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The Art of Photography

6/9/2014

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There is a huge discussion/argument in the art community as to if photography is real art. Consider that a painter takes a long time to bring forth something with brushes and paint. Sculptors work very hard taking an odd shaped something and find inside of it some new incredible shape.

Recently I heard a discussion about photography and fine art. The presenter had a very interesting pairing of words that I think embrace the difference if photography is art. My take on the words is creator vs technician. I think these two words fully embody the tension in the discussion. But what do the words mean? What do they communicate in the discussion of art and photography?

Well what is a technician? A technician is the photographer that can manipulate the camera to get the settings right. They can get the proper exposure. They also might know how to set up lights in a particular setup, typically a standard setup like three point lighting or clam shell lighting. They can go outside to take a landscape and do X, Y, and Z and pull off a shot. The technician can do very formulaic work. They can pull off senior portraits all day long. They can do landscapes easily. But there is nothing unique that someone else could not easily do as well. It is hard to tell who did the photo because it looks like something a lot of people do.

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So what is a creator then? A creator is someone that has a concept in their mind. They might start with inspiration from another photographer or a famous painter maybe. Then they take that inspiration and reach inside their mind to develop the idea into a new different image or concept. They then work with models and makeup artists, hair stylists and set designers maybe. Eventually they come up with a unique and different image. One of the biggest complements I can get is that people can tell out of a group of photos which ones I did because they can tell my style. Another complement is when another photographer tells me they are impressed with something I did and how they struggle with trying to get something like that. So a creator is someone that masters the technical then is comfortable enough with their tools that they can use those tools to create something new and different and interesting.

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One thing I love is working with other creatives. The photos in this blog post were created at an incredible studio space in Grand Rapids called Madd Hatts and is part of GRvintage Thrift. I got to work with Perian who did wonders helping set up the "stage" for the shoot. I was able to work with a number of incredible models in both shoots. We had some incredible makeup artists and hair stylists. Some models I had worked with in the past. Angela Pearl had the initial idea for the Alice in Wonderland themed shoot and was in a number of the shots as the Queen of Hearts. Angela and I have worked on things several times. Taryn, Paul and I have worked together before too. Others, like Jesten, Chelsea, Roger, and Candy were new to me in these shoots. They all did wonderful. Behind the scenes were so many others too. To have wonderful creatives working on the project just gives a certain energy that everyone can feed off to build incredible images.

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You don't have to go as extreme as I have in these photos. You can bring the same intense creativity to portraits or to nature photos. What the best thing you can do is to take time to look through paintings by famous artists. Look at how they do landscapes. Look how they paint flowers. Find the artists you like the most. Is it Van Gogh? Maybe you prefer Renoir or Manet or Monet (yes those are two different artists). Wanna get crazy? Then take a look at surrealists like Salvadore Dali. Also do a Google search for fine art photographers. How are they doing their work? How do they light it? How do they process it afterwards?

Another thing is to start shooting things other than what you normally shoot. Be willing to stretch into new places. And for models that might be reading this figure out how you can go for it too! Take a look at the photo of Chelsea as a mad hatter. She wore me out with intense and incredible poses. She took the character and took it to the edge. In the process she created memorable! The worst thing that can happen in being creative is to be tentative. Tentative will give weak images or performances. So go out and don't be tentative. Go out and be great.

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Yes the geek stuff does matter sometimes!!!!

9/23/2013

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A lot of people don't like to think about the geek stuff of photography. Start to talk about inverse square law, or compression from focal lengths, or ratios of ISO, aperture, and shutter speed on exposure, and most people will start to roll their eyes. But truth of the matter is that these things are very important. I often will see posts on different photography forums that will start with a question like "what is the best lens for....." or "I had my flash on full power but it did not light the subject very much, do I need a more powerful flash?". We are into the geek of photography. A lot of people will simply answer "get lens X" or something like that. They might throw in some geek words to sound impressive, but they use them to simply show they know what they are saying and you should use their advice. It does not help the original poster to learn so they can figure out what the actual answer is for them.

