CAMERA: Canon 5DMkII; LENS: Canon 85 f/1.8; FLASH: Canon 580EX

I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas and is recharging their internal batteries for the New Year.

During the holidays, families get together and it’s the perfect time to capture some great memories with your camera. Of course, most of us aren’t going to setup a huge elaborate lighting configuration with all the hustle and bustle going on in the house, so in a pinch find yourself a background that is not too busy or cluttered, grab your camera with an external flash to pop onto the hot-shoe, and a piece of white foam or poster board (optional).

The photo above was taken with my flash bounced behind me into the corner of the ceiling and wall. Sitting on the table in front of my subjects was a white 2×3 piece of foam board tilted slightly to bounce some light up to reduce some of the shadows in the eye sockets and under the chin. It’s not going to look as if it was shot in the studio with a softbox or beauty dish for a main light, along with a fill light, hair light and back light, but for something that just takes seconds to setup and keeps your holiday party or any other celebration moving along without interruption, it’s a perfect solution.

Quick. Easy. Painless.

Today my 7-year old daughter Keely, tried her hand at doing face painting … on my 2-year old son, Henry.

I happened to be setting up for headshots I’m doing on Tuesday, and my daughter decided now that she has mastered the art of painting on faces, to try her hand at doing photography. She gave Henry explicit directions on how to pose (which of course went on deaf ears), and then manned the camera (with my careful eyes on her making sure she wouldn’t break anyting) and snapped off a few shots. I was able to salvage a few somewhat usable images. I think it’s time for me to spend some time now educating Keely on the art of photography. I think she is showing a liking to it.

You’ve got to listen to WonderPets without outside noise distractions.

My initial reaction was trying to find a large enough porch for a shot like this, but even more challenging would be to find a time when all these guys would be free at the same time (over the summer), to make the shoot. These are high school boys, many who have summer jobs, are on family vacations, or are more interested in hanging with their girlfriends. I offered up a different idea — shoot each wrestler individually with a green screen, cut them out and create the illusion of a group shot. Using this method, each wrestler would be lit under controlled conditions much easier than trying to setup lights on location. This approach provides a way to now come up with any background image to use for the poster. The other advantage, is weather is a non-factor, so no rainout date would have to be planned.

The last day of class for John Carroll was June 6, so I went to the school that day, setup and shot each wrestler that Coach Watson wanted to be in the poster, before they all spread like wildfire after finishing the school year.

I submitted for review, ten different background images, from pastures to buildings, for potential candidates for the final poster. Coach Watson and his staff settled on the stormy clouds version. In addition, he let me know that one of the original wrestlers has transferred to another school and would need to be removed. With the removal of that wrestler, I then rearranged the other guys to balance it out.

Coach Watson wondered if I could add a bolt of lighting to the sky. I played around with Photoshop after Googling for help inspiration and technique from others. I personally like the poster without the lightning, but the coaches loved it, and wanted it included.

The final step was to add the text, and get the final OK.  Once approved, it was time to send the final image to the lab to print the posters.

This was a fun experience, and would gladly accept another project that could utilize the green screen.

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Unfortunately, I’m not a kid anymore and those days of three months of vacation are only a memory.  However, I can relive those moments watching my kids experience it as I once did.

No matter what type of camera you own, keep it handy, and take photographs of your family.   You, your family, and future family members will appreciate it in the future.

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The headshots were all taken at her home (where her mother makes some delicious lemonade) in the family room / living room area. The home had a beautiful wood floor, and it made a great background as I shot from high above.

I think Valeria had a great time — once she got over a bit of nervousness in the beginning — and I hope I was able to help her land a great role in the future.

Lighting Information:

Clamshell lighting with two 43″ umbrella’s and 580EXs.

Top umbrella – 1/8 power
Bottom umbrella – 1/32 power

Hairlight from snooted 285HV at 1/16 power

Memorial Day also signals the unofficial beginning of summer and what do kids want to do in the summer … SWIM! The weather in Bel Air today is fabulous — bright sunshine and 84 degrees.

While the kids were playing, I also was playing with my camera. I thought I try my hand at shooting with my right hand while holding a flash in my left. The downside to bright sunshine is the harsh shadows that accompany it. To bring out some definition in the shadows, a bit of fill flash does wonders.

The photo above — of my daughter Keely, the ham — used my technique of underexposing the camera 2/3 of a stop to cut down on the hot spots, and pop a bit of flash from the shadow side at 1/32 power.

The flash is not for inside use only. It can really come in handy outdoors as well. Give it a try, you may like the results.

