Radiant Squares Photography

Know your rights

2011-09-14T19:17:00.002-05:00

This was recently published on ACLU's website and I thought it would be good to repost for all you budding (and seasoned) photographers out there. It is always good to arm yourself before going out. You'd be surprised how many people will try to step on your rights in the name of "national security" after 9/11 happened.

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Know Your Rights: Photographers

Taking photographs of things that are plainly visible from public spaces is a constitutional right – and that includes federal buildings, transportation facilities, and police and other government officials carrying out their duties. Unfortunately, there is a widespread, continuing pattern of law enforcement officers ordering people to stop taking photographs from public places, and harassing, detaining and arresting those who fail to comply. Learn more >>

Your rights as a photographer:

When in public spaces where you are lawfully present you have the right to photograph anything that is in plain view. That includes pictures of federal buildings, transportation facilities, and police. Such photography is a form of public oversight over the government and is important in a free society.
When you are on private property, the property owner may set rules about the taking of photographs. If you disobey the property owner's rules, they can order you off their property (and have you arrested for trespassing if you do not comply).
Police officers may not generally confiscate or demand to view your photographs or video without a warrant. If you are arrested, the contents of your phone may be scrutinized by the police, although their constitutional power to do so remains unsettled. In addition, it is possible that courts may approve the seizure of a camera in some circumstances if police have a reasonable, good-faith belief that it contains evidence of a crime by someone other than the police themselves (it is unsettled whether they still need a warrant to view them).
Police may not delete your photographs or video under any circumstances.
Police officers may legitimately order citizens to cease activities that are truly interfering with legitimate law enforcement operations. Professional officers, however, realize that such operations are subject to public scrutiny, including by citizens photographing them.
Note that the right to photograph does not give you a right to break any other laws. For example, if you are trespassing to take photographs, you may still be charged with trespass.

If you are stopped or detained for taking photographs:

Always remain polite and never physically resist a police officer.
If stopped for photography, the right question to ask is, "am I free to go?" If the officer says no, then you are being detained, something that under the law an officer cannot do without reasonable suspicion that you have or are about to commit a crime or are in the process of doing so. Until you ask to leave, your being stopped is considered voluntary under the law and is legal.
If you are detained, politely ask what crime you are suspected of committing, and remind the officer that taking photographs is your right under the First Amendment and does not constitute reasonable suspicion of criminal activity.

Special considerations when videotaping:

With regards to videotaping, there is an important legal distinction between a visual photographic record (fully protected) and the audio portion of a videotape, which some states have tried to regulate under state wiretapping laws.

Such laws are generally intended to accomplish the important privacy-protecting goal of prohibiting audio "bugging" of private conversations. However, in nearly all cases audio recording the police is legal.
In states that allow recording with the consent of just one party to the conversation, you can tape your own interactions with officers without violating wiretap statutes (since you are one of the parties).
In situations where you are an observer but not a part of the conversation, or in states where all parties to a conversation must consent to taping, the legality of taping will depend on whether the state's prohibition on taping applies only when there is a reasonable expectation of privacy. But that is the case in nearly all states, and no state court has held that police officers performing their job in public have a reasonable expectation. The state of Illinois makes the recording illegal regardless of whether there is an expectation of privacy, but the ACLU of Illinois is challenging that statute in court as a violation of the First Amendment.
The ACLU believes that laws that ban the taping of public officials' public statements without their consent violate the First Amendment. A summary of state wiretapping laws can be found here.

Photography at the airport

Photography has also served as an important check on government power in the airline security context.

The Transportation Security Agency (TSA) acknowledges that photography is permitted in and around airline security checkpoints as long as you're not interfering with the screening process. The agency does ask that its security monitors not be photographed, though it is not clear whether they have any legal basis for such a restriction when the monitors are plainly viewable by the traveling public.

The TSA also warns that local or airport regulations may impose restrictions that the TSA does not. It is difficult to determine if any localities or airport authorities actually have such rules. If you are told you cannot take photographs in an airport you should ask what the legal authority for that rule is.

The ACLU does not believe that restrictions on photography in the public areas of publicly operated airports are constitutional.

(Quoted from http://www.aclu.org/print/free-speech/know-your-rights-photographers)

Never Before Published

2011-05-04T21:43:00.002-05:00

I was looking through some older photos again today, trying to put a small project together. I ran across an image that I shot about a few years ago. I wasn't really happy with the image at first. Ok... I hated it. Which is why it never has seen the light of day.
But as time goes by, and I look at it again, it grew on me a little bit.

Threw it in photoshop for a bit of exposure fixing and some color balancing as well as a new crop and this is what we have:

It is not a typical photo of John Madden, which I guess is both why I hated it at first, and now have warmed up to it a bit.
Everyone always has him in the commentator booth, or doing something football related. Which is possibly why I didn't immediately take to this one. But as I started thinking about it more, this is probably where he spends a lot of his time when he isn't watching football! This is just a comical assumption based on the size of the man, but an interesting thought.

The story behind this is that I am friends with the owner of two local delis in Coppell, and he is also one of my clients.
He makes a breakfast sandwich that John Madden absolutely LOVES. Every time he is in town he stops by for one, and I've heard he buys quite a few of them, freezes them, and takes them home with him. So when the owner found out he and Jerry Jones were stopping by his restaurant for some food, he called me and asked me to come shoot a photo of all of them together.
This was the day of, or before, the opening game at the new Cowboy Stadium.

If you want to have the sandwich John Madden is nuts a bout, go to Deliman's Grill in Coppell. Ask for the "Stubbs Special", and tell Jay that his friend Ray sent you.
Below is a photo of the sandwich I did:

Bacon, Sausage, Egg, Cheese on Texas Toast

Training

2011-05-02T16:12:00.005-05:00

I was playing around today with some older photos that I never did anything with. I had originally shot them thinking they might end up in my portfolio somewhere, but as of right now I just don't think they fit there.
So I picked two and played with them in photoshop for a bit and I'll throw them up on the ol' blog so at least they'll get to see the light of day.

So there you have it.

Don't forget to "Like" Radiant Squares on Facebook, follow me on Twitter, or visit the website!

Practice Makes Perfect

2011-04-21T00:44:00.006-05:00

Those of you who follow my Facebook updates will know that I have been pretty inundated with work as of the last week and a half. Ironically in the middle of all the craziness is when I find time to blog for the first time in 3 months. Most of that is because I can't go to bed until I have a DVD burned for a client drop off tomorrow. But also because I wanted to share an experience I had this week.

A few months ago I did a for-fun shoot of a bottle of cologne I got for Christmas. The thought was to get another product shot for my portfolio, but also to play with the whole concept of specular highlights on a shiny object and refresh my mind on how that all worked.

I probably spent about 2-3 hours on that shoot and walked away with one solid image. Most of that time was spent playing with different lighting setups and seeing what worked and what didn't work. A bit extreme and somewhat of a waste of time you might say... Perhaps.

Little did I know there was going to be a pay off for doing all of that.
3 months down the line I answered a CraigsList ad someone posted who needed some product shots. I thought it would be a great chance to get some more products for the portfolio. The poster suggested the shoot should take 4-6 hours. I remembered some of my other product shoots and thought that was probably around half of what I could do it in. Nevertheless, I signed on and picked up the products on Sunday. Monday night came around and I had the table-top studio set up in about 15 minutes and found all the pieces/parts that I had used on the bottle from Christmas. (ALWAYS keep your lighting modifiers! It will save you time later on.)

Now this is where the spending 3 hours on a fun shoot really paid off for me. Because, had I not done that just a few months ago, I would have had to put the time in this week, playing with the lights, reflectors, highlights, background, etc to try to get the desired lighting effect. This would not have been a good week for that as I've been crazy busy. But since it was something I had already figured out how to do, it was set up in minutes and I was done shooting the entire box of products (32 shots total) in under 60 minutes. Which left me time to do the post processing I needed to do and still come in about 3.5 hours under the time frame originally forecasted by the client.

This took me back to when I was first starting out in photography. I was taking photos of EVERYTHING. I can go back to some of the old archival disks I have and show you photos of pens, thermostats, books, and other random things. To people looking through my camera at the time, it must have seemed like I would photograph anything that would stand still long enough to be captured. But the real reason was that I wanted to be SURE I completely understood how my camera worked and what the best method was to photograph different types of things. Years later I would be in a position to photograph something that mattered and because of all the "meaningless" photos I'd taken before, I knew the important shots would come out when I needed them to.

So, having said all of that, don't be shy about having fun with your camera, lens, lights, etc. Play with them and test stuff out because, who knows.... someday you may need to know how to do something and the time you spend now could mean the difference between being paid a flat rate to work for 6 hours, or 2.5 hours.

Now, because you've all been so nice to read this, I'll leave you with some of the photos:

And that is it from me. DVD is burned, and labeled.
Stay tuned for some photos from some of my other escapades from the last few days!

As always, thanks for reading!
Check me out on Facebook, Twitter, and you can see my full portfolio online at www.radiantsquares.com

Retouching - You get what you pay for

2011-01-22T11:23:00.005-06:00

I wanted to do a quick post to try to help everyone out there make a more informed decision as far as who they hire for their photo needs. There are a lot of options in the marketplace and everyone has their selling points and their strong suit.

One thing that photographers have more or less been forced to learn over the past decade is how to digitally retouch their images. In the past these edits were done in the dark room, either by a photographer, or by a person they trusted at their photo lab. However, as you all know, in the 21st century things are a bit different.

When you are booking a photographer and they are going to be retouching the photos you are purchasing, it is always a good idea to look at their work and see the quality of work they do. It might even be wise to ask for an example of a before/after image so that you can really see just what they are capable of doing.

I was recently on a headshot photographer's website and I found this image:

Right off the bat I felt like there was something fishy with the image. The right side of his face has a jagged line and looked lumpy to the naked eye. My first thought was that it might just have been because they image was too large and the web person shrank it to fit on the site. So I clicked on the image and opened it in a new window. I was floored by what I saw.

The person doing the retouching simply blurred the entire face, and erased the blur filter over the eyes and mouth!!!!

You can see around the eye, the eyebrow was completely blurry, and on the image before that you can't even tell where the nose ends and the cheek begins!!
Here is the image so you can see for yourself just how terrible this looks: click here

This is not "retouching".

And frankly I would be embarrassed to give this final image to any of my clients.

Take a look at an image I did a few weeks ago. The first image is "before" and the second is "after" retouching.

You can see a difference between the images, just in the color balance and the overall look.
But where you really see the time I spent on the image is when you look closer. (the pixelazation is a result of saving the images as gif files for the purpose of animation)

So you can see I didn't just throw a big blur over the entire image, I took about 2 hours and dealt with every wrinkle and blemish on an individual level. The goal isn't to make a person look like they are an alien, with no wrinkles and completely smooth skin all over their face. The goal is to minimize wrinkles and blemishes. Obviously a person doesn't live to be 40, 50, or 60 without having a single wrinkle on their face. That would look absurd.

I hope this helps anyone out there who is looking at photographers. The final product you get is no longer just dependent on a photographer's skill with a camera.

Home for the Holidays

2010-12-24T09:53:00.003-06:00

I am in North Carolina visiting with my sister and parents for a bit. Although I don't consider NC to be "home", I must say it is good to be here. Mostly because of the family aspect. But also because it is a huge change of pace and a change of scenery. And who wouldn't look forward to being surrounded by people who love them.

Right before I left I had the crazy idea to stay up late and watch the lunar eclipse from Dallas, TX.
I didn't have it in me to wait for the entire thing to be over before going to bed, but I did give it about 90 minutes and a 4Gb memory card. At first the images were just coming out a big blur, as the clouds were obstructing the moon. But I took a little drive to a nearby softball field and set up the tripod again and got some pretty great shots. Here is one of my favorites:

I think I went to bed around 3am. The following morning came early as I had to be at the airport for my flight. Chicago, my connecting airport, was a snowy, foggy disaster, so my flight was delayed over an hour leaving Dallas, but I still made it. Amazingly so did my luggage!!

Monday night was the last time I had my camera in my hand, and it feels rather weird. I have been dying to photograph something all day, but don't really have anything available.
My sister expressed a desire to get some new photos done, so I will more than likely be shooting some of her while I'm here, but the date and time is still undecided.
One of my favorite photos in my portfolio is of my sister and she has made several appearances on my website over the past few years.
For those of you who didn't know, this is her:

I don't have anything as nice as the Mediterranean Sea at my disposal, as I did with this photo, but I think we can pull something off :-)

I hope all of you have a wonderful Christmas, hopefully with loved ones.
I will write again when I have a few minutes!

Happy Thanksgiving!

2010-11-24T12:52:00.005-06:00

And before you know it a whole month has gone by without posting!
I feel like 2010 has flown by faster than any year I can remember. It feels like just yesterday it was nearing the end of August, and here we are already the end of November!

I have had a few cool photo opportunities this month. But as the newsletter is right around the corner I don't want to spoil all of the updates from that! haha.