Why is this important. Well today I was looking to rent a lens for this weekend. I mainly want it for a shoot on Sunday at the train station in these photographs. We are doing a retro look with models dressed circa 1942. But Friday night we have a home football game. So I was thinking "hey I can get dual use out of this and get something that will rock the football game, and do a kicking review of it too". I started to look at the 70-200 and the 50-150mm f/2.8 lenses. I want to review both of these for you all. But then I started to wonder if they would work at the train station for a group of people. How to know unless I know the geek of focal lengths.

While I was there I decided to shoot some shots for this blog post to show the compression of images when moving from wide angle lenses. My telephoto is dead from taking a swim in the lake this summer, so I don't have anything longer than 55mm in the bag at the moment. I might just do a part two next week with a longer lens. Anyway, the first photo is taken at 18mm. This is not totally scientific, but it will give you a good idea what is going on. I set the tripod about 6 feet from the light. I put the outermost focal points in the middle plane on the outer edge of the bowl of the lights so I would have a reference point to frame up the lights the same every time. Looking to the left you can see all the way to the first window of the stationmasters office (if you are a train aficionado and I named that wrong please forgive me). Looking to the right you can see all the way to the edge of the house. We also see sky above and the tracks below.

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I will get back to the lens choice in a second (suspense eh?). This photo is taken at 40mm. I was not as accurate on choosing focal lengths for this test as I thought I was. At any rate, again I framed up the lights the same in the photo, putting the focal points in the same place on the two sides. Now look to the left, no window and only part of the door. To the right we barely see beyond the corner of the depot. We barely see the roof, and the tracks are totally gone. If you look to the right you can actually see the back end of the truck (barely) that we saw the front end of before. Remember this for later. I was standing 12 feet from the light this time. If you double your distance you need to double your focal length to get the same framing on the subject. Interesting little math bit eh?

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The third one is at 55mm. The roof is gone, half the side on the right, and some of the door on the left, and all the gravel on the ground. The lights are still in the same place. So we can see how the focal length has a major effect on what we see. It is more than just bringing things far off close. It totally changes the overall image.

So back to the focal length of the rental lens. If I opened the 18-55mm lens all the way to 18mm I could get the entire depot from about 12 feet away. So if I went to 24 feet I was shooting at around 36mm (remember this is not scientific - I was pacing this off for rough measurements). So first, this would put me way away from the models. Second, behind me was a cornfield. So I could only go so far back. When I went back to the edge of the field and went to 55mm I was losing parts of the front of the depot. So obviously the 70-200mm would be totally out for that shoot, and the 50-150mm lens would be a struggle. Now that I have figured this out I can get a good sense of what focal length to use when trying to capture a multi person scene shoot, and it is not a long telephoto lens at all.

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There is something else to consider as well at times. We talked about compression. We will see a lot of the effect of that in these next photos. What I did was to use the outhouse to substitute for a person. I framed it up roughly for a waist up shot of a person (you will have to take my word for size proportions). I put the center focal point on a bit of the frame where the paint rubbed off so I could keep the outhouse in the same spot. So here at 18mm again you can see a lot of the depot on the right side. Notice all you see on the left side is trees. But look really close at the outhouse. The line on the right side is nice and straight. The line on the left side of the building tends to bow out though. Look below and compare and you will be able to see it better. So the image is definitely distorted on the edges. Older lenses were worse for this. If you go wider than 18mm it will get even more noticeable. If I had an FX camera body it would be more noticeable too (more on that in a bit).

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This next image is at like 38mm. On the right you no longer can see the loading dock. On the left.... what the heck is that??? It is a building that is behind the outhouse. It is suddenly visable. And the depot on the right looks like it is closer to us than it was before. The image is compressing front to back to draw the things in back forward optically. And notice the trees on the right hand side. They are much larger than before. Follow the line of the railroad tracks. The angle is changing so that it looks a little more straight on instead of at such a severe angle. The left side of the building is a touch straighter too.

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Finally, we have the 55mm shot. Both sides of the outhouse are straight up and down now pretty much. You can also start to see just a bit of the side of the left side too. The building in back on the left, welll we are seeing the right side of that building. It has "moved over" to the left. It is also huge compared to the other shot. And look at the trees between the depot and the outhouse now! They are absolutely huge. Not only are they larger, but they are actually taller than the depot roof line.

