They show you how to make very unique images using any old vintage camera.

http://photojojo.com/content/photojojo-original/through-the-viewfinder/

I like using my Lensbaby lens to get similar results without having to carry two cameras. See my post on selective focus, where I photographed a Rolls Royce…

Details |
ISO 640 … 35mm … f/7.1 … 1/200

Intent |
Engagment Portrait

Comments |
These are my friends, Megan and Christian, who are getting married in June. We shot this yesterday in Golden Gate park, just before the fog came in the like The Mist and took our sunshine away. Shooting this alone, I put my camera on a tripod and used a timer to release the shutter every 10 seconds. I was standing 6 feet behind the camera, catching sunlight coming over the top of the tree and bouncing back under to fill in the shadows.

Details |
ISO 200 … 200mm … f/4 … 1/60 sec

Intent |
Portrait

Comments |
This was taken a couple of days earlier than the image from the last post. This was late afternoon sun beaming into my living room. I exposed for the highlights and let the rest go dark. There is another window near the ceiling on the opposite side of the room that’s giving his shoulder some subtle definition.

Details |
ISO 200 … Lensbaby … N/A … 1/1250

Intent|
Portrait

Comments |
This was taken in bright sun light using a Lensbaby. I wanted his hairline to blend into the distant hillside. In the RAW file there is much more detail in the shadow that became distracting. In Lightroom, when i brought in my shadows and darks it got heavy. Then I brought in the blacks and it got rich. Then I converted to grayscale and split toned. He was wearing a white shirt that that was too “hot” so I doubled processed the RAW file and and used the darker one to mask in a more underexposed version to balance it out.

Details |
ISO 200 … 24mm … f/2.8 … 1/400

Intent |
Engagement shoot

Comments |
Depending on where you live, this is the time of year when the cherry blossoms are in full bloom and with the warm afternoon sun, they can be quite a spectacle. Yesterday I met with Kit and Monique for their engagement session. We will be on Kauai in June for their destination wedding, followed by a week of celebratory fun. She plans to hang prints of the shoot on the clothes line at the house for the wedding. I can’t wait! They live in the Sunset and wanted to shoot in Golden Gate park. She knew right where to go. We found a gorgeous cherry blossom tree that was backlit perfectly. It was about 5pm. I put her under the tree by herself first and just let her play for a while. There was some tall grass in the foreground, so I got down in the dirt and shot up. I used a reflector for fill and metered off her face. She struck a handful of poses and I maneuvered myself to position the sun just over her shoulder. The light was truly amazing.

Details |
ISO 400 … 16mm … f/5.6 … 1/320 sec

Intent |
Fun, freestyle.

Comments |
Clearly, I explored this subject matter. You may even be tired of it by now. But I’m making a point. When you find something that works, work it. Go at it a hundred different ways. You will be amazed at what happens. I was at a Joe Buissink workshop late last year and he said people tell him he’s lucky, to which he replied, “No, I just throw myself on luck’s path as often as I can.” This has resonated with me since. This evening in particular is an example of just that. I didn’t set out to get a shot of the dog doing anything at all. I just took my camera on a walk so I was ready if and when luck can running by.

iso 800 :: 16mm :: f/8.0 :: 1/200 sec

intent |
personal work

comments |
it’s so interesting to me, when i am in the process of creating an image like this, what goes through my mind. for the last 8 years i have been fortunate enough to spend time with some top photographers. galen rowell taught me to find a foreground anchor. tony o’brien taught me how to really see light. this is an example of using what i learned from both of them.

By pulling the most of the color out of this image, I effectively change the mood. I like the tension created by the look in Adam’s face coupled with Squiggy’s protective surveillance.

ISO 100 … 1/200 sec … f/5.6 … 17mm

Here is an example of making good use of a puddle on the shores of Lake Tahoe. What lots of people often miss is the power of tools available to us all in the natural photo studio that mother nature provides. In the last few posts, my camera was aimed in the direction of the sun, forcing me to tweak the raw file pretty hard to open up the shadows while holding down the highlights. It also requires that I go black and white. I can’t push a color image that far. It’s just not what I want. In cases of extreme contrast, my vision is better communicated with a split-toned black and white. But, as the sun got low, it was so gorgeous and I was so excited that I had to remind myself to also shoot in the other direction. Soft sunlight coming in sideways lights everything equally. It’s like having a massive soft box with a warming gel. Expose for the highlight and let the rest go to shadow. It’s much easier than shooting into the sun.

