my modern cameras using only my dad’s old manual focus lenses. They still mount on my cameras, and maybe they will make some different images. Will I be able to tell the difference? I’ll give it a try – see if you notice the difference! Thanks to Tatay for getting good glass that I can still use. I’ll be sure that they don’t rust away on the shelf.

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January 25, 2014

Family, Personal, Photography | 1 Comment

Illuminada

This post is dedicated to my aunt. She was my father’s sister that visited us often. Her brothers treated her with the respect that all good brothers show to their oldest sister. Compared to her, my dad was outwardly more energetic, and seemed to bring more attention to himself with loud laughter and funny stories. Tia Nada, as most called her, was more reserved in her actions, but she had many of the same personality traits underneath the surface. She too, had stories that could get the group going, and her humor fit right in with all of her siblings.

Family Photos

From snippets of stories of the old days, it was Tia Nada that first met my mother. They both worked in the same hospital and became friends. Since the workplace was in Tia Nada’s town, it was natural for my mom to be invited to and meet the rest of the family. Who knows where I would be, or IF I would be if this circumstance was different!

I remember her as a gentle, yet strong and independent person. My mother could depend on her to help with her business if her regular assistants were on vacation. She could help with keeping her books, she helped to cook during our family reunions, and she even helped us move our things to a new house.

Tia Nada lived for a long time in Toluca Lake, California. While at home, she kept up with the headlines and all of the news of the celebrities in Southern CA. She would recount all of details of the OJ Simpsons trial when we call her. (C’mon now, every family has at least one person that followed the whole story!) She called us to make sure we were watching the Opening Ceremonies of the 1984 Olympics in her city. And driving through her neighborhood, she could give you her own tour of famous people’s homes, no map needed!

This always seemed to keep her younger in my mind. I admired her strength in challenging times. She relied on family, but we also relied on her. I hope much of her spirit survives in us after knowing her.

January 16, 2014

Family, Photography, Technology | 0 comment

Adding Light with Flash – Tech Thursday

With the advances in digital photography, it is easier to explain how the camera calculates an exposure. Additionally, it is easy to visualize that a larger aperture opening will let more light into the frame, or a faster shutter speed will let in less light. Once you memorize that lower ISO values are less sensitive to light than higher ones, you have the basics of the “Exposure Triangle” mastered.

Flash Portrait

Getting photographers to start using flash is a difficult step. They start to freeze up. Almost as though they just put the camera back in Program mode again. They let the camera make all the decisions like they did when they first started taking photos. Just like the settings for Aperture, Shutter Speed, and ISO, working with flash can be straightforward. However, it does add another layer to the considerations when making images. I hope that through some posts, I can get you to experiment more with your flash. Hopefully you will learn how to control it to improve your photography. It will set you apart from “natural light” photographers that never add flash. There are many that choose to do this for artistic reasons, but do not be afraid to add this to your toolkit. You will be able to make images that are IMPOSSIBLE without the flash. If you have aspirations of photographing weddings, or events, you will need to use flash at some point in order to make images that grab attention.

Pet Portrait

In my previous post on flash, the settings on the speedlight were in the default TTL (Through-The-Lens) mode. This is the equivalent of the Program or P mode. The camera and flash work together to calculate how much light to add to your scene to get a good exposure. The computing power built into both ensure that you will get good exposures – and you can still control some of the aspects of the image. You can use TTL mode in Aperture priority so that you can set the depth of field in your image to keep that control over your composition. This is the first step – and likely you will get good results with the TTL settings on your camera. I’ll post how you can take control of this just as you do with your other settings in your camera to make even better images.

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Posts Tagged ‘family’

Family Vacation Photos

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Family Photos

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Flash Portrait

Pet Portrait

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