The changes we are seeing between these photos are because of the change in the angle of view as we zoom in and out on the image. As you zoom out (like to 18mm) you will have a much wider angle of view right to left and top to bottom. As you zoom in, you will narrow that angle of view. This is the effect you get when people talk about a crop sensor body (a DX image sensor body) and how it makes a 50mm like a 75mm lens. You are not actually magnifying the image the same as a 75mm lens. But you are changing the angle of view, because you are cropping out the outer edges of the image. so it affects the overall image like putting on the longer focal length. One thing I am unsure of is the effect of greater magnification of using the 75mm on the FX body. All the websites talk about angle of view. But it would seem to me that the longer focal length would be magnifying the image optically too, giving a sharper image than the 50mm on the DX. I guess it is time to rent a D600 and make some comparisons for that. I just need to figure out how to get a good solid comparison. If anyone has any good information on this put it in the comments below!!

At any rate, we have seen how there are significant differences in the images between focal lengths. It is not just bringing something far closer. Also, you need to think about how much room you have between you and the subject, or how far back you might want to get from the subject with your lens choice too. Do you want to use a megaphone to give directions to your models? Or I suppose you could rent a Segway to go between the camera on a tripod and the models too.

I always highly recommend taking time to take a bunch of different test shots when trying to understand things. So for focal length go out and shoot a series of photos at different focal lengths yourself. To understand noise and high ISO take a series of shots at different ISOs and then look at them. The best way to understand shutter speed is do a series of photos of a waterfall from lightening fast all the way to at least a second or longer (hint: on the long shutter speeds use the self timer or a trigger to make sure you don't get blur from moving the camera when pushing the shutter). In a future post we will talk about that dreaded inverse square law and how it affects the light from your strobes or continuous lights.

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Video and iPhones and photography

9/17/2013

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I am way overdue for writing a blog post. School has started and things have gotten a little crazy. I have decided though to expand a little in this post and talk about video. Well actually video and iPhone photography. There was a really great two day training session on creativeLIVE.com all about iPhoneography. It was very inspiring. The video here is taken with a program called 8mm. It is designed to give a very classic feel to videos. You can do 60's or 70's or 1920's or Noir, or several other settings.
I like the look of video out of 8mm because it feels more organic than a lot of digital video. The nostalgia factor helps a lot too. I have some video of my wife and me on our trip to the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. It looks like the home movies when we were kids, with the addition of sound. And I have the phone with me all the time to capture the videos. The only challenge is in having enough memory to store the videos. So when I get my 5S eventually I will get either the 32 GB or 64 GB version.
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I have also taken a number of photos with my iPhone. As a matter of fact one of the photos I took in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan at Tequamenon Falls with the iPhone was one of my submissions for our camera club "competition". When I was going through the photos from my DSLR and my iPhone I would have to say that this photo of the falls is all the equal of the ones from the DSLR. I suppose if I were to make a huge print of some photos this one might not look as nice. But as a digital image it is incredible.

There are a number of really cool applications for the iPhone for photography too. Some are just great photo programs. Some are designed for giving either that vintage look, or other crazy and interesting edits. At some point I hope to review some of the different programs and let you know what is out there, and also how well they work. I know there are some for Android too, but I don't know at this point which are good and which are not.

The big thing to remember is that the best camera is the one that you have with you. The iPhone and the Android phones are always with you. Don't be shy in learning how to use them to take photos. It is a shame to miss a photo op just because you don't have your DSLR out with you. Take some time ahead of time to learn the phone camera, and maybe get a couple additional programs. It is worth it.

One final thing for this blog posting. I was on YouTube the other day and I stumbled across a review done by Michael the Mentor that compared the Nikon D7100 and the Canon 70D. I found it to be a very fair review. More importantly it did a great job showing how to compare two different cameras and what to look for when trying to select a camera. It is a little long, but it is very well put together and he does a great job putting together an awesome video. So I decided to share it here for you all to watch. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.
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New Camera.... WooHoo!!!!!!