I will go ahead and give you one of my favorite, and probably most important photos I've made in a long time, and the story that goes with it.

A friend of mine has a certain hookup and emailed about 2 weeks ago to ask if anyone wanted to go to the groundbreaking of the George W. Bush Presidential Center on the campus of nearby SMU. I replied within a few minutes and scored a ticket. These tickets are normally reserved to people who have donated over $1,000! The other ticket went to another friend of mine.

We got there, got through security (no TSA pat-downs thank goodness) and found some seats in the very back of the temporary building. With a telephoto lens the view looked something like this:

Being a photographer, I was not happy with this one bit. So I set out to find a better spot. The whole left side of the building was pretty open, with a few tables, some security, and the occasional press photographer meandering over to get a shot. So I got up and wandered over and started shooting. Only about 4 frames in I felt a tap on my shoulder and after a brief exchange was asked to return to my seat.

Defeated I went back and sat back where I started. I sent a text to my friend and mentor Mike McLean and vented about the frustration of having wasted the shots on a person of no importance (compared to who I came for). Mike's reply was to tell me to push it, and just go for it. It would be so worth it if I just got one good shot. And so that is what I did.

I observed as every speaker was introduced he/she received a standing ovation. I also observed there was no press or security in any of the aisles except the center one. So, I decided to use this to my advantage. Under cover of the next standing ovation I quickly got into the back of one of the aisles and knelt down once everyone took their seats again. Every 30-40 seconds I would pop up and fire off a few, and then go back to kneeling. Already the shot was starting to look good.

Much better than what I was getting in my seat! But this wasn't going to cut it for Bush. So, as soon as he was introduced and the crowd stood to applaud I moved up closer to the front of the aisle I was in. I got about as close as I dared without attracting unwanted attention to myself.
At this point I was almost even with the Press box, but slightly off to the left.

I got my aerobics in - jumping up, firing bursts of 6-10 frames at a time, then hitting the dirt again. And Mike was right, the pay off was totally worth it.

I think I probably got a better photograph of him than the people on the media platform as they were farther off to the right and he was pretty much smiling straight into my lens.

Moral of the story is - Don't just go back and sit down because one person said "no". Push it! Get the shot! Not quite sure this moral applies to all areas of life, but in this profession it certainly does!

I hope everyone has a great Thanksgiving (for you U.S. readers).
If you aren't subscribed to the monthly newsletter please sign up here! It will be coming out soon!
(I promise not to tell this entire story again!)

Some cool photos

2010-10-24T21:38:00.002-05:00

Good evening everyone.
I thought I would make good on my promise to write more on my blog. Tonight I am coming to you live from our nation's capital. That's right, I'm in Washington D.C.. It is pretty awesome being here and seeing all this history. I've never really considered myself to be that much of a history junkie, but this stuff is really interesting. There is more to do than I even have time to think about, and unfortunately we are here for a convention so there isn't much time left to see the sights or shoot photos.

Tonight we went on an open top bus tour - one of those lovely touristy things. It drove us all around the capital. Most of it was after dark though as we didn't get done setting up for the next few days until almost 5:30.

Here are two shots I took tonight that I like.

That's it from me for now, I have been up since 4am CST! Busy day traveling!
I'm here till Wednesday though, so hopefully I'll be able to get some more photos soon!

Take care!

Time Whizzes by

2010-10-04T10:25:00.004-05:00

I thought I'd update everyone on what has been going on for the past few weeks.
Obviously I have more than dropped the ball when it comes to keeping the blog updated. Something I'm planning on working on more frequently, as I actually do enjoy writing.

October is shaping up to the busiest month this year so far. By a long shot. It's almost like 2010 decided to concentrate itself all into one month.
2 weddings, a workshop or two, an annual report, some interior photos, lots of marketing, maybe a few head shots, sprinkled in with a touch of shameless self-promotion.

I have a series of Downtown Dallas photos that I have been building on over the past four months or so. I have them all over on the Radiant Squares Facebook page (There's that shameless self promotion I was talking about...).

Here are a few I have been rather pleased with:

For more you can check out the albums called "The Dallas Project" and "Abstract Dallas".

I've been teaching more lately as well. Had a few one-on-ones with some people, trying to help them figure out how to properly work their camera. I know a lot of other people have been asking me to sit down with them, so maybe that can turn into a monthly thing. If you have a dSLR and would like to learn more about using it, or if you would like to learn some tricks and techniques for taking good photographs, please feel free to drop me a line and we can start getting that taken off of your to-do list!

My sister is also in town for a few days, which normally would turn into an automatic portraits session, but we are both really busy with work and I don't think we will have time for that - unfortunately.

Well, that's it for now. I will talk to you all soon!
Be on the lookout for the Radiant Squares monthly newsletter which will be coming out soon.
If you are not signed up yet, there is a link on the home page of www.radiantsquares.com where you can sign up.

I hope you all have a great week!

Simply Lemonade

2010-06-03T12:29:00.005-05:00

I am embarking on a quest to add some more advertising style shots to my portfolio.
Most of the images currently in my book are of people. People are my favorite subject matter to shoot, but they are only one aspect of what I photograph.

In an attempt to diversify, I made a list of shots that I am going to be attempting. Product shots, food shots, landscapes, architectural shots, things of that nature.
To kick things off, I spent a few hours creating this shot:

It took several hours of testing and experimenting with light and positioning before I got it the way I liked it. But it was all worth it.

Let me just add a note here for those of you who are amateur photographers. This shot cost me a total of $10. Don't think that because you don't have the funds that an ad agency has that you can't create some cool concepts and some great sample images. It just takes some creative thinking.

I'll post some more about this photo soon, along with some behind-the-scenes shots.
Hope all is well with you, my friends!

Family Portrait Tips!

2010-04-18T16:26:00.003-05:00

There are a few easy rules to keep in the back of your mind the next time your family gets together for a photo and hands you the camera. Remember these and your photos should look better than ever!

1) Time of day is key for outdoor portraits. No photographer worth his salt will set up an outdoor portrait session for 12pm or 1pm unless he really has no other alternative. The main reason being that the light is just so harsh.
Hard light has multiple negative effects. For one, it creates hard shadows. Since the sun is directly overhead you will typically get a nice long nose shadow, as well as a large portion of the neck being shaded by the chin. These are things we could live with as photographers. But the harsh sun also accentuates wrinkles (which no one likes) and the angle of the mid-day sun keeps light out of the eye sockets. This leaves your eyes much darker than the rest of your face. If your skin is light there is even a chance you will just see dark holes where the eyes were.

By shooting later in the day, such as right before the sun goes completely down, we get much softer light, directional light (which you can use to front-light or back-light), as well as a nice warm orange light which is very complimentary to most skin tones. An added bonus is that the sky typically is very pretty during this time of day and could easily be used as your background.

Sometimes, however, you just don't have a choice as to when you shoot your pictures. If you absolutely have to get a good photo while the sun is high in the sky, try to find somewhere that is shaded. Sometimes the sides of buildings will be in shade, or if you are lucky there might be some nice trees nearby. Just make sure everyone is completely shaded and that there aren't pieces of light hitting parts of the faces. Also make sure everyone is in the shade. If 3 people are shaded and 3 are not, the picture will not turn out very well.

2) Shoot from a higher angle if one is available. If you are just outside in the back yard for a photo, try and set the camera on something that is elevated. Or stand on a chair if you are not going to be in the photo. This makes everyone's chin pull up just a little bit, stretching out the skin under the chin and avoiding the dreaded "double chin". I'd say as a general rule, never shoot a family (or group) photo from a low angle. From this angle everyone has to look down at the camera, accentuating double chins, and your angle provides an excellent view of what is in everyone's nostrils!

3) Avoid cluttered areas. If you look online at a few portrait photographer's websites, you will almost never see a photo that has a cluttered background. When positioning the family for your photos, keep an eye on what is in the background. make sure there aren't a bunch of signs, people, fence posts, etc in the background. A busy background is very distracting and takes away from the quality of your image. Especially make sure no one has any signs, posts, lights, etc sticking out of the top of their heads. These "funny hats", as we call them, are so easily overlooked, yet have such a terrible effect on an image. Just remember, no one wants a stop sign sticking out of their head!
Great examples of backgrounds are fields, walls, trees, water, or anywhere that subtle but has some sort of consistency. The background should be there, but go unnoticed.

4) Avoid dark clothing and dark backgrounds. A black shirt on a person standing in front of a dark background can often lead to what we call the "floating head". The dark shirt will blend into the dark background, leaving only the neck and head to stand out. It isn't very flattering.

5) Finally, leave the pets indoors. A lot of people love having photos done with their pets, especially dogs. However, more often than not, our canine friends don't cooperate. The natural tendency of the owners is to look at the dog until it is looking at the camera, and then real quick try to look up at the camera before the dog is distracted. This usually results in 90% of the photos being of the dog looking away and the people looking at the dog, or the dog looking at the camera and the people still looking at the dog. It is a lot to try to juggle, and pets don't have a very good attention span when it comes to taking photos outdoors.
Its best to just leave the pets inside and concentrate on the people.

I hope some of these tips are helpful!

Tutorial

2010-04-08T12:01:00.005-05:00

I thought I would put a little "how-to" post on here to show how I've been shooting some of my motion shots on vehicles.
I've had quite a few comments and questions from people since starting to shoot these shots, so I figured it would be a good thing to share. (I've also been asked on more than one occasion if I worked for Google Maps. haha - Don't I wish!)

There are a few parts that you will need to do this type of shot. If you are a professional, or even a serious amateur, you should have most of the parts already. First and most importantly, you will need to purchase a suction mount for your camera. I purchased mine from www.filmtools.com. It is fairly cheap when you consider what photography equipment typically costs. It is essentially a suction cup with a tripod head mounted to it. The tripod head is made by Bogen/Manfrotto, so you are really getting a suction cup AND a new tripod mount for under $100.

You can see what it looks like to the right.
It is really very simple. The yellow plastic covers the cup itself during storage and prevents thing from cutting into it and puncturing it, thus ensuring the suction.

You will also need 2 PocketWizards, and a shutter release cable to run from the PocketWizard do the camera. They run around $100 if you buy them from PocketWizard directly, but FlashZebra has them for under $30.

To get it to stick to the car, remove the yellow plate, and find a flat surface. Then start pushing on the white button repeatedly until the red line is hidden. The button forces the air out of the cup and creates a vacuum.

Once that is set up, its time to attach the camera. Most tripod heads have plates that allow for quick removal of the camera. This head has a built-in screw to ensure the camera doesn't fly off the head while you are driving. Simply screw the camera on and you're done.

I used a Canon 30D for this, as I don't want to run the risk of my good camera falling off of a vehicle. However, I have never had any issues with this setup and have used it at least a half-dozen times or more. But I don't want to take any chances. However, if you only have one camera, you should be fine. Before I had my new camera I used the 30D on at least 4 or 5 outtings with this rigging and never had a single issue.

Since cameras aren't cheap, we are going to be using a 'safety net' in the unlikely even that something goes wrong. Harbor Freight has "dent removal" suction cups for about $10 each.
They work nicely in combination with some bungee cords.

I put the secondary suction cup a little under a food from the first one (you will need to adjust this based on the length of your bungee cords).
Then run one cord through the loop in the camera strap so if it falls, the camera sill at least stay on the side of your car until you can stop. The second bungee I wrap around the primary suction cup itself to try to keep that from hitting the ground should it fail.

On a side note, try to find bungee cords with plastic ends. You don't want to scratch up your paint with the metal hooks if one should fly loose while you are setting everything up.

The final setup should look like this:

In this shot I taped the camera strap up so it wasn't blowing in the wind. I have had some shots ruined because the strap flew up into the shot, or over the lens.

Once that is all secure, you can put your pocket wizard on the camera's hot shoe. Set it to "remote" and chose the channel you would like. Then attach the shutter release cable to the "camera" outlet. Plug the other end of the cord into your camera.
On Nikons, this is higher up on the camera, to the left of the prism. On Canon's it is at the bottom of the camera, typically where all the other plugs go.

The cord should have a switch on it, which will keep your camera from "going to sleep" in between shots. Most of us don't want our cameras on constantly, so the typical auto-shut0ff time is about 1-2 minutes. This switch will keep the camera on past those two minutes. However, just as a precaution, I would go into the camera's menu and set the sleep time to about 15-30 minutes. That way you don't have to worry about missing a great shot because your camera shut off by accident.

It is important to note at this point, that if you want to be able to shoot instantly while driving, the lens must be in "manual focus" mode. Otherwise the camera will try to focus on whatever it can while you are moving, which doesn't always yield good results and does not ensure an immediate "click" when you push the trigger button. I typically let the camera auto-focus to about where I think I want my focal point in my images, then switch it to MF. The usual purpose of shooting with the camera on the vehicle is to get cool streaking shots, so setting a high aperture will not only ensure good depth of field should your subject not be exactly in the focal region, but will also slow your shutter down enough so you can get a good blurring effect.
I'd recommend leaving the shutter open anywhere from 2-5 seconds per frame. If your shots are still overexposed at that shutter speed, you may want to purchase an ND filter to put on your lens. This should help a lot.