1/640
f/5.6

As the sun dropped, I really wanted to make good use of the larger puddles of water that formed on the beach. I held my camera just off the surface of the water, aiming up slightly with my wide angle lens. After a handful of frames, Adam said “Get him!” and Squiggy ran right at me. In the past, I might have stood up to avoid getting bulldozed and stopped shooting. But after years of photographing, it’s finally instinctual to keep on shooting when something unexpected happens. Because you never know what you’re gonna get and you sure as hell can’t recreate it.

1/6400
f/4.5

In order to get this shot, I had to position the camera about an inch off the ground in the shadow of Adam’s head, while not looking through the view finder (as I wasn’t into getting cold muddy sandy sludge all over me by lying down). Squiggy stayed still for a little bit, but kept moving her head around. This was shot 13 of 24, each one a little different. Dogs are tough to photograph. They require more patience and more frames.

North Beach in San Francisco is so lit up, you can shoot at midnight with no tripod! When I approached this scene, I could tell it had the makings of a photograph; all the lights and windows set against the dark of the street and sky at night. What’s funny is, I’m using a wide angle lens, so the guy in the bottom left has no idea he’s in my frame and has turned around to see what I’m photographing.

1/750
f/5.6

This was an image shot for a client that manufactures high end robes. I wanted to capture the feeling of having a luxurious robe draped over your body in the warmth of the afternoon sun; to create a sense of peace and calm to associate with the robe. To achieve this image, I had the model walking slowly on the beach directly at the sun and the ocean and used a lens hood to keep my 70-200mm lens in the shadow and prevent lens flare.

Most of the time, it’s best to keep the sun behind you or off to the side. But sometimes, shooting right at it can work. In this image of Klara, it’s over her shoulder in the top right hand part of the frame. The sunlight hitting the glass of the lens directly created a soft milky cast over the whole image, which was my goal. It’s just an effect called lens flare and it’s what hoods are designed to control, but only for sun coming in at an angle. To address direct light lens flare, I could have just moved myself a few inches to the left, putting her between me and the sun, thereby creating a shadow for my lens. Shooting into the sun during the day is a great time to manually turn your flash on. You need it to fill in the dark shadows created by the bright sunlight. This is called fill-flash and I will discuss it more in another entry.

1/40
f/5.6
This is an image made this morning for a client who’s submitting images for modeling in a Safeway advertisement. In my studio, I have 6 large skylights and 7 big windows. For this image I drew the shades on 2 of the windows and one side in order to create a bit of shadow for the background. I moved her into a position where one of the skylights serves as a hair light and a glass door camera-right provides a main light that softly falls across her face sideways and puts a nice catch light in her eyes.
i am a little troubled by the amount of light on her shoulders.
you can see the 12 or so select shots here

http://www.mreclipse.com/Special/LEprimer.html

There is a lunar eclipse scheduled for February 21st and I’m planning to go photograph it rise over Mono Lake. I’ve never been there, but have always wanted to go. Just recently, I started reading Fred Miranda’s forum on his valuable-to-any-photographer website, www.fredmiranda.com. He has awesome Photoshop plugins and I encourage you to visit. It was in the landscape forum that I just read about the eclipse coming up in a matter of days.

These are the other ways I processed the image from yesterday, in Lightroom.

1/500
f/4

The sun creates unbelievable, ever changing light and shadow all day long. The key is finding the right balance of the two elements in combination with which to create an image. In terms of lighting, this is nothing more than direct, winter afternoon sun, shining on Klara’s face. She’s in a large room that has 4 big windows passing a finely sliced block of direct sunlight. I asked her to lean forward into the sun till she could feel it on her face. I must say, that she was NOT in the mood for being photographed. She was complaining how she didn’t look good, didn’t feel good and just didn’t want the camera pointed at her. But she didn’t see what I saw and I convinced her to humor me. The warmth of the sun relaxed her and she let go for just a moment. I have about 25 images, all so different. But I really like this one. There are a few others I will share in the next few days, along with the other ways I chose to process this image in Lightroom.

Here is an image I made of my friend Lucky, entertaining us at his house. It’s the same evening I made this one of our friend, Guy, laughing in the kitchen. This is where I love having top gear. I’m shooting slow moving action in extremely low light but it’s no problem using my 5D with a 16mm lens at 2.8 with a film speed of 3200 ISO. Shooting RAW and processing in Lightroom allows my final vision to be realized. If you care about your images AT ALL, start shooting RAW. Even if you don’t understand it. Just do it. Trust me. Later you’ll understand and thank me. I promise. Plus, memory is cheap as chips these days, so go for the big SanDisk cards. That’s the brand I trust more than any other in the card market. As for the multiple card readers, I’ve heard from a top pro that he experienced an error during import and many of his files just went missing. Unless you’re on a tight schedule, I would download one card at a time. I use the SanDisk reader.