7/29/2013

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So in my last blog post I mentioned that I dropped my trusty Nikon D80 in the lake. She never ever came back. I even put her in a bag of rice, but no luck. OK, maybe my wife was right that waiting a week before I put her in the rice was a bit long. I suppose also that it was just beyond hopeful thinking that I could ever see her come back from the photography afterlife. And I had actually been drooling over a new camera for a while. Maybe she just decided to head to the Nikon Pearly Gates because she knew my eyes were drifting on to others. But she was my first serious DSLR. Well I did have a D40.... for about 4 weeks... before I sold her to my son-in-law so I could get the D80. But she had a special place in my heart. I took a load of great photos with her. I learned so much about advanced photography with her. She had been reliable and durable, and should have had a lot of life left still.

Well enough of pining for the past. I borrowed a camera a couple times for some shoots I had. But I had a lot more and this was going to start to really crimp my style. It was also going to impact building up this site and my other photography ventures too. For a very long time I had been looking at the Nikon D7000. Basically shortly after that little gal came out I was lusting after her. I had numerous chances to get her in my hands, and she was a delight. So you would think that I would just run out and get one, or her younger sister, the D7100. It should have been a match made in heaven. But alas, I did not have the money at the moment for that investment. That is why I had still been shooting the D80. What to do???

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Well I had been looking some at the Sony Alpha DSLR cameras. I first saw those while watching Matthew Jordan Smith. Then later I found out that Nigel Barker shot Sony too. I am interested in DSLR video, and the Sony has by far the best follow focus of any of the DSLR cameras out there. So I stopped by Marks Photo in Grand Rapids, MI and looked at them. They are very nice. And I could get one with a second lens for just $600 because of a sale they were currently running. I went back home and did a bit more research. I made a list of what I felt were the important things a camera should have. As I went down the list I found two that suddenly were a problem. The first one was the live view in the camera would be a struggle in a studio with strobe lighting. It can be worked around, but it is a struggle. Then I discovered that the Sony could not be shot tethered to my Mac. Well that was it. I shoot tethered in the studio and would never want to give that up!!!! So now I had to refocus again and figure out a solution.

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Well as I thought more I remembered that the Nikon D5100 has the same image sensor and processor as my love the D7000. I have also told my students in class that the camera does not make the photographer. And ever since the D5200 came out the D5100 was on a pretty amazing sale. Then Meijer had a special mperks deal for 15% off any general merchandise purchase, including things already on sale. So that would give me another $90 off the already incredibly low price of $599 for the camera with the kit lens. So I hinted (pretty strongly) to my wife about the camera. Well I am now the proud owner of the D5100, and I LOVE it already.

Sure, it is not the D7000, but it performs magnificently. The shots in this blog post were all taken in studio with the camera. They are the first studio shoot since I have gotten the camera. It worked better than my best hopes. The camera is a little small in my huge hands, but it is solid and responsive. Oh, and the shots were taken with the kit lens too. I did that in part to really give the whole kit a good run, and in part because the 50mm that I have is the D model and will not autofocus on the camera. So that will be going on eBay this week so I can get the G version of the lens.

I have been out shooting the high school band in summer band camp this week too. The high ISO performance on the camera is wonderful!! I am able to shoot indoors with the kit lens and get good to great shutter speed. And the VR is letting me shoot so incredibly slow handheld without even working hard at it. This is why I have recently said that the D5100 is probably the best entry level beginner DSLR on the market. You can easily get two to four full stops more light in ISO compared to most other low end cameras out there. That is so important if you don't have the money, or don't want the super shallow depth of field of an f/1.8 or f/2.8 lens.

I have done some video on the camera too. The flip out screen makes it so easy to do video. Sure the follow focus is not all that great. But as long as I plan my shots accordingly then that is not so much of a worry. The files are so easy to pull off the camera. Way easier than getting them off my dedicated camcorder. The only thing now is that I need to build a DIY steadycam for the video work.

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Getting more studio backgrounds

3/3/2013

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Shooting in a studio is fun partly because you have total control over lighting and the environment. However, you also have the challenge of backgrounds in the studio. How can you get new backgrounds to shoot against constantly without spending an arm and a  leg? That is the big challenge. You can purchase cloth of canvas or muslin backdrops. But those tend to cost quite a bit of money, and they are bulky and hard to store without serious issues of wrinkles. This is especially true of ones that are hand painted to look fancy. Some companies, like Lastolite, have some awesome choices. Lastolite has a collapsible reversible system that looks awesome. But the panels are smallish at 5 x 7 feet and run $300 each. Ouch! So I started to think there had to be a better solution. 