Run a quick test to make sure everything is working properly. Turn the camera and pocket wizards on, and while standing next to the cameras, fire a few test rounds. At this time, you can also adjust the camera to get the composition just right for your shot.
Once you are happy with how it looks, you're ready to hit the road!

Good luck!

Moving on up

2010-04-07T11:16:00.002-05:00

May I just take a moment to enjoy this progress I have made?
I looked at the analytics for my website and blog today and on the web site stats I noticed that someone had come to my site by way of a search on Google. This normally is a result of someone searching for "Radiant Squares", or "Ray Detwiler". However this search was different, and I immediately had to do a double-take.
Could it be?

The search terms were "Dallas Commercial Photographers."
So I quickly replicated the search on Google (hoping secretly to be the first name that popped up - hey, I can dream...!). After a quick reality check, I found myself on page 2!!!! Which is much better than what I had expected when I realized I was not on page 1. I'm typically about 30-40 pages in if you search for "Dallas Photographer". So it is very encouraging to find myself ranked in the top 20 results of the World's favorite search engine. And in the sector of business that I WANT to be in on top of that!

This is a great way to start a Wednesday! (Ok, it didn't really start with that, but its not afternoon yet, so its close enough.)

In Motion

2010-03-31T22:47:00.002-05:00

Head shots

2010-03-30T11:38:00.002-05:00

I thought I would post something else on head shots today.
I did some quick ones a few weeks ago and was running them through my workflow and thought it would be a great time to show off what my good friend Mike and I had made.

We both wanted a new background for our head shots, and instead of going out and spending a lot of money for a "professionally made" one, we decided to make one ourselves. Well, two actually.

We started out by picking colors and materials, etc. Most of that was done at Home Depot in the paint section. We used 3 or 4 paint colors, some of which were pulled out of the "oops" bin (the bin where paint mixing didn't get to the color the customer wanted, and is now useless to HD, and put on sale at a low price).

We bought a big painters canvas, although now that we are done with the project we both feel that the material is too heavy for most practical use unless you have background stands. We normally like to tape the background to the wall so that we don't have to travel with stands tho, and the canvas is just too heavy to be able to do that.

Finally, Michaels or Hobby Lobby or wherever you go for craft supplies will have a coral sponge or two that you can use for some cool patterns.
I'd have to go into the "how-to" bits later, as this isn't really a tutorial post, and I don't have time right now to do a step-by-step blog. But these images kinda give you an idea how the process went:

The light is a bit splotchy, sorry. we were under some trees in the driveway.

Anyway, I write all of that, so that you can see these:

These were my first head shots with the new background. I must say it looks pretty good! The brown is very complimentary of just about any skin tone.

So that is what I wanted to share. We are planning to do another backdrop but with a bed sheet since it will be lighter. Not sure the color scheme yet, but I'll probably post it once its done. (next couple of months probably).

Thanks for reading!

Dekat Wedding

2010-03-28T18:10:00.008-05:00

I had the honor to shoot my friend Daniel's wedding last night.
Daniel was one of the first people to tell me that I should take my hobby to a professional level. I thanked him for letting me be at his wedding last night and he said that he had me in mind from day one, even before he was ever in a relationship.
That's pretty strong confidence! I'm so lucky to have people like him who have faith in me - even on days when I'm not so sure I have faith in myself.

I shot the wedding and then the family photos, and as I finished up with the bride and groom, we turned around to realize that we were the only ones left at the church! So I was also the limo service to get them to the reception! How many times has THAT ever happened to a photographer??!!! lol I'm guessing not too many.

The reception was a total blast with both sides of the family getting out and enjoying the dance floor and each others' company.

Here are a couple of the images that I picked out from the bunch to show:

The above shot is one of those one-in-a-million shots. I was shooting at 1/30th of a second and happened to catch someone else's flash going off at the same time as mine. This has only happened to me twice in my lifetime, but both times I've gotten an amazing photo out of it. This photo just would not have been the same without that extra light. Thanks for the help, whoever you were!

I'm sure I'll put some more up soon, but for now that's all you get!!

Just for fun

2010-03-25T12:47:00.003-05:00

I was driving this morning and heard "Song 2" by the band Blur.
Naturally I turned it up quite loud and was enjoying the ride, when I remembered one of my favorite videos from some years back.

It stars Madonna and Clive Owen (back before he was a big star). Ironically it was directed by Guy Ritchie. It was made as a promo video for the BMW M5.
I'll let the video do the rest of the talking. :-)

That car just gives me goosebumps!

This blog has moved

2010-03-24T22:23:00.001-05:00

This blog is now located at http://radiantsquares.blogspot.com/.
You will be automatically redirected in 30 seconds, or you may click here.

For feed subscribers, please update your feed subscriptions to
http://radiantsquares.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default.

2010-02-19T00:52:00.005-06:00

I send out a newsletter every month, with some photos, and updates on what has been going on in the world of Radiant Squares.
If you are not signed up for it but would like to be, please go to www.radiantsquares.com and fill out the box that says "join my mailing list".

If you would like to read February's newsletter, please click here

That way you will be able to get news updates as well as any special offers or promos that I have going on.

Also, if you're a reader of this blog but you aren't a fan of the Radiant Squares Facebook page, I'd love to have you join the group!

I'll leave you with a photo or two that I shot yesterday while wandering around on an assignment for a new employer/client of mine.

That's it for now!
I hope everyone is having a great week!!!

Ray

Dallas Commercial Photographer

Ooops...

2010-02-13T02:27:00.002-06:00

As some of you may have noticed, there has been a little problem with the main website.
This is being resolved and things should be running smoothly again within a few days (hopefully).
Until then, you can check out my facebook page (and become a fan) at: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Coppell-TX/Radiant-Squares/20558714670

21st Century Advertising Agencies

2010-02-04T14:44:00.003-06:00

I am trying to pick up new clients and at the top of my list of people to get in touch with in this quest are advertising/marketing agencies in the DFW area. Seems logical.

I got a list of companies, then got phone numbers for all of them. Then I thought, I will look them up on twitter and follow whoever I can, so that they will have heard of the name "Radiant Squares" before I call them.

Would you believe that out of the 12 companies on my initial list, only TWO are on twitter?! I thought a marketing company would want to be cutting edge and be all about the social media wave in marketing. I was quite shocked by this discovery.

As a side note - if you are on twitter, follow me: @RadiantSquares

Advertising on Facebook - Worth the money?

2010-02-02T11:49:00.002-06:00

I have been advertising on Facebook for a little while now and I have been noticing a positive flow of traffic to the website from those ads. My site hit a record high of 49 unique visitors this past Saturday.

However, I look at the number of click-throughs and compare that to the number of people who's eyes saw the ad and I have to wonder if this is really worth the investment.

According to Facebook's ad tracker, the number of impressions is quite staggering.
The first campaign was kind of a dudd. Not quite sure what the problem was with it. I varied the cost-per-click allowance as well as the daily budget limit and never really saw any return for either.

The other 3 started out slow but seemed to have a better outcome than the 1st experiment.
However, I still am not satisfied with a CTR (Click-Through-Rate) of less than a half percent on all of the ads. Especially considering three of the 4 ads were aimed at a very tight age demographic (a 3 year age span).

I'd say the ads have been good to get my name in front of people, but the ultimate effectiveness is yet to be determined. I have paused all the ads for now while I reconsider their value.

If you've had experience advertising on FB I'd be interested in hearing your comments. If you found it to be more/less effective than something else (Ad Words by google for example). What is your preferred method of advertising?

Funny

2010-01-14T22:28:00.001-06:00

I just found this and had to repost it. From Joe McNally's blog:

Head-shot How-to's

2010-01-12T13:56:00.007-06:00

I thought I would do another little instructional series. This time on how to do a good head shot.

The basic ingredients for a head shot are obviously pretty simple:
1. A head (preferably attached to a body)
2. A camera with a long-ish lens
3. Lights/reflectors (optional)
4. A suitable background
5. Appropriate clothing
6. Image editing software (optional)

Putting them together just right can be the difference between an OK head shot and a great one.

1. A head
This is probably the second most important part of head shot photography. Although heads are fairly common, it is slightly less common to find a head that wants (or likes) having its picture taken. Most often this head will be in the form of a person needing a photograph, however it is not uncommon to go out and find consenting people who will agree to a head shot even if they don't particularly need one.

One of the first things you will want to do, should you be photographing someone who needs a head shot, is to find out how they will use the photo. Pretty basic. You don't want to photograph a gentleman in his workout clothes if he needs the photograph for an annual report. This doesn't really require much more explanation.

2. A camera with a long-ish lens
The camera/lens is the most important part of head shot photography. Although, arguably only slightly more important than the head itself. Without a camera there is no photograph!

Why a "long-ish" lens? This is because of the pleasing effect of a telephoto (or long) lens commonly known as "compression". Typically we think of compression in terms of backgrounds and the effect it has on them. However, if your subject should have a rather large nose, the compression of the long lens will help make it not as noticeable. Unfortunately this doesn't work for ears.

Whenever you watch a football game (or most other commonly televised sporting events) you will notice how when a player is on the screen, he/she is sharp and clearly focused while the people in the stands behind them are turned into a big blur of color. (See image for example) This blur is a direct result of a long lens and the compression it creates. This is especially useful in photography as you want the subject of your head shot to stand out and be the center of focus. You don't want the viewer to be looking at the background.

Another reason for a long-ish lens is that wide-angle lenses tend to make your subjects look un-realistic. Typically with wide-angle lenses, anything not directly in the center of the lens will be skewed or stretched a bit. If you ask photographers that do a lot of head shots what their favorite lens is, two lenses will pop up very frequently among the answers. They are the 85mm prime lens, and the 70-200mm zoom lens.
The 85mm offers razor sharp images because it is a prime lens (primes tend to be more sharp because they don't have as many elements as a zoom lens). It is, however, possible to convert any prime lens into a zoom lens. To do this, simply use the two appendages below your waist to move you closer or farther from the subject.

The 70-200mm lens is a great portrait lens because it allows the flexibility to zoom in very close to the person, while remaining a safe distance away in case they didn't take a shower that day. The 200mm end of that lens offers amazing compression which makes for very flattering portraits and head shots, but with the twist of the wrist, a wider shot can be composed for variety.
There are many other lenses that offer a farther focal length than 200mm, such as the 300mm or even the 400mm lenses. However, the drawbacks to using these are 1) super-telephoto lenses can cost upwards of $5,000. 2) The lenses are VERY heavy and cumbersome to use, allowing limited mobility. 3) In order to frame the subject properly, the photographer would have to be so far away that communication would be limited to smoke signals, walkie-talkies, and signal flags.

3. Lights/reflectors (optional)
Having lights and/or a reflector will help you to have more versatility. For example, a reflector is commonly used to reflect light into a darker part of the face. However, it can also be used to keep light off of the face altogether. Having lights means you don't have to battle the harsh sun light. Simply find a spot of shade, or use the reflector to block the sun, and you can provide your own light, however you want it to look - hard/soft, strong/weak, colored/neutral, left/right, from above/below, etc.

Typically, head shots are lit with soft light, either from a light source with an umbrella or softbox, or with light reflected from a large (white) surface. However, if the face is right or the client requests it, hard light can be used to make a much more dramatic portrait.
If the subject is a female, or if the subject's hair blends with the background, a hair light is typically used. The hair light will create a nice highlight on the subjects hair, which is flattering and also serves to keep the person's head from blending in to the background. (As illustrated by the painting/portrait to the left)

Portfolio Bolstering

2009-12-17T23:52:00.004-06:00

I spoke to someone a few months ago who is the director of sales of a national oil and gas magazine. Upon finding out that I was a photographer he suggested that I should photograph drilling rigs and try to get into the industry as there are a lot of companies that specialize in drilling and rigging in the area that I live.

Having nothing at all in my portfolio to reflect my abilities in this new field, I set out to get an opportunity to get some pictures.
At first I simply started out by discussing my idea with a few friends, and as it so happened, my room mate at the time knew someone who worked for a rigging company. He made a phone call and I had a brand new contact.

after about 3 weeks of rescheduling and waiting for weather conditions, I drove about an hour to the drilling site, where I was met by someone who worked with the contact I had made. He showed me around the place and introduced me to some of the workers. They were all very accommodating and friendly.

My goals for this shoot were as follows:
1: Get something that would look like it could be a feature for a magazine article.
2: Capture the workers in their natural element, hard at work, without disturbing anyone.
3: Have fun and get some cool photos for my website.

For the sake of keeping it short, I will skip ahead to the photos so you can see what I came out with.

As time went on the sun went down and the images got pretty interesting. I had 3 lights spread around the platform once it got completely dark.
Once they were done their pipeline change, I shot a few portraits of the guys, and then packed up and headed home.