A few weeks ago, I was sitting in the living room talking with my friend John when, out the window, I noticed the moon hanging very low in the sky. Now, while they do make attachments that allow you to snap your SLR body onto a regular telescope, I don’t have one. What I do have is a 200mm lens with a 1.4x lens extender, giving me 280. I dropped my exposure compensation down 2 stops and setup on the railing. Fortunately shooting the moon itself is a fast exposure and doesn’t require a tripod. I cropped way down to get this. But it’s great! Look at the detail. I love digital. I shot this with my Canon 5D.

[taken w/ iPhone]

A nice benefit to photographing people in bright daylight when snow or water is part of the scene, is that those elements not only add to the image in terms of subject matter, but that they essentially become natural sun reflectors. This creates scenery with fantastic natural lighting conditions. Here is a great example of both water and snow acting as reflectors to fill in the shadows.

[taken w/ iPhone]

Last week during the storm, I got excited and headed for Tahoe. We left Wednesday evening and braved the snowy summit in the dark. Thursday morning, we arrived at Alpine Meadows to find about 50 cars in the parking lot… It was very cold and visibility was not so good. But knee deep powder in the trees made it worth while. We got all the goods on Friday too. Saturday morning, as we were resting our achy muscles, we checked out Squaw. It was bright and sunny and hard not to go ride. But years ago as ticket prices went flying past $50, I vowed not to ride on weekends and spend half the day in line. So instead, we went up to the lake, had a leisurely breakfast and walked over to the lake’s edge at Sunnyside. Here, my friend Lucky is kicking snow from a dock directly at the camera, providing for a great opportunity to create something interesting by freezing the action with a single frame. We did this over and over. It’s hard when you’re dealing with a camera that has the dreaded delay, especially for those of you with kids. You almost always miss the shot… And I was shooting with my iPhone. I had to say ‘Go!’ and then click the shutter, hoping the timing would be right. There were a lot of botched attempts, but we nailed this one. And I gotta say, I’m really impressed that I captured this with a camera phone.

1/250
f/11

I discovered this place in Architectural Digest one year when my then-girlfriend wanted to go to Thailand. Only problem was I had been traveling a lot and was so not in the mood for another serious journey. It’s not the journey actually, it’s the planes and airports, etc. I can’t stand flying anymore. It drives me nuts. When I was a kid they still permitted smoking in the back of the plane, but they were more considerate of the people they now pack in and treat like cattle. I digress… The point is, I didn’t have to go through hell to get to heaven. If you live in California, Mexico is a quick (and fantastic) getaway, especially if you speak Spanish. Having lived in both Mexico and Costa Rica for short periods of time, my ability to communicate enriches my experience and in turn, my images. Here is the infinity pool at Verana. It’s a decent shot, but the sky is totally blown out. And because the palm trees are in the sky, I’m losing some detail there. I should have used a neutral-density graduated filter. We’ll talk about this at length in the landscape workshop.

The more I look at it, the more I am troubled by the sky. So I decided to just get rid of it all together. There is saying in imaging that says “the eye goes to white” and that’s exactly what kept happening here. I really want the eye of the viewer to stay relaxed and soak in the calming serenity of this space. This cropped version below is more in line with that goal. Read the rest of this entry »

1/80
f/8

This is a great example of when to use a really wide-angle lens. I stood right behind the chairs, and shot down, in order to get this perspective. The morning was very dark and gloomy with a thin layer of fog on the water. Sometimes, photographers shooting landscapes get sad when there’s no sun. But if you pay attention to light and dark, you have the potential to make a great black and white. In looking at my settings, I realize that for even greater depth of field, I probably could have increased my aperture another stop or so before the shutter speed got too slow to hand hold.

I recently came across this print of a very photogenic ex-girlfriend. I worked on this shot in the pool with her forever. It was in 2000 and I was just starting to get excited about photography on a pro level, shooting with a bad-ass Nikon D1. We were on vacation in absolute paradise; a little spot called Verana, in Yelapa, near Puerto Vallarta. I was learning how to balance flash with daylight all manually. She was very patient…. You should almost always use a fill flash in bright midday sunlight. Otherwise, you end up with dark shadows on people’s faces. You need to manually turn the flash ON with your small digital cameras that you think will flash whenever necessary. What most people don’t know is that your camera doesn’t know to use a flash in the daylight, because there is plenty of light. What you are doing is just filling in the dark shadows manually.