I had recently seen on CreativeLive photographers making solid color backdrops using foam core boards. Those are the boards that are foam in the center and foil on the two sides. Then one day I was walking through a home improvement store getting some stuff for the house and as I walked by the wallpaper the proverbial lightbulb went off for an idea. What about using that same foam core board and putting wallpaper on it. So I got one 1/2" 4 by 8 sheet ($8.99) and two different rolls of wallpaper that happened to be on sale for $14.99 each, and a can of spray glue. Now one side of the board is brick and the other is a fancy "Victorian looking" wall. The boards are stiff but they are also lightweight. 

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Katie and I went into the studio to try out the new backgrounds and, as you can see they worked really well. Not only do they look awesome for a smooth solid background, they also butt up against the side wall really nicely in the studio. And I get two different 4 by 8 backgrounds for only around $50 instead of $300. Oh I have wallpaper left too, so I am planning on getting another foam core and doing it up the same. That way I can put the two boards together side by side to get an 8 by 8 wall. Stick them together and clamp them with an A clamp and we are good to go. I am thinking I might need to put a really small L bracket top and bottom to clamp with, and will just have to maybe do a bit of clean up if they show in the photo. 

One other thing that we came up with when shooting that day. I had some mirrors that had gotten left in the studio when we took the space over. In a moment of artistic inspiration we decided to start using them for background too. We were able to get some interesting added depth to shots, and more wonderful artistic expression. I also have used the mirrors recently for "reflectors" for light on the opposite side of a strobe. They work really well, although they are a little heavy and hard to maneuver. The lightweight reflectors tend to be better usually. 

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As you look at these photos take a close look at the lighting. Along with the simple and inexpensive backgrounds, we also used very simple lighting. All these shots were done with a single strobe. That is right, these are all one light photos. Beyond testing the new backgrounds, my other goal during this shoot was to work with just a single light and see what I could get out of it. This made the light setup very easy. I am thinking that in future shoots like this I want to use a reflector along with the light to soften the shadow side just a touch. But I love the intense textures of the shadows and light on Katie. She is really good at finding either a very intense or vulnerable look, and the single light really helps bring that out. 

So give the background idea a try, and experiment with single light setups too. 

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You never know what you will see

10/14/2012

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So the last blog post was on the copper elf, the photos that created a story for my kids. While we were walking around more we decided to wander to Rosa Park Circle (remember... we were at ArtPrize in downtown Grand Rapids, MI). When we got there we found some kids skateboarding. I find skateboarding very fascinating, maybe in part because I have little chance of ever mastering the sport. It might also be because kids do things that we never would have thought of when I was a kid. For me and my friends a skateboard was something you rode down a hill at breakneck speed hoping not to face plant half way down the hill. Pete was the only one that would regularly get down the hill unscathed. But he had a tremendous sense of balance. He could even unicycle while juggling. We were all so envious. 

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I had my trusty 50mm f/1.8 lens on the camera. So I was loaded for bear, so to speak. It was late in the day. The sun was behind the tall buildings to the west of us. So I went with ISO 400 on aperture priority. I went with f/1.8 for my aperture. I did that for two reasons. First, I wanted a lot of light so I would get a good shutter speed. Second, I wanted a very short depth of field so that the background was less distracting.  I was getting right around 1/1600th of a second shutter speed. A very nice shutter speed to stop action. I could have gone with shutter priority and set for a fast shutter and let the camera handle the aperture. But in a situation like this I want to control my depth of field more than anything else. It is the way to really make my subject stand out. 

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I am still shooting with my Nikon D80. I know, I keep saying I am getting the D7000, but the funds have not been there yet for it. Soon though, very soon. Either that or the D600. I am still in a quandry. I might have to rent both of them for a weekend to see if the full frame is worth it. At any rate, the D80 is an awesome camera. But for continuous frames per second it is pretty slow. The D80 clocks in at 3 frames per second. Well it is a lot better than the Pentax K1000 or Canon FTB QL that I shot with in high school. It was one frame per... well as fast as I could cock the lever. At any rate, when you cannot shoot off like a machine gun you need to take time to really judge when the action will be at it's peak.So the first thing I did was just sit for about 5 minutes watching them. I was looking for the tells (a great poker term eh?). Each person would do something just before they were going to do one of their leaps or stunts. So I just had to pick up on the cues to know when I would need to shoot. Get the timing right and you can get shots using single shot instead of continuous. All these shots were taken single shot.