All in all I think it was a pretty successful trip and I got some great images for the site. check them out at www.radiantsquares.com/corporate and www.radiantsquares.com/people

Help-Portrait 2009

2009-12-13T14:13:00.005-06:00

I had the great pleasure of participating in the first global help-portrait day.

This video will explain it better than I could hope to:

I arrived at nearly 10:30 and immediately started setting up. The people there had provided us with a white seamless.
I borrowed my friend Mike McLean's dyna-lite kit and headed down there.
There were 200 people, in 69 groups!
I was at station 1 of 3 and shot about 35 of those groups, including a group photo of 30 people!!

It was a very interesting experience. Some people couldn't wait to get in there and have their photo taken. Some people just refused to smile, while some people wouldn't come near the camera.
In general though, everyone there seemed very grateful for the opportunity (either to serve, or to be served).

Some of my favorite moments and the photos that go along with them:

#1

This couple had just had a baby girl. The father would not smile at all, no matter what I did or said - as long as I had the camera to my eye. So I stopped shooting for a minute and started talking with them. After a very short while he was laughing and having fun and while he was looking at his wife and smiling, I really quickly raised the camera up and took a photo. The flash brought both of their attentions right back at the camera and really quickly I got off two more frames before the smile vanished from his face. He came up to me after we were done, while I was showing his grandmother the photo, and told me that I had "blind-sided" him. I thought that was pretty funny.

#2

This guy came with all of his grandkids. Only problem was, he wouldn't smile, and neither would half of the kids. After trying to get one particular child to smile by threatening to have his grandfather tickle him, I got the brilliant idea to have ALL the kids tickle grandpa. So I told them to tickle him, and watched through the camera for just the right moment. Finally they all turned back around and while they were all still laughing I snapped a few frames.

#3

This man was obviously not very comfortable in front of the camera. I got the impression he was trying to just look tough and get it over with. So I started asking him what he planned to do with the photo once he had received his print.
He started saying he was going to send it to his "momma". Amazingly, as soon as he started talking about his momma, his face went from serious to happy and I got the photo above on the right.

#4

This guy is pretty well known around the community, as well as the church ministry that works down there, who we were recruited by. His reputation was to never smile in any photos. So when I took a few photos of him, people started asking if he was smiling. I looked back through my files and sure enough he had not been.
So I had him and his wife sit in for a few more, and like with the first photo, I waited patiently for some people around us to distract him enough to where he forgot I was there, and sure enough, he smiled and started to laugh. I caught this moment and showed it to his wife. She begged me to send her a copy of just him (the original photo has her in it as well) so she could have something to carry around with her.

Its moments like those that helped make the day a memorable one.
Hopefully next year we can do it again!

More to come!

Personal Project

2009-12-03T18:03:00.002-06:00

I have a lot of catching up to do as far as blogs. I apologize I don't always make the time to write about what is going on and what I have been shooting. I am working on rectifying that.

I started somewhat of a personal project a little over a year ago.
The plan was to photograph NICU survivors and get their stories.

So far I have done 3 different subjects.
I'd like to show you one of my newer subjects.

Meet Collin. He was 18 months old when I shot this photograph.
Unfortunately I didn't get a lot of information written down about him but you an see his feet and legs stand out as being part of the issue.

I will email his mother again and see if I can get more info.

I drove out to his house and set up a quick and easy 'studio' setup with a black background taped to the wall and a small chimera softbox as the main light.

Collin seemed to be in a rather bad mood that day and didn't stop grimacing or crying until about an hour and forty minutes into my visit.

I was still able to get some good photos though, which was good.

I'll be posting more soon hopefully!

Canon EOS 7D

2009-11-12T18:55:00.001-06:00

As was already guessed... The newest addition to the camera bag!
Such a great camera.

Stay tuned for some more photos and news coming up soon.

2009-11-09T16:55:00.001-06:00

Big Week for Radiant Squares!

2009-11-07T23:15:00.003-06:00

This past week has been a big big week for Radiant Squares!

Over the past 2 months I have been working with a company that has been redesigning my website. It has taken forever and there was a lot of work and effort that went into it, but finally it went live this past Wednesday morning.
I have had a lot of good feedback and have actually already had my first quote request through the site today!

Also this week, I was finally able to upgrade my camera body!
The camera I have been using was never intended to serve me as a professional. I bought it when I was just a hobbyist and needed something more than the cheapest Canon dSLR. 3 years and 50,000+ frames later, I have put the old camera on the reserve slot and just yesterday got its replacement in the mail.

I'm very excited to see where these two big changes are going to take me!

Here is a quick shot I did tonight of the new body. Not saying what it is yet but maybe you'll be able to guess by the "hints" I'll be posting.

Thanks for reading and don't forget to check out the all new Radiant Squares Website!!

R.

Tim & Melinda

2009-10-30T22:20:00.003-05:00

I had the opportunity to do engagement photos this past weekend for two couples.
Both shoots were blast and I found some new cool locations that I'm sure to use again soon!
Here are a few of my favorite shots from Saturday evening with Tim and Melinda.

Stay tuned for more photos!

Arizona Day 2

2009-10-03T23:29:00.003-05:00

Day two of the Arizona shoot started at 5:15am. We were set to do a sunrise shot at about 6:15 or 6:30 so we had to be moving at an unfriendly hour!

The building's colors lend to great photography, especially with the nice orange light of the morning.

After the sunrise we went inside and photographed the president of the hospital and his staff.
We found a great hallway with a lot of light coming through and got some great head shots.

The day ended with a sunset shot of the building with the mountains it was named after in the background.

Busy day, but good stuff!
More to come

Posting is fun

2009-09-24T20:05:00.004-05:00

I have been meaning to start posting more frequently. Obviously I am failing. For this I apologize.

I returned from a "run and gun" trip to Arizona about 2 weeks ago now. Although in my mind it seems like it was only 2 days ago.
We pulled a 20 hour day the first day, of which 8 were spent traveling, 7 were spent shooting, and 2 were spent downloading images and recharging batteries. Bed time was 11:30 pacific.

We shot a lot of different parts of the hospital, spending about an hour on each shot, which isn't a whole lot. One of the reasons the client said she booked us is because she knew most photographers could not complete the number of shots she had in the time period allotted.

Here is the O.R.

Here is a great shot which will be used to show the level of care and compassion people can expect at the new hospital.

And here is one of the doctors

Wake up call was for 5:30am the following morning.

On the agenda for day 2:
- sunrise shot of the exterior
- head shots of the board members
- detail shots
- lobby shot
- reception shot
- sunset shot

To be continued...

Upcoming fun-nes

2009-09-05T23:16:00.004-05:00

On Tuesday of next week, Mike and I are heading up to Arizona for a 3-day long shoot of a brand new hospital. It is not open to the public yet so we will have the run of the place.
This is my first time attempting to travel with all the equipment we will be taking with us.

I don't have a final tally on everything yet but so far it looks something like this:

2 camera bags, 3 cameras, 6 lenses, over 30gb of CF cards, two laptops, an external hard drive,
10 light stands, a tripod, a monopod, 2 bogen superclamps, 2 justin clamps, about 12 speedlights, 8 pocket wizards, lots and lots of gels, a truckload of rechargeable batteries, 2 battery chargers, 2 soft boxes, a Lumiquest box, a boom arm, an empty sand bag, tripod case, and our clothes.

It will be interesting getting all of this through airport security!!
We will get a tour as soon as we arrive and are fed, then its work time until about 7pm that night.
Early to bed and up at 5 for a 6am sunrise shot, working all day and again a late night. Then another sunrise shot (unless we get a good one the first morning - I'm crossing my fingers).
We will finish up around 2pm on the third day, drive to Las Vegas airport and head home to crash and sleep all day Friday.

Busy busy busy!

Last weekend I shot a church event put on by the young singles department. It was an "Amazing Race" event. Teams picked a country to "dress up as" then started out in the same room, were given a puzzle to put together, and on teh back of the puzzle was the first clue. From there it was off to travel all over Downtown Dallas, Plano, Richardson, and Carrollton.
I got some fun photos and the event ended around 2pm.

Here are some of my favorites:

Putting together the first clue

Playing in the fountain

Here come the teams, fresh off the DART

Finding clues in the fountain

The food challenge had some not-so tasty treats

One unlucky team member eating dog food

Zero Gravity challenge

Zero Gravity Challenge

Flying High

All the participants, volunteers, and staff that stuck around till the end

3rd place team member heading home

That's it from me for now. Stay tuned for more. Hopefully I'll have a few minutes here and there to blog about our trip to Arizona!

Happy Labor Day weekend everyone!
R.

Roadside Stops

2009-08-12T11:32:00.003-05:00

Last week my good friend Mike and I went down to Clear Lake to help teach at a journalism workshop for high school students who are on the yearbook staff. This was their first year having a photography class and the kids seemed to love it. The first day was spent going through the basics of operating a camera and composing a photograph, but on the second and third day we got to get a bit more advanced and showed them some basic lighting techniques.
Here is a photo that Mike did of me teaching them the basics of lighting:

Clear Lake was beautiful and Mike and I took the opportunity to walk around and talk to some locals and, of course, to photograph them.

Here is one of my favorite photos from a town called "Kemah".

You wouldn't be able to tell from looking at him, but he is a nurse! He has the softest hands of any Harley rider I've ever met. haha

All in all it was a very fun trip and it yielded some great portraits.
More to come I'm sure!

60 Second Head Shot

2009-07-30T16:14:00.005-05:00

I was shooting downtown today when my client asked if I could do a quick head shot of her.
Naturally, I agreed.

My favorite place to do head shots is outdoors in the shade. My favorite backdrop is trees, bushes, or anything nature looking. The green just really complements people's skin. The shade allows me to use my own light, which gives me much more control over how the subject is lit.

The building I was shooting in has a nice park next door and my first thought was to get her over to the park. But once I stepped out on the porch I realized I didn't have to take her more than 5 feet from her front door.

I quickly set up a light stand, used an SB-28 speedlight, and a shoot through umbrella.
I posed her with her back to the park and fired 2 quick light tests.
Fired of 10 more frames once the light was right, and we were done.
From the time the first light test was shot to the time the last frame was shot was exactly 59 seconds!
What took the longest was setting up the light stand and flash, and I decided to change lenses after seeing what it looked like. (I started with a 5omm F/1.4, but opted to go with my 70-200mm F/2.8 instead.

And here is the result of my one minute of shooting:

As Promised: Bridal Portraits!

2009-07-27T00:41:00.004-05:00

In my last post I showed you how I photographed my friend Melissa for her bridal portraits. Unfortunately I couldn't show the images at the time, but I'm happy to say that, as of yesterday, they are happily married and I'm now free to show off the photos!

As I showed you the setup for the indoor ones, I'll go ahead and show you those.

Here is one with only one of the strip boxes firing. As you can see, the black background and white dress create a beautiful contrast, and the light makes the photos so incredibly dramatic.

Both lights firing this time. I probably should have moved them back a bit farther behind her, but the result is still very dramatic.

Finally, my favorite image from the series, which was blown up to a 16"x20" for her wedding day:

She loved them almost as much as I did! I was very happy that she let me shoot inside, as I've been trying to convince the brides-t0-be that I've shot to do it, but none of them have gone for the idea. Since she is a very good friend she was kind enough to indulge me.

Bridal Portraits

2009-06-25T14:14:00.003-05:00

I did some bridal portraits last night for a very good friend. I have been trying to get brides to let me shoot them indoors on a black background so that the images could be black and white. The white dress with a black background really creates some powerful contrast and draws attention to the dress. Finally I was able to, mainly because my friend was nice enough to be my guinea pig.

For the project I rented two 6' tall strip boxes. The guy at the rental place acted like I was crazy for wanting to use them for bridal portraits! But I wish he could have been in the room with me as I shot some of the most powerful and dramatic bridal portraits I have ever shot. I put one on either side of her so that only her sides were lit. The bride loves them and I'm hoping that now that I have something to show to future brides I will be able to do it more often.
I mean, why would you not want to shoot indoors in July in Texas??? Its 100+ degrees outside, with 90% humidity!! This way you can do your hair and makeup and it stays the way you want it. You are not wearing a 10lb dress and sweating for 2 hours. OK, I can't promise you won't break a little sweat in a studio with lights and a heavy dress, but I guarantee it will not be anywhere near as bad as if you were outside!

I can't show you the photos I got for another month or so, but this is the basic setup I did:

Photoshop Tip

2009-06-09T12:36:00.003-05:00

For those of you who use photoshop to process your images I ran across something that might be of use to you.

You may have noticed that your images lose some saturation when they are uploaded to the internet. I have heard that this can be avoided by using the "sRGB" color profile. However, I still notice considerable desaturation.

While trying to make sure my images were, indeed, in the "sRGB" profile today I ran across a great feature that prevents the loss of your original color.

Under the "Edit" menu, scroll down to the "color settings" option.

This will bring up a dialog box where you can change various settings.
If you view it with the "more options" button enabled you will see an option to desaturate by 20%.

This effectively gives you a preview of what the image will look like once it is on the web.
From there, you can re-saturate it up to the way you want it to look. I used the sponge tool, but you could throw a hue/saturation adjustment layer over it just as easily.