I had been using many off-camera strobes for lighting the previous headshots I’ve taken in the past, which generally means I must stop down my lens into the f/8-f/11 range and thus increasing my depth of field. Which is perfectly fine for a portrait or corporate headshot. With this photo session, I decided to try something different , using the giant softbox that Mother Nature provided — gray cloud-filled skies — and a white foamcore board just below the subject to fill in the shadows. This allowed me to use my 135mm lens at f/2, with a sliver of DOF, and really concentrate on getting the eyes tack sharp to draw the viewer immediately to the eyes.

I’m going to use this technique much more in the future.

The headshots were taken on-location so not to interrupt their daily workload.

The setup for these photographs was an Alien Bee 800 with large softbox camera right, with a reflector camera left for fill. I also place a foamcore board on table in front of subjects to help fill in light under the chin. I used a blue paper backdrop with an Alien Bee 400 and 40-degree grid to create the background light.

I was resorting to setting a timer on my camera and then running over to the chair to capture myself in the frame to check my lighting. Luckily, after only a few laps from camera to chair and back, my son came home from work. He is on the grounds crew at Mountain Branch Golf Course in Joppa. Of course he was all sweaty and wanted a shower, but he was more than happy to sit in for a couple test shots.

There is something about this image I really like, and I thought I’d share.

This is taken with a large softbox to camera right and a white foamboard camera left. I had a second light with grid hitting the background from left to right. I normally would have the backlight directly behind the subject, but in this test setup I was limited on the amount of space between the subject and the backdrop.

Warm weather, spring blooms, and sunshine was the perfect mix for capturing a wide variety of outdoor photos for Tyrel. Before heading outside, I setup at his home lighting and a backdrop to take several formal photos in his suit and also in his cap and gown. The image for the yearbook needed to be submitted by May 1 — heck, we had 5 days to spare!

This workshop is a hands-on 8 hour lesson in lighting. Don showed us how to use sunlight, portable and studio lights, reflectors, etc. in creating great light to photograph people.

The workshop took place in a studio as well on the streets of Baltimore. Don would give a lesson and then we would go out and put that information just learned into action by doing. For me, this was a fantastic way to learn.

I left dead tired, and full of new ideas, techniques and great photographs. I am anxious to use my newfound knowledge.

My friend Bill Millios headed up the effort of organizing this get together. Bill provided all the eats and drinks for us during the four hours we had access to the photo studio.

Yesterday I was out shooting a boy’s soccer game for the Baltimore Examiner. Before the start of the game I was shootin’ the breeze with Examiner sports writer Sean Welsh. I haven’t seen Sean in a while and we were catching up on what was going on with each other.

The girls at the scoring table noticed me with my camera and started shouting to take their pictures. I am surprised how often I get asked, when shooting sports for the media, to take pictures of people in the stands, sidelines, etc. I was about 50 feet away from the scorer’s table, but I did have my trusty 120-300mm lens and proceeded to snap a few images of the girls. In the back of my mind I’m thinking, “ok, these will go right into the rejected bin”, for as hard as it is to believe, the paper wants images from the actual game.

When I got home and began to go through my images to select the shots to submit, I was pleasantly surprised to see the image above. Other than the white scorer’s table in the background, this shot looks as though it was taken during a photo shoot.

Hmmm, maybe I should just have clients show up at football and soccer games and take their pictures during timeouts.

Oh, by the way, Fallston defeated Dulaney 3-2.

For those that don’t normally photograph young’uns, I’ve got news for you — it’s not that easy. Well, it’s very simple to take pictures, but where the difficulty lies is in getting good pictures.

Unlike teenagers or adults, these little ones have no idea what photography is all about let alone listening to posing suggestions. You’ve got to let them be themselves and be ready to capture those great moments.

The one thing I set my mind to when going out to photograph little ones is patience. Knowing in advance that you most likely won’t be able to pose the child exactly as you wish and get that spontaneous smile or funny face, allows me to treat the photo shoot like a sporting event — and I LOVE sports!

If you’ve got other tips, I’d be glad to hear them.

Inspired by the images of Brent Williamson I decided to try a bit of crosslighting this afternoon.

With the beautiful warm late afternoon sun to work with shining onto the subject from the right, I setup a 580EX off to the left about 15 feet away at 1/32 power. Triggered using pocket wizards, the direct flash put just enough light into the dark shadow areas for a pleasing photograph. The idea is to use the flash in a very subtle way as to not even look like flash was used.

This is a very simple setup. If you don’t have pocket wizards, an off-camera sync cord will work just as well.

I processed the image using Nicole V’s actions and was extremely pleased with the outcome.