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The other thing you need to remember too is that the camera is going to have a bit of lag from the time you push the shutter until the camera takes the actual photo. On fast DSLRs it is roughly a half a second. This is one of the biggest advantages of a DSLR over a point and shoot. The P&S cameras seem to take a decade to take the photo after you depress the shutter. So along with figuring out the tell you also need to be able to judge your shutter delay. Over time you will get familiar enough with the camera that it will become second nature. You will naturally judge the shutter delay properly. 

One other thing you will notice is that even though I was at f/1.8 the background is fairly definable. It is blurry enough that the subject stands out. But it is not as fuzzy as I would actually like. This is where the more expensive f/1.4 lens would be even nicer. I would have two thirds of a stop more light and also a shallower depth of field. So the background would have blurred out even more. I was about 20 feet from the skateboarders, maybe a little more. So the depth of field at f/1.8 was about three and a half feet. If I had been using the f/1.4 lens (which I don't currently have BTW... it is too expensive for me) then the depth of field would have been about two and three quarters feet. Doable, but it is getting a touch shallow at that point. So you would really need to get your focus point spot on. That is one of the reasons I prefer the f/1.8 lens. 

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As we were leaving Rosa Parks Circle that night I suddenly noticed a man sitting at the side watching the skateboarders too. I thought he had a very interesting face. It had a lot of character. It is all that whole story telling thing. And I felt it would be incredible as a black and white photo. So I walked up and asked him if I could take his picture. He was amused by the request but more than willing to pose for me. So I was able to get this shot that same night right along with the skateboarders. So I guess you really don't know what you will find when you are walking about. So make sure to have your camera with you and ready for the photo op. Sometimes my at the ready camera is my iPhone, sometimes it is my D80. I have thought about getting something like the Fuji x10 or a Nikon V1 as a walk around camera to have when I don't want to lug the D80 around. But you will regularly run into photo ops. And if you don't have a camera with you at least look the place over and imagine in your minds eye what the photo would look like. That way the next time you have a camera you will more easily spot the photo op. 

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Learning fashion shooting

9/26/2012

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When I started taking photography somewhat seriously a few years ago I did not know at all what that meant. I was not even really aware that there were different types of photographers or photography. I figured photographers were just photographers and got hired to do work if they were professionals. Over time I started to learn some of the differences. I found out that wedding photography was a specialty. Then I realized that some people specialize in commercial photography, working with companies for photos for publications, brochures, and other things. Recently I found out that fashion and beauty are a separate specialty from the others. And even in that those are two different specialties. Fashion is different than beauty work, although often photographers will do both. 

Recently I have gotten a chance to do a few fashion and beauty shoots for some clients. One of the shoots was for Emor Shoes. I did some work for them for the spring shoe line shooting just the shoes. This time they wanted shots of models wearing the shoes. It was a very fun time. We had a number of models and a whole room of shoes. 

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The shoot was scheduled for 4 hours. We had 5 models. We lined up a make up artist and hair person. Some of the models had modeled before and some were brand new and this was their first shoot. Before the day of the shoot I met with the client several times. We talked about vision. We discussed what to look for in models. There was a lot of pre-shoot work before we got in the studio. 

The day of the shoot went really smooth. All the planning worked out really well. What was interesting and fun about the shoot is that the hero in the shots was the shoes. Just before we did the shoot I had a chance to watch Matthew Jordan Smith and Yoanna House on CreativeLive talking about modeling and fashion and beauty shooting.  So I was able to apply things I had just learned on CreativeLive in the shoot. Normally I would not put these photos on my blog until Emor Shoes released them on their site for the fall line up, but the client was fine with that. So you are actually getting a little preview of what they will have. 