Save it as a JPG and when it uploads the image will look normal.

Babies - they make everyone smile (well almost...)

2009-06-06T17:32:00.003-05:00

I agreed to act as "photographer" for a friend's "baby's first birthday" party.
Didn't realizing that there would be a whole pack of little rugrats running around! But I quickly settled in and got a few great photos.

Here is my favorite (ironically not of the birthday girl...)

Shot through a play house window.

A tip for all of you Pocket Wizard using photographers

2009-05-14T17:09:00.009-05:00

I was assisting a photographer friend of mine the other day and we ran into a hiccup with our shot.
We were trying to shoot a building from pretty far away, and fire lights inside it. I think the range must have been just out of reach of the pocket wizards we were using as they were not firing with any kind of consistency.

My first thought was to use a relay, about half way between the photographer and the lights.
It had been some time since I had actually used the relay feature so I had to look up how to do it. After a few minutes on Google, I had my answer. The only problem was, in order to have relay mode work on your pocket wizard, the relaying unit has to be on the hotshoe of a camera. We didn't have another camera available to use for this, so I thought we were done for.

While digging through my gear bag, I came across a little piece of equipment that I almost never use anymore but that ended up making a huge difference. It is an $11 hotshoe adapter that I bought from www.flashzebra.com.

Photo by Mike McLean

What makes this hotshoe special is that it has a pc jack on the side, which sends a signal to the contact on the shoe of any flash and fires it. I originally picked it up because I had several flashes that did not come with pc connectors and this was the cheapest way to get them to work with pocket wizard triggers. However, you can use it to cheat a relay mode with pocket wizards.

To do relay mode, you need a minimum of 3 pocket wizards. The first is used as a remote to fire the shutter wirelessly. The 2nd normally is on the camera's hotshoe, plugged into the camera's wireless shutter release port. When pw #1 is fired, pw #2 gets the signal and sets off the shutter.
While this is happening, the camera senses something on the hotshoe and sends the signal to fire whatever is up there in sync with the shutter. Here is where relay mode kicks in. The Pocket Wizard automatically goes to the next channel down (in our case, channel 2) and transmits the signal to fire #3, which is already set to channel 2.

As I didn't have another camera to use, I thought of this hotshoe adapter. It has a "hot" shoe and a pc connection. I simply put the pocket wizard on the hotshoe adapter,

Photo by Mike McLean
and then added the cable to it.

Photo by Mike McLean
A quick push of the "test" button on pw #1, set to channel 1, fired the lights that were hooked up to pw #3, which were set to channel 2. By doing this, essentially you can take the range of your pocket wizards from 1600ft to 3200ft. All that for $11.

Pretty nice!

Some More Vehicle Photos to Drool over

2009-05-02T11:49:00.004-05:00

Here are a few shots of an Alpha Romeo 8C. It is extremely rare, especially in the U.S.
It showed up at the Ferrari event I was at a few weeks ago, and I couldn't pass up a few minutes of alone time with it!

FOOOD

2009-04-29T11:27:00.004-05:00

I recently did a project for a restaurant. This was my first exposure to food photography as an art. I must say, it is a complicated process. In fact, I have heard from multiple sources that food photography is the hardest form of photography due to the short time window to shoot the food before it ceases to look appetizing.

With the help of my good friend Mike and the owner (who turned out to be a great food stylist), we knocked 6 shots out in a two hour window. Here are two of my favorites:

Both make my mouth water, so I think that's "mission accomplished" as far as making the food look good!

Ferrari Launch Party

2009-04-14T22:29:00.002-05:00

I am back after a little break from blogging. Sorry for my absence.

I was invited to attend the launch of the Ferrari California this evening at the Plano Ferrari Dealership.
Of course I gladly accepted, knowing there would be lots of amazing vehicles to photograph!
There were at least 25 Ferraris, about 5 or 6 Lamborghinis, a few maseratis and Aston Martins, and an ultra-rare Alpha Romeo 8C!
I ended up missing the unveiling because I was too busy photographing an old right-side drive Rolls Royce that was parked outside. hehe
I found that when the sun gets low enough you can get some amazing car photographs as you don't have to worry about hot spots.

Here is by far my favorite image of the night, of a Ferrari F430:

A close second to this photo was this shot of an Audi R8:

Just thought I would share these. I haven't shot a car in a long long time and I forgot how many fun angles and cool detail shots can be had with a sporty and clean vehicle!
More to come soon hopefully!

Basketball Profile prt 2.

2009-02-07T23:41:00.005-06:00

As our first attempt at shooting Dominique was rushed and cramped, we spoke with the Journalism professor and he spoke with the basketball coach for us. He agreed to let us use the locker room during the whole next J.V. game so that we would have more time. We shot a few group shots with a slightly different lighting setup, then got down to business and shot Dominique for about 10-15 minutes. I must say these shots were much better than the first set we did.

Here is one of my favorites from the shoot:

He was pretty relaxed for this one, and we got a lot of good images to chose from.
In addition, I got a couple of good action shots during the game. We went with completely separate sets of lights this time. Both were on separate pocket wizard channels (one of which was 100% mine) so the light recycle time was much better.

Here are two that I like:

Hope you like the images.

Basketball Profile

2009-02-04T12:59:00.004-06:00

My good friend Mike and I were speaking to a friend of Mike's who is the Journalism teacher at Richardson High School and he wanted us to come in and work with him on lighting up their gym for athletic events, and shooting games.

We were planning on doing a 3-light setup, with one light being on the wall behind the goal, and the other two either side of the gym aimed back towards the basketball goal. However, as we were setting up the light behind the goal one of the players came over and seemed very unhappy about the fact that a light was going to be going off in his face. So, we took it down so as to avoid being told we could not shoot at all.

After a few test shots with the 2 lights, we more or less had the light that we wanted, and the game started. However, after shooting the first quarter, we decided it would be better to have a 3rd light for fill. During half time we snuck the 3rd light back up to where it was originally, and went back to our shooting positions. Nobody said anything to us, and our photos were lit much more evenly.

Once I had tried to capture a few action shots I remembered why my camera was not necessarily the best suited for fast action sports photography! So I got a bit more creative with it.

One of the players is 17-year old Dominique Dorsey. At first you wouldn't notice anything about him that is different other than the fact that he is one of the team's better players. But you would quickly pick up on the fact that there is something amazingly special about this young man. He was born with meromelia (a medical term describing absence of part of an arm or leg).

When we heard that he was one of the best players on the basketball team at RHS, we had to set up a quick session with him. Unfortunately, it was between the JV and Varsity game, in the locker, and we only had about 4 minutes before all the players and coaches were breathing down our necks to get out of the way so they could change and get ready.
I did manage to squeeze this shot out though. And we are already working on getting Dominique for a more serious session, hopefully with no one waiting impatiently for us to get out of their way!

The Dallas Morning News came an visited RHS a few weeks ago and did an interview with Dominique. To read it, click here

Times Square

2009-01-29T10:02:00.002-06:00

Don't forget that this weekend is the Grapevine Camera Show (Jan 31st-Feb 1st)
Grapevine Convention Center
1209 South Main Street, Grapevine, TX Open to the public
Adults $5.00 admission
Children under 12 enter free with adult

Saturday 10am - 5pm and Sunday 10am - 3pm

A Cloud Looms over the Financial District

2009-01-22T12:40:00.003-06:00

I took this back in July. Thought it somewhat fitting of the current state of the nation.

Portrait

2009-01-10T18:22:00.003-06:00

Here is another one of the images I shot with Alan on Monday.

The setup for this shot was pretty simple and didn't take long to set up.
We used this setup for a few minutes and got a great set of images. This one is the best in my opinion.

The Chemistry of a Photoshoot (part 4)

2009-01-07T17:09:00.006-06:00

People are a big part of what most photographers shoot. Be it fashion models, employees, family, or just regular people, most photographers find themselves interacting with people on a regular basis. For this reason it is key to know a few tricks to help put your subject at ease and make them feel comfortable in front of your camera.

Some of the ways to do this have been covered already in previous parts of this series, but I will discuss them briefly just for a refresher.

One of the easiest things to do to make a person feel comfortable with the idea of having their photograph taken is to just walk them through what will happen and how the shoot will unfold. This gives them an idea what to expect, and it also lets them gauge how far along the shoot is.
For example, if you are going in to do a head shot, just let the subject know what you are expecting from them. You can let them know that you will do some light tests first, then have them face the light for a few serious and a few smiling shots, then have them facing away from the light for the same serious and smiling shots. Then they will be done. This helps the subject prepare mentally for what they have to do. It also gives them something to focus on other than just staring blankly at the camera. People like direction, especially in situations they are unfamiliar with.

Ask the subject if they have a preference as to how you will photograph them. Some people favor one side of their face over another, or prefer one pose to another. You may not always have the option to accommodate their wishes, but involving them in the creative process will help them become more at ease.

Get your subject to laugh. If possible, do this when you first meet them. Take a minute or two and talk to them. Try to find some common ground between the two of you that you can chat about for a bit. This will help them see you more as a friend than just a person pointing a camera at their face. A good way to do this is to research your subject ahead of time so that you know something about them. This gives you a point of interest to open a discussion with.
Once they have opened up to you verbally, they will open up to you more 'photographically'. The subject will trust you more and you will be able to make better photographs.

A lot of times people will pose for a photograph and after I've taken one shot they think the shoot is over with. The reason they do this is because they are used to just being in snapshots taken by friends or family. For these kinds of pictures, one shot is enough. But for the quality of work that professional photographers do, there are multiple shots needed. So by informing the subject ahead of time that you will be shooting a few series of shots, it keeps them from starting to walk away from the shoot as soon as you've started shooting light tests!

As mentioned earlier, having music playing will keep awkward silence at bay. If you have the model bring their own playlist, it will give them something familiar to ease their nerves. I find this to be true in many cases in life, not just photography. If I can't sleep sometimes just putting music on will help take my mind off of whatever is keeping me up, and it will relax me enough to allow me to doze off. Obviously we don't want our subjects dozing off so I would avoid playing anything that is slow or quiet, but that depends on the model's taste.

I also mentioned before that the atmosphere has a lot to do with making the subject feel comfortable. If you are shooting in a completely foreign place, the subject may not always feel comfortable. However, you will find that if you can get the person in their natural environment (work or home) that they will be more at ease in front of the camera.

Attitude and energy also help to relax a person. If you are happy to be photographing them, and are in a good state of mind, it will show, and rub off on them. I've covered this pretty in-depth so I won't spend too much time on it, but it is a key factor to getting a subject to relax.

I find that complimenting a person raises their self-esteem and, along with that, their level of confidence. All of this shows in a photograph. If you sense that the model is up tight or nervous, drop a few well-placed compliments and see how well the person responds. Telling someone they look great in a photograph, or that they are photogenic, or letting them know that they are doing a great job can really go a long way to helping them to relax.

People are always more comfortable dealing with other people than with machines or electronic devices. Therefore, try to make eye contact with the subject on a regular basis. If you just hide behind your camera the entire time, the subject will get little human interaction with you and will feel like they are just dealing with a piece of equipment. A tripod may be a good option for you if you have the option of having your subject sit still for an extended period of time. This cuts out the need to hold the camera in place and allows you to just stand and chat with the subject while snapping photographs.

If you don't like using a tripod, have an assistant who can be there to engage the subject in conversation while you are shooting. Often times if someone is chatting and thinking about something other than having their photo taken they will relax. You will want to be careful not to get too many shots with an open mouth or a tongue sticking out, so occasionally just ask the subject to look at you for a minute, and then let them continue their discussion. Whenever possible, have your assistant stand next to you, or as close to the lens as possible. This will keep the eyes close to the lens.

Be respectful of your subject. If there is something that the subject doesn't want to do, try to be respectful of that. The exception would be if you are hired to get a specific shot of a person, and they just don't want to have their photo taken. In this case your hands are tied and you have to use any and all means available to get the shot. Often times though, they will know about the shot before hand and be willing to work with you.

Touching your subject is a topic that is sort of a grey area. I know a lot of people don't feel it is appropriate for a photographer to touch a model. This is something that you must decide for yourself. I normally ask permission the first time and explain what I am going to do - for example, if I need to move hair away from someone's face, or reposition them I will ask permission first. This makes it less awkward, and it introduces your subject to the idea of being touched by a stranger in a way that is much less of a surprise than just having someone reach out and grab them. While it may not always be necessary to touch someone while shooting them, it is sometimes faster and easier to just move a person to where you want them than it would be to try to explain what you want them to do.

Give the subject something familiar to hold onto. This could be a tool they work with often, or something as simple as a clipboard. The prop will provide one more point of "comfort" for your subject. In addition, having something to do with their hands gives them one less thing to stress about, and it will also make for a more interesting photograph.

Another thing that will make your subject feel more comfortable is showing them that you are in control and you know what you are doing. As mentioned earlier on, you are the director of the shoot in most cases. Therefore, if you act as such, the model will be much more willing to follow your direction. If you are acting like you don't know what you are doing, the model may or may not feel confident cooperating with you.

