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Learning Studio

Posted on April 21, 2011

I decided to take a studio lighting class because I wanted to be able to manage lighting set-ups when necessary in people’s homes. But I honestly never thought I’d like working with studio shooting. It seemed too much like The Picture People or that crappy studio in Babies R Us. (Yeah, I said it!) Little did I know that fun that awaited me in my basement studio.

I learned the difference between short and broad lighting:

I think he looks better in short lighting. Our instructor says that most people do.

I did some inadvertent high-key (meaning overexposed) photos as I got the hang of metering:

Then I managed to get the kidlet into the act with him as I did some plays with dramatic light.

I love the shadowing on her face as she blew air onto her favorite daddy:

Then I got a Thunder Grey background and started having a ball (though I’m not so sure that Zeus the kitty is having as much fun in these):

Other than constantly fighting with my reflector, I was starting to get into the fun of studio work. When you control the light, you end up having oodles more fun with your subjects. This does not mean that you will see me anytime soon working at the Sears Portrait Studio, but hey, I’ll have fun creating interesting magic in my basement studio!

Calendar Design 2011

Posted on February 1, 2011

Last year was my first year creating a photo calendar using my photos of the kidlet. While it was a great calendar, I did make it a bit overlarge (12×18) and just used a simple photo for each month.

Well this year I opted to get a little bit more fancy!

This year’s calendar was printed as a 10×10 folded calender at Miller’s and they came out amazing. Glossy covers, sturdy pages. My only quibble is that Miller’s considers holidays to be personal days, so you have to add them to the calendar individually. And, worst of all, you are limited to 24 personal days/holidays! What the heck is that? Miller’s should at least add the federal holidays to the calendar as a baseline and then allow a certain amount of personal days. That would make more sense.

But despite that, this year’s calendar was an incredible hit!

My Favorite Face!

Posted on October 2, 2010

The fun folks at Love That Shot are having a contest that I just couldn’t resist. The goal is to shoot and show your favorite face.

Well that was pretty darn easy for me. My favorite face belongs to my absolutely adorable daughter, Zara. And last night during bathtime, I couldn’t resist getting some new shots of my favorite face ever.

This one is my contest entry:

But I couldn’t resist sharing some of the others!

These shots were tricky considering the typically abysmal bathroom lighting, but I shot at f1.4, SS1/400 & ISO 1000. There were terrible color issues despite my having used my BaLens for a custom white balance, but I think I got most of them worked out in PS. I also wanted to make sure that there were no, um, bits showing. But other than a little midtone lift, I processed them clean.

Can you see why she’s my favorite face?

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