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One thing that Matthew said repeatedly stated was that with fashion and beauty you need to find the hero and highlight that. So in this case the hero was the shoes. So as I was posing the models I had to keep in mind to show off the shoes somehow. This sometimes became a bit of a challenge. We also did some jewelry during the shoot. So for some of the shots the hero was the jewelry and not the shoes. At the end of the day we got some very nice photos, and all in all I felt like we accomplished the goal well. Next spring we might try a different way to do the shoot for shoes if the client has me do the work again. But that is partly because as we shoot we grow in the art of being photographers. 

This shoot was a bit different for me from the past. In the past I was shooting people and the person was the hero. The person was the story. In these photos the shoes were the story. I had to dig down deep to figure out how to tell the story of shoes. I have also found a new appreciation for shoes after doing the two shoots for Emor Shoes. I now notice shoes a lot more, and enjoy shopping for them. More than that I have realized that I really like shooting fashion. I have another beauty shoot coming up soon for jewelry again. This time it will be all about the jewelry. Who knows, maybe I have found my main niche in photography. I will probably still shoot a lot of other things, but I will say I like telling the story of fashion and beauty. It is a lot of fun. And it is amazing working with the models and the makeup artists and the hair stylists. 

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Photography lighting

2/20/2012

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A topic that has come up a lot recently in conversations is lighting for photography. The conversations were about how to inexpensively get into photography lighting. A lot of the lighting for sale for photography is very pricy. I have worked hard at trying to come up with that is inexpensive and functional. I put together a bit of a video to talk a little about lighting. This is the first in what I am hoping will be a whole series of videos on photography. I talk a little bit about both continuous lighting and strobe lighting. It is the most basic of overviews, but it is a good place to get started. 
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Setting a good image

2/15/2012

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How many times have you been on Facebook, or LinkedIn, or visited a website that has a photo of the person on it, and the photo is simply a snapshot at some family event (or worse yet at the bar) and they cropped it down to their face? If the photo is on Facebook it is passible since that is suppose to be a place for us to let our hair down and hang with our friends and family. It is sort of like a cyber bar of sorts. But when you are posting a photo on a professional site like LinkedIn that is totally unacceptable. You are projecting an image with your photo. You want that image to be professional, to show that you are someone that they should consider hiring, or contracting, or doing business with. You don't really want to skimp on your image. This is some of the most important marketing dollars you will spend. 

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This is also true of social media that you are using to promote your business. This is where image becomes very important on Facebook. My daughter and son-in-law run a business specifically to help people market their business on social media. They have helped a number of businesses already in creating a positive and successful social media presence. The photos in this particular blog post are from a shoot I did for one of their clients. He works as a loan originator, helping people get their dream homes. So he needs to show an image of trust, but also wants to show that he is approachable. This is how he can attract business. So when we did the photo shoot we worked at showing those qualities. Now he has photos that can be used in the social media marketing that he is working on building with New Media Design Studios. I worked with the designers about what type of image they wanted. I also talked with Nick. We then did a shoot to get photos that fit the look. 

It is not uncommon to hear from budding photographers how they can make money with their photography. Well this is a good example of a niche market that cannot be outsourced to another country, and can make you money. If you can learn to help create the proper image for a business person, or a business, then you have a great business of your own. And make sure you get good photos of yourself to market yourself to others. Oh, and a photo of "guy/gal with camera" taken in a mirror does NOT constitute a good photo for a photography business. That just shows lack of imagination. It is one of those majorly overdone cliche shots often seen on photography lists and even in photography marketing. And worse yet, many people take the same photos in a bathroom and posting it on Facebook or Hot-or-Not thinking it makes them look all sexy. This is a good time to trade services with another photographer. Shoot each other. 

So sometime this week go up on LinkedIn and scan through your friends photos. Take a look at what they post. See how many use junk photos. And if they live close call them up and tell them you can help them with their professional image. It could be fun, and might even net you some money to help get that next camera or other bit of gear. 

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    Author

    My name is Rusty, and I am on a journey, almost more of an awakening, to really learn photography. Years ago I did a lot of photography in high school. After raising a family I find I have time once again to pick up the camera. The art form has changed a lot since my high school days. I am also finding that I desire to take my art to the next level. This site is a combination of documenting my journey and teaching you things that I am learning. So in the process of my becoming one with the camera I am hoping to also help you find that inner artist that is inside you as well. 

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