Show an image here or there if you think that the subject will benefit from seeing your work.
This is an easy confidence booster for your model. If your shot is coming out like you had envisioned it and you are excited about it, then it would be a good thing if you can get your subject excited about it as well. If they see that they are the key part of an amazing image, they will more than likely relax a bit more and, as a result, be much more willing to follow your direction.

Finally, sometimes it helps to have friends or familiar faces around. This can be for moral support, distraction, encouragement, etc. Be careful with this one though, as sometimes people feel strange having their photo taken in front of people they know. It can create some awkwardness or even tension in the room. A good way to see how this might work is to start off with people they know in the room with you. Then ask the subject if they would feel more comfortable shooting in private. Do this as discretely as possible so that the other people in the room don't notice what you are doing. You want to avoid anyone getting their feelings hurt because the subject doesn't want them to be there. If they prefer to be in private, just ask everyone to leave as if it is something that you require. This keeps the subject out of trouble.
Personally I would prefer to shoot in private as there are less distractions for the subject to interact with. However this isn't always possible.

I think I've covered quite a lot of ideas in this posting as to how to make your subject relax for you. There are probably as many ways to do this as there are photographers so just try some of these as basic starting points and then work on some things you think of on your own depending on the situation. Remember to try to put yourself in your subject's shoes and think what would make you feel comfortable.

Intermission

2009-01-06T14:18:00.004-06:00

I have taken a little break between posts of "The Chemistry of a Photoshoot" but don't worry it will be back soon!

One of the reasons for the break was because I have been pretty busy over the past few days.
I threw together a shoot with a male model I met on a modeling website. Considering the time I spent prepping for my last few shoots, and the short notice of this one, I was rather pleased with the outcome.

We started with a few concept shots that I had seen on several different websites. These are great if you don't have a theme or need a starting point for your shoot. I sent Alan my ideas and he responded with what he liked and what he needed for his portfolio. From there we set a day and time and it all came together.

Here are a few of the images I've had a chance to edit:

Alan is probably one of the best models I have ever worked with. As soon as I said "action" he jumped right in and started giving me killer poses and facial expressions. That definitely made the shoot a lot easier!

I'll put more up soon!
Hope you all had a great weekend.
R>

Happy New Year!

2009-01-01T19:12:00.002-06:00

I hope everyone had a great NYE celebration last night.

I'm taking a little break from the series, but it should be back up towards the beginning of the week.

Hope everyone is well!
Have a happy and prosperous year in 2009!!

Ray

The Chemistry of a Photoshoot (Part 3)

2008-12-28T16:06:00.005-06:00

I wanted to discuss the aspect of controlling a photoshoot.
Some of this overlaps with the previous 2 posts.
In order to really be in control you must have prepared everything properly in advance. This will not only give you a good understanding of what's going but will show your client that you know what you're doing. If the client has to do a bunch of last minute running around &
detail finalization for you it will have them questioning your organizational skills in no time.

Also, you must be able to control the energy of your shoot. Obviously there are some things that will always be out of your control, but if you can't keep your subjects interested you will quickly lose control of your shoot.

Having briefly touched on those points, let's move on to some things to keep in mind while you're at a shoot.

Authority.
It is important to establish yourself as the person in charge of the shoot as soon as possible. The only time you wouldn't do this is if you are working with a creative director or another type of director who is organizing everything. However, most of the time, you, as the photographer, will be the one calling the shots.

If you don't establish your leadership over the shoot you will quickly lose control of what is going on. One of the first shoots I ever set up was with a local car club. My initial thought was to get in touch with 3 or so of the vehicle owners & have them let me photograph their cars. I was mostly going for location shots and detail shots.

I got in touch with the person listed on the club's website and he emailed me back sounding enthusiastic about the idea. But then somehow he took my idea and turned it into a huge meeting with 30+ vehicles attending!! I stood by & didn't say anything to discourage him.
The appointed day came and I walked into the shoot so discouraged that I didn't even bother to make a game plan for the people that showed up. I ended up taking group photos and some individual shots of owners & their cars. Pretty much people were telling me what they wanted photos of & I was taking them. Nothing even close to what I had originally envisioned. I shot until my memory card was full & ended the shoot.

I was originally mad at the guy who organized the event, but after considering everything I had to shift the blame back to myself. If I had truly been in control I would have insisted that only 3 or 4 cars come or I wouldn't do the shoot. That was one of several hard lessons learned that day!

I have come a long way since then! The last shoot I was on I sent a whole family to their rooms to change their clothes because the outfits were not working at all in the photos! It ate about 10 minutes of the shoot time but the photos we got after the wardrobe change were infinitely better than the ones before. The family was happy with the end product and that is really what counts.

That leads me into the next thing you, as the photographer, should be getting better at: Direction.

Once you have established the fact that you are the one in charge of the shoot, you have to be able to give direction & communicate your ideas clearly. You can do this by having a go-by image to show the subjects, or by verbally/physically placing them. A go-by image is helpful to have because the subjects can see exactly what they are expected to do. Keep the image handy and visible to your subjects. Whenever possible, have an assistant ready to move the subjects or refresh their memories of the go-by image. If you must physically move your subjects it means leaving your post and having to come back & reset yourself every time an adjustment is required.

You must be able to tell people what to do without being timid about it, or abrasive. If you walk into a room to shoot someone and there is furniture everywhere you must be able to tell whoever is working with you that the shot would look better without it.

If your client is choosing a location for you, you must be able to go to the location and make an assessment as to whether it will work for the shot. If it wont work for the shot then, in the name of making a winning photo, exercise your authority and explain to them why it will not work and offer other suggestions. If the location they picked works then that's great. Marketing/PR people often don't have the same eye for photography as you do though, so its important that if you are given lemons you quickly right the situation and go find some grapes. Don't force yourself to make lemonade unless you absolutely have no other option.

Starting a shoot in a bad location can throw a hitch in your creativity because, in your mind, you will have given up on making a good image as soon as you determined that the location was bad. Your energy will suffer and from there it is all down hill. If you look around and can't find anything better then at least you will have the satisfaction of knowing that this location was the best YOU could find. Then and only then should you start to make your lemonade. But my guess is that if you have control of things, and you have the right attitude, you will make the best lemonade the client has ever had!

Follow-through with what you have said you will do for your client. For example, if you say you will have the images in 3 days, make sure you have the images in 2 1/2! This shows them you are in control of things on your end and that will instill them with confidence, ultimately leading to more work for you. If you can't deliver the images on time, for whatever reason, be sure and call the client with plenty of time and make them aware of the situation. Don't just deliver the images late without letting the client know. It always looks better if you own up to your mistakes than if you try to hide from them.

Finally, follow up. Call the client, make a time when you can go meet with them and go over the images you have shot together. This will give you immediate feedback and you can discuss the shots you picked and why you thought they were worth picking.
Also, if the person you are delivering the images to was not with you while you were shooting, the meeting will give you a chance to explain to them why furniture was moved or why wardrobe/locations were changed. If they just look at the images by themselves they may misinterpret your intentions and be upset that you did not deliver the images they requested.

That's it for this time.
Hope this will be helpful to you as you start to take on more and more shoots.

The Chemistry of a Photoshoot (part 2)

2008-12-23T13:24:00.020-06:00

The last post went over with such a positive reaction (other than people not liking the font - which I am changing for further posts) that I decided to move up the schedule and write the 2nd part of the series.

The next thing I'd like to touch on is the energy of a photoshoot. This is really an unspoken thing in classes and seminars on photography. However, I have found that this can make or break a shoot.

What is so important about energy? Energy is what keeps a photographer going creatively. Energy is what keeps the subject(s) attention. Energy maintains a feeling of comfort and fun. All of these things are important to producing quality images.

I'd like to suggest some things to do to maintain a good level of energy, as well as some things to avoid.

The first thing, and often something that can be overlooked, is the atmosphere.
This mainly applies to an indoor shoot, as you can't always control the atmosphere of an outdoor shoot, especially if it is for a grunge theme and you are shooting near demolished buildings or dumpsters.

Imagine walking into a room that is darkly lit, quiet, and just looks bare. This is a perfect example of a negative energy atmosphere. It makes me sleepy just thinking about it.
I understand that it is sometimes important to shoot in darker conditions, however I believe you will find that most of the time you can leave all the lights on in a room (and even add some) and your photos will not be affected much.

For example, you may find that to shoot a properly exposed photograph in a room lit by tungsten lights you need to be shooting at 1/60th, f/2.8, at ISO 400. Most home lights do not have the power output that studio lights or even speedlights can put out. So you see, if you are shooting at 1/250th (the most common flash sync speed) and ISO 100 you will not come anywhere close to having interfering lights from the room. It is intimidating enough to stand in front of a camera and lights if you are not used to doing so. If the subjects are standing in front of bright lights in a dark room it could feel like an interrogation room, which never puts anyone at ease!

If you can, have upbeat music playing. Sometimes, if you are shooting a model, it may be a good idea to tell them to bring their ipod or a CD with music. This way you know for sure the music is something they will like and feel comfortable with. Play it loud enough to where it isn't just background music, but not so loud that you can't hear each other talk. This obviously doesn't apply to shooting on locations where you can't have music playing (outdoors, office environments, etc)

Another thing that will keep the energy going in your photoshoot is the photographer's energy. That's right, YOU can affect the shoot in a positive or negative way depending on how you are acting. If you are moving slowly, and talking quietly it will affect the mood of everyone there. The photographer should be the liveliest, most peppy person at the shoot. Your mood infects everyone present. If you are upbeat, it will show in the images you take. Try to get as many people smiling as you can while you are going through introductions and preliminary stuff.
If they remember you as the "fun photographer" they will want to work with you again and will cooperate with you more easily.

A common pitfall of some inexperienced photographers is to chimp after every image shot. Unless you are shooting light tests, or shooting inanimate objects, I beg you, don't do this!! It sucks all the energy out of the room by breaking the rhythm of the shoot.

Once you have set up the lights, inform your subject that you are going to do a series of light tests and that they don't have to pose or anything until you are done. This allows them to stay relaxed as long as possible, and also gets them used to the idea of how bright the flashing lights will be before they have to jump right in and start posing for your camera. Once you have the lights set up the way you want them, let your subject know you are ready to start shooting. From this point on, the lights will not change from shot to shot, so there really is no need to check your screen after every shot.

Imagine you are the subject and you're not used to having your photo taken. (This is common in corporate environments). If your photographer stops after every frame shot, you will start to feel like the shoot is going to take forever. So now, not only do you feel a little awkward or uncomfortable in front of the camera, but you are fully expecting it to take 25 minutes just to get one usable head shot.

Chimping after every frame also affects the rhythm of your shoot because every time you take the camera away from your eye several things happen on the subconscious level. First, the subject sees the camera is not pointed at them anymore and they will stop holding the pose you just worked so hard to get them into. If it takes you 30 seconds to chimp, and 30 more to get your subjects back into position before you can shoot, you waste 60 seconds every time you take the camera away from your eye. In any kind of high-pressure environment, a minute between frames is much too long!! Sometimes all you get with a subject is 5 minutes. If you spend 3 of those 5 minutes chimping you aren't going to walk away with much to work with.

Second, if there is more than one person posing for you the time between frames encourages them to start interacting with one another (usually out of boredom from waiting for you to finish looking). This is not necessarily a bad thing as it can put them at ease with one another, but it encourages movement and at times the subjects break out into uncomfortable laughter which is often hard to stop. There is nothing worse than needing someone to look serious for a photograph and being met with uncontrollable laughter on their end. It is both frustrating and time consuming to get them to get their head back into the shoot. This isn't to say you can't have fun while shooting, but it all depends on the shot. You don't find many Forbes covers where the CEO is rolling on the floor from laughter...

Finally, it affects you as a photographer, because every time you stop to chimp you slow your creative flow. Your mind is no longer concentrating on capturing images. It gets away from making great photographs and then has to concentrate on getting the camera back into the exact spot it was in, making sure the subjects are where they should be, etc. There's really no way to avoid chimping all together, I'm not suggesting that. But there is no reason to do it constantly after every exposure. Shoot 3, 4, 5 frames and then glance quickly at what you have. Shoot 4 or 5 more frames, and glance quickly. The main reason for glancing at this point is to make sure that your subject(s) had all their eyes open, that they were smiling, or to make sure the posing was what you had intended.

One other point I'd like to stress is to always sound excited about your images. This contributes to the positive energy of the shoot.
After you've shot 5 or 6 frames, as you are checking them for closed eyes, etc, just comment on how good the photograph looks. Compliment the subject on their appearance, or their pose, or anything that comes to mind. This eases their mind and makes them feel more confident. Unless it is a truly amazing photograph I usually hold off on showing them any images until the very end. Again, walking away from the spot you are shooting from means you have to rethink part of the process when you get back, which eats up time and takes your mind off of getting what you came for. However, if you feel like the subject needs to see the image they are helping create then by all means - go for it. Having a subject who won't cooperate or doesn't feel comfortable being photographed can and will ruin a potentially great photograph.

Hope this is helpful and informative. I know it was a bit long but there was a lot to go over.
Stay tuned for more!

(Merry Christmas)

R.

The Chemistry of a Photoshoot

2008-12-21T23:29:00.007-06:00

Not too long ago I was asked to assist a friend who was doing his first photoshoot. It was to be a family portrait, for a family of 4. At the time I didn't think much of it as I assist on a weekly basis.
Plus, the friend I was assisting needed to use lights, which I was going to provide since he didn't have a lot of gear at his disposal. As we arrived on location, I realized that this was not going to be my typical assisting gig.

My friend is in art school, studying photography, but it seems there are still some things you just can't pick up in a class room. Some of those I have been fortunate enough to have picked up over the last year or so of having assignments on my own and assisting another photographer. This is in no way a reflection on my friend as a photographer, but these are the things, I thought, that should be shared on blogs. These are things that are often taken for granted as we skip on to more interesting things such as composition or lighting. Sure learning how to create good photographs is important to the business but if you can't manage a photoshoot then you will not get many opportunities to use your skills as a photographer.

That is where the concept for this little set of posts came from. I'd like to just walk through some of the aspects that are often overlooked, but are so key to having a successful shoot. Some of this stuff I've read in books, but most of it I have not found in text form. It has been picked up from watching others or from personal experience. I'm by no means an expert, but I think I can at least offer somewhat of a foundation to build on.

Some of the things I'd like to talk about include:
- pre-shoot thoughts
- energy
- controlling the shoot from start to finish
- making the subject feel comfortable
- some common pitfalls

First thing I'll talk about today is "Pre-shoot Thoughts".
By this I mean a mental check-list to go through before the shoot, as well as making sure the assignment is understood, etc.

The easiest parts of the check list are things like date, time, location, and subject. These are all things you will be discussing with your client prior to anyone's arrival. Assuming all of this lines up, there are a few other things you will want to discuss with your client prior to shooting.

One of the first mistakes I made as a photographer shooting one of my first assignments was to just start shooting as if I was shooting for me. I framed things the way I thought they should look. I lit them the way I thought they should be lit. I edited them the way I would normally edit a photograph. This is all well and good if you are shooting for yourself. But when someone else's expectations are to be met you can't just do everything as if it was for your own portfolio.

My first shoot resulted in a 4-hour reshoot because the client was not happy with any of my images. I had failed to ask one of the most important questions: "what exactly do you want?"
Turns out the client wanted wide shots of the interior of their house so they could see as many rooms as possible in each shot. What I had shot was more close-up, detailed shots of the rooms. He referred to it as something that looked like an advertisement for a furniture company.
Had I taken 3 extra minutes at the beginning of my shoot to find out just what he expected out of the day I would have saved myself 4 hours of re-shooting, which of course he was not charged for.

Things to consider are things like the useage of the photograph - is it going in a magazine, a mailer, a website, etc. Each of these can require a different type of shot. For example, a photo for a magazine could be, among other things, a cover, a spread, or a small insert. If it is a full page photograph you will need to know if it is supposed to have text printed over it. If so, it is a good idea to pick a background that lends itself to having something printed over it. A plain wall, or a blue sky are good places to start. Text is almost always printed in one color, so having half the background black and the other half white (for example) might require that a half of the text be an opposite color than that of the background. Always try to keep it simple, and keep the final product in mind.

Another important thing is the format. If you are shooting photographs for a horizontal banner on a website it would be a bad idea to shoot all verticals, as only about 1/1oth of the image will be able to be used once it has been cropped down to fit the banner. Likewise, if you are shooting for a cover of a magazine, shooting a horizontal image is probably not the best use of your time.

You are probably thinking that this is all stuff that seems pretty logical, and I would certainly agree. However, you would be surprised how easy it is to forget these details once you are on location and wrapped up in getting the subject to cooperate, lighting the scene, plus getting it all shot within 15 minutes so the room you are in can be used for something else as soon as you walk out of it.

Getting all of these details hammered out with the client before the shoot begins will save you many hours of post processing (trying to convert verticals into horizontals, etc) or worse, hours of re-shooting.

Another important question to ask is when the images are needed by. It would be easy to assume that if a shoot is scheduled for a Thursday that Monday would be an OK due-date. However, it could very well be that the client is on a tight deadline and needs the images by Friday morning in order to meet their deadline. Don't assume the client will let you know of the deadline they are under. They may assume you already have spoken to someone else about it. In which case, if you haven't, they miss their deadline, the images you have just shot become useless, and you will not look very good for having missed the unmentioned deadline. Save yourself the trouble and be sure to ask!

Your check list should also include a question about location permits, or security. Some buildings have security officers who have been instructed not to allow photography. In most cases if you are doing a shoot on location you will have someone with you who will alert security, however this is not always the case. Check with whoever you are working with to make sure all the proper permits and red-tape has been worked through or you may find that you have to come back on another day to shoot. This may ultimately be the responsibility of someone in marketing or PR, but they don't always have experience dealing with photographers and may not know to cover this. Asking ahead of time can prevent a lot of issues. Even if the person knows to do a lot of this, they will know that you are on the ball and are thinking ahead as well. That can never hurt!

Be punctual.

Finally, dress appropriately. Photographers can get away with dressing down a lot of times as they are seen as "artistic", and everyone knows artistic people are weird (heheh). But it speaks volumes about your professionalism if you show up in clothes that are appropriate to the location you are shooting in. Just like I wouldn't go shoot a wedding in jeans, I would never go to a corporate environment in old shorts and a T-shirt. Find out what kind of environment you will be in (business formal, business casual, etc). If the company is a very formal one, you should at least be dressed business casual. This shows them that you respect them enough to put in the extra effort and not stand out all day looking like someone they picked up off the street to shoot their annual report. I would even go as far as to say the same applies if you are dropping off images to a client. If they think of you in a positive light, they will be more likely to call you back for another assignment. It may not seem like much, but dressing professionally can make an impression on all the right people.

Hopefully not all of this was redundant information for you. I will post more soon and share more hard-learned lessons. I'd be interested to hear any comments you may have, or input on things I may have overlooked.

Issey in Blue

2008-12-10T18:20:00.004-06:00

I haven't posted much in the past few weeks so I thought it would be fun to throw together a quick product shot.

Let's start with the product:

This is a bottle of Issey Miyake cologne. (image taken from www.macys.com)
Nothing really special about this shot. The bottle is well lit, and there is a small reflection, possibly done in photoshop after the fact.
Pretty easy to replicate if you have the lights to do so.
Here is one of my first test shots:

I didn't remove the horizon line or blow out the white background but I think you'd agree that for a test shot this is pretty close to the macy's one.

The first thing I wanted to do was to create a little mood in the photo. I did this in about 3 seconds by putting a blue gel over my main light:

So there you see we already have a pretty strong image. However, the top of the bottle is completely dark since it is lit from the back. This is a quick fix. By pointing a 2nd light with a grid (to limit the beam) at the lid, we solve the issue.

As you can see, the image is starting to come together.
Just out of personal preference I switched the side that the blue light was on and also positioned the bottle differently after this. At the same time, I decided I'd like the blue to be richer, which meant making the light not quite as bright.

The final touch is to make the background a bit more interesting. Right now it is just dark and isn't really working for me.
To liven things up a bit I added a 3rd light, with a blue gel and a grid and positioned it so that the light would fall across the background.

After some tweaking here is our final image:

Pretty nice image, and fore sure more interesting than the original image!

Weekend photos

2008-11-18T15:47:00.004-06:00

This weekend I went up to Durant, Oklahoma with some friends. We stayed in a friend's house that is out on a big piece of land. It was nice to get away for the weekend, but I have to admit I'm a city boy, so when we hit Allen and the highway widened back to 4 or 5 lanes I breathed a sigh of relief!

Here are a few of the photos from the weekend that I thought I would share with you.

And finally - my favorite:

Kicking Off a Personal Project

2008-11-13T16:27:00.007-06:00

In a previous post, I mentioned how I covered a reunion of Neonatal ICU children.
This was truly an eye-opening experience for me as well as a moment of inspiration.
I met so many kids that day who had lived through unbeatable odds, or through incredibly difficult conditions and situations. It was really like standing in a room full of walking miracles. Some of the kids were probably barely out of the ICU while some were well on their way to having a normal childhood by now.

After editing some of the images from that day, I came upon the idea to do a personal project on some of the kids who have been through the NICU. The goal was to find out the story behind these kids and to take their photograph. Last week my idea became reality as I had my first shoot for the project. Now I was planning on saving these images until I had shot a few more, but the more I look at the images and the more I think about the story behind it - I just can't wait any longer. I know it is a lot to read but I want to share it with you.

I would like for you to meet Ryan Holliday.

Ryan is 2 years old. His parents noticed something different about him when he was born. His father thought his head was shaped a little differently than normal. They thought it may have just been their imagination but their fears were confirmed. They discovered something was wrong with him when he turned blue while the nurses were giving him his first bath.

They soon found out that Ryan had been born with Pfeiffer Syndrome. This is a genetic mutation which results in a fusion of the skull bones. This meant that Ryan would have to undergo surgery to open up his skull, allowing his brain to grow. This is a pretty rare mutation, occurring in only one out of every 100,000 children born.

Fortunately one of the nation's top specialists for this surgery is located here in Dallas and Ryan was able to get the surgery he needed and be on his way home after just a few days.
When Ryan was about 15 months old the tiny bones in his nose were so squished together that his nose quit functioning and he was forced to get a tracheostomy tube to help him with breathing normally.

Fast forward to today and Ryan has had 7 surgeries already. Every 6 months he has to go back to the hospital for an MRI of his skull. If it reveals that the brain needs more room he has to stay and get his skull cut open, an 8-10 hour surgery. This will continue until he is 18 years old and the brain stops growing.

When he is 5 or 6 years old he will go in for a midface surgery. The goals of this surgery are to move the midface out more helping him with breathing; to move the jaws out to help chew; to alleviate any teeth crowding; and to help his speech. After he has had his first midface surgery his nose should be open enough to support the consumption of oxygen and he can have the tracheostomy tube removed. When he is 14 or 15 he will have another midface surgery. After this second midface surgery his eyes should look more normal as well.

For every surgery Ryan has, it sets him about one month behind the development of other children his age. As you can imagine, after having 7 surgeries in 22 months Ryan is a little behind on the average toddler. However his parents have taught him to sign a few things so that he can communicate with them. He is also starting to say his first words which is a huge encouragement.

His parents have tapped into the amazing resources provided by the internet and have met other parents with children who have pfeiffer's as well as children who are dealing with this syndrome. One of which was a 19-year old college student. There is every reason to believe that Ryan will develop into a handsom young man with normal intelligence and normal life expentancy. All of this has helped to encourage the family quite a bit in their journey.

Despite the difficulties that he faces and the challenges that come with Pfeiffer's syndrome, his mother remains very optimistic. Ryan is as playful and full of life as any kid I have been around in my life, which is amazing when you think about all he has had to go through.

These photographs do two things to me every time I see them. First and foremost they make me want to go over to Ryan's house and give him a huge hug.
The second thing they do is challenge me to not take the little things for granted in life.

Thank you Ryan

The Road Ahead

2008-10-31T12:28:00.002-05:00

I have been spending a lot of time pondering what lies ahead as of late.
Several things are coming up that I'm pretty excited about. First of which is a completely updated website. I just finished it a few minutes ago and I'm pretty happy with the way it looks.
No major layout changes, but I did do away with two galleries and replaced them with brand new ones. I also updated a lot of the corporate images to reflect more recent work I have done. I'm still waiting on a few images to come in for the final updates. Hopefully soon.

The second thing is the "photo of the month" mailer.
It is a marketing campaign I'm launching the first week of November (hopefully).
Every month I will send out a watermarked 4x6 print of one of my images to a limited mailing list.
This will hopefully get my name out there more, and keep it under people's noses (assuming they don't just toss the photo, which I'm sure most will).
In addition to the freebie photo will be an order form should anyone want a larger, non-watermarked version of the photo.

So those are the major things brewing.

The deadline for the North American Motoring 2009 Calendar contest is drawing near and I'm crossing my fingers that I'll get a nomination for one of the pages of the calendar. Would be pretty cool.

Stay tuned for more on the craziness that is my life.
And as always - thanks for reading.

High Speed

2008-10-28T13:51:00.003-05:00

This is how my life has felt for the last few days. Things are just flying.
From one thing on to the next with what seems like no time in between.
My sister just left after a 4 1/2 day visit, which was lots of fun. Shockingly I didn't take a single photograph of her! Oh well, there will be plenty of other opportunities.

The very next day found me up in Denton helping out on a shoot for an art student from UNT. His assignment was to come up with a series of ads for "Zeke's" bbq sauce. I must say he did an outstanding job of putting the whole thing together. He organized about 4 or 5 different sets of props, all the food, the bbq sauce, and the location. I am really looking forward to seeing the final product.

This afternoon I am scheduled to do headshots, and towards the beginning of November I am kicking off a personal project that is stemming out of the NICU reunion job I worked for Arlington Memorial Hospital. Stay tuned for more of that!

On to other things...

Here is an image I took a few weeks ago as part of a project to be submitted for a photo contest.
Of all the entries, 12 will be selected for a calendar.

The image was taken with a Mini Convertible, downtown in Dallas, Texas.
If you have never seen a big city with tall buildings from the inside of a convertible I highly recommend it.

~~/~~

Can anybody fly this thing?
Before my head explodes
Or my head starts to ring

We've been living life inside a bubble
We've been living life inside a bubble

Confidence in you
Is confidence in me
Is confidence in high speed

Can anybody stop this thing?
Before my head explodes
Or my head starts to ring

We've been living life inside a bubble
We've been living life inside a bubble

Confidence in you
Is confidence in me
Is confidence in high speed

In high speed
High speed

High speed you on
High speed you on
High speed you on
High speed you on

- Coldplay

Bridal Portrait Day

2008-10-06T16:29:00.002-05:00

I was asked by a friend a long time ago to shoot her bridal portraits. The day finally came this past weekend and we met up for the shoot.

Now I haven't done very many bridals (this was my 2nd) but I figured they are pretty close to regular portraits so that is how I approached the job.

The location was a covered bridge in Richardson. Despite being a great location, I had some lighting issues that really worried me at first. It was later in the day (around 4:45) and the sun was pouring down through trees creating that horrible splotchy light that tree leafs make. Fortunately on the far side of the bridge I was able to find some shade where I could pose the bride-to-be and light her independently.

I started out with just a flash hitting her directly and decided that a softbox would be a better choice after seeing how one whole side of her face was full of shaddows.
I put the softbox to the right, just out of frame and as close to the bride-to-be as I could get it.

The second light was up high, and left with a snoot and a 1/2 cto gel to try to simulate some sunlight. I probably should have gone full cto but I was too busy worrying about the wind (which was blowing pretty hard the entire time) to go over and readjust. I pointed the snoot at her hair and got to shooting.

You can see the wind's effect on the vail and dress - but I almost like it.
The next setup was mid bridge, with her looking back at me.

I put the softbox camera right again, a bit farther away this time and just hit her from about waist up with it. The 2nd light was gelled and snooted still and on the left side, hitting her right in the face. Finally I put a third light on the railing of the bridge to hit her in the back creating a rim light effect on her arm and back.

This one is my favorite.

Finally we moved to a location a bit farther up north - still on the same little creek.
I put her on a water fall (normally water would be going across it but the stream was low) and then worked on lights again.
First I had a bare flash camera right, up on the ledge pointing directly at her.
The 2nd light was up high behind her to the left hitting her in the back of the head and shoulder. I did this to try to create separation between her and the background.
Finally a 3rd light was snooted and gelled and shot at the trees behind her to try to create a different plane of light.

The orange-looking light section was from the sun setting. It worked out really nicely and added an extra point of light in the image to make the background a bit more interesting.

Those are probably the 3 best from the shoot. It was only about an hour and 15 minutes or so. We had to call it becaue she was feeling faint from the dress being too tight.

Comments and critiques are welcome.

The Beginnings

2008-10-03T16:45:00.002-05:00

As I was cleaning out my garage today trying to make room for a vehicle (imagine that! A car in a garage!) I ran across something that took me back to my beginnings in photography. It was a brochure from an exhibit at the Dallas Museum of Art. The date: September 19 - December 5, 2004.

The Exhibit was called "Carbon", by the German Lothar Baumgarten.
The artist dedicated 4 months to following America's railroad tracks across the land with a camera, tripod, dictating recorder, pen and notebook.

These are some of the images from the exhibit:

From the brochure: "Carbon as a project may be understood as an elegy, an epic and sometimes melancholic poem about the impact of the railroad on the geography, people, and history of America."

Upon seeing these and many other images I was struck with the thought - "I can certainly take photos better than that!!"
I picked up the Canon point and shoot camera I had just purchased and went about taking photos of anything and everything. If it would stay still long enough for me to photograph it, chances are I did.

I spent hours online and in magazines and books reading and researching techniques, manuals, photographers, and looking through images. I kept a binder full of "inspirational images" and how-to articles. I go back and look through the images every now and then just to be reminded of what got me started and to refresh my memory.

Eventually I upgraded to a dSLR and then I added lighting to the bag of tricks. Finally, the last nudge came in January and I plunged into photography full time. It has been a wild and crazy ride since then but one that has taught me a lot about life, myself, my friends, and this passion I call photography.

Hot Pursuit (Setup Shot)

2008-10-01T12:07:00.005-05:00

As promised I thought I'd show the setup shot for the "Hot Pursuit" photo I posted.

The Camera is held on the window with the main suction cup. There are two back ups to that, in case it should fail. The first is just a simple bungee cord with the window closed on it. The second is a 2nd suction cup bungee'd to the first. That way if any of the cups fail I hopefully would not lose the camera.

The shutter is fired using the Pocket Wizard on the camera's hot shoe. The cable coming out of it goes into the remote shutter plug on the camera. When I press the "Test" button on another Pocket Wizard it trips the shutter.

I set the camera's Pocket Wizard in a relay so that when the shutter opened it would tell the Pocket Wizard to fire a flash which was in the vehicle behind me.
How Pocket Wizards work and what relay mode is can be seen here:

Hope you enjoyed the little behind the scenes post.
More to come!

Hot Pursuit

2008-09-29T11:50:00.007-05:00

I mentioned in an earlier post that I was doing a shoot with a police officer. The shoot didn't go as well as planned unfortunately. We got a late start and I had some equipment problems. Actually I can't blame it on equipment. It was more a brain malfunction. I forgot that for the camera to be able to snap quick photos in remote mode it needed to be pre-focused and not on "auto-focus" mode. It took me 10 minutes to figure that out so that was more time lost.
The next problem I ran into was that the lights on a police car are much brighter than those of an ambulance. This produced a lot of lens flare and every spec of dust on my lens became a big blob of light. So after fixing that we made one last pass and I got a few usable images before moving on to the next setup.

Here is a Horizontal crop of one of the better ones:

To get this shot the camera was mounted to the rear window on the left side of my vehicle. The shutter was fired via pocket wizard, which was set to relay mode and fired a strobe in the police vehicle as well.

Here is another shot we did. The setup was basically the same except the camera was on the hoot of the police car and not on my vehicle.

Special thanks to Jake and to the Allen P.D. for letting us do this shoot!
I'll post some behind-the-scenes photos of this shoot in a little while.

Wheels in Motion

2008-09-27T18:47:00.003-05:00

Just wanted to post a quick shot from yesterday and let you know that I made a small update to the website. The update won't matter unless you are a client though.
(you really should be - you know you want to be)
I added access to my new ftp so that clients can download their images directly from the internet anywhere in the world they have access to a computer. I'm actually quite surprised at how much bandwidth and storage space I got with my domain. I don't think I'll be maxing that out anytime soon, although it would be awesome if I did!

Here's the image I thought I'd share:

Camera was stuck on the side of the vehicle and shot with a Neutral Density filter.
Exposure was at 1/4 sec at F/22, ISO 100.

More to come - as usual!

Traveling Circus

2008-09-26T01:29:00.006-05:00

What a day today turned out to be. It started at 6:30am and is still going strong.
I participated in 4 photoshoots today. 2 of which I assisted, and 2 of which I was shooting.
I visited 7 cities total today.

I started out at the "L" position, then drove to the "I" position. Then to "C", to "I" again, then on to "E" and "F", then back to "I". Then over to "H" and back to "I". Got back on the road up to "J", then "K" and finally back to the starting point of "L". All told that is over 220 miles driven today!!!

Needless to say I'm pretty beat down after all the shooting, planning, traveling, and all the in between stuff. It was a good day though, as it reminded me of how lucky I am to be doing what I love and to be able to have the freedom to move around so much during the day. I definitely would prefer a day like to day to a 10 hour day at a desk in some office building.

I tried new things today, which included gaffer taping a flash and pocket wizard to a ceiling and riding in the back seat of a cop car (there is absolutely NO space back there, no wonder people always look so miserable when they are back there!).
I am shooting some more tomorrow but for personal projects only so there isn't much pressure. The last shoot of today was for personal stuff but we only had about a 30 minute window to shoot in and my equipment was not functioning properly for some reason.

Anyway, I'll quit boring you with text and jump to an image or two :-)

PUMA EC 225
Auto Pilot & Aircraft Condition Monitoring System
I've also been having some fun playing around in HDR a bit... I thought this was a prime candidate to try that out with:

These were from a ribbon cutting ceremony I had the privilege of shooting in Grand Prairie.

I am usually not one for kids - I mean I am pretty afraid of them in general. I'm sure that will change but for now I don't know what to do to make them stop crying so I live in fear of that moment when they start. But today I saw some of the most adorable babies I have seen in a long time and I actually enjoyed the experience.

Canon EF 50mm F/1.4 | 1/80s | F/1.4 | ISO 100

This girl's eyes just grabbed me as I was working the room and I had to go back and get my 50mm f/1.4 to shoot some more "up close" portraits.
She, along with most of the other people in the room, was an Nicu baby - which means she spent some time in intensive care after being born either prematurely or with complications. Those eyes are so huge and untainted! There is just something amazing about a baby's eyes.

I think that's it for now. I'm pretty tired from the day but I did want to share some images with you!

More to come!

Late Night Photo Sessions

2008-09-23T21:26:00.004-05:00

What do you do if you are a photographer and you can't sleep?
Why you go out and take photos - that's what!!

I drove down to the Trinity River at about 2:30am and set up shop down there for a little while.
I would have stayed longer but I heard voices in the dark park behind me and since the neighborhood down there is not the greatest I didn't want to push my luck too much.

I shot off about 20 frames or so and this is the one I like the most:

This shot was done with the help of my Pocket Wizards. Just like I would do to fire the camera remotely, I set up the pocket wizard on the hot shoe and hooked up the cable to the shutter release plug on my camera. I then stood back and fired the camera by pushing the test button on a 2nd Pocket Wizard. It could have been done without having to use 2, but I would prefer to not run the risk of moving the camera by pulling on the cable by accident.

This particular shot was a 4 minute bulb exposure at F/10 and ISO 100. I edited it a bit in Camera Raw. (changed the white balance, darkened up some of the overexposed buildings, and straightened it)

Coming later this week is a shot that I'm looking forward to. My friend and I are going to shoot an Allen Police officer in his police cruiser. We are doing it at night, with some cool equipment.
The first shot we are going for is of one with the officer in the vehicle, lit from inside, shot from the hood of the car. We'll have the car in motion so the lights will be blurring by as he drives. We'll also have him put on his red/blue lights for effect. It will be very similar to one we did not too long ago of an ambulance:

The second shot I'm hoping to do is one of the police cruiser in pursuit of yours truly. For this I'll probably mount the camera on the side of the car, looking back. Then I'll drive around with the cruiser following me with the lights on. Should be pretty fun.

Check back on Friday or Saturday to see the images!
Thanks for reading.

The Shot

2008-09-17T02:45:00.004-05:00

This week I Assisted at a hospital and rehab center in Azel, Texas.
The shot I am going to show you today was of a Dr. giving a steroid shot to a patient in the Endoscopy center of the hospital.

We got to the location about 20 minutes before the dr. so we could scout. After looking through several rooms we were pointed towards one of the main "procedure" rooms. In this room was a lot of equipment and electronic equipment that would be used to perform various fases of whatever needed to be done to the patient.

The patient for this set up was to be the nurse who worked in that particular part of the hospital.
She put on a gown and rolled up the back of her scrubs so her back was exposed and we wheeled her into the room. Next we moved all of the equipment and electronics into place, following the direction of the dr. who would normally perform the procedures.

All pretty simple up until now. Now for the lighting. The goal was to create a dramatic portrait of this dr. giving the shot so we lit it from one side only, and left the other side completely dark.
The next issue we faced was a bare wall behind the dr. A light with a snoot and a grid set up right alongside the wall gave it a streaking effect and gave something interesting to look at instead of just a semi-black wall.

We tried a few shots like this and decided to make one last adjustment. We added a 3rd light with a snoot and blue gel, aimed at the instrument that was directly in the foreground.
For some reason blue always makes things look more scientific or medical. I've never understood why really but it is almost a given that if you are doing a medical shot you will use a blue gel...

Here is the resulting shot with all the lights in place:

Here are some shots of the lighting setup we used:

In this image you can see the light used to streak on the wall and the light used to hit the right side of the instrumentation in the foreground.

In this image you can see the main light, hitting the dr. from the left side and leaving the right side dark.

By leaving the right side of the image dark it created a very dramatic scene. However at the same time, the streaking light in the background and the blue light - both coming from the right side of the photo help to create balance in the image.

Hope you enjoyed the little "show and tell" session for today.

Updates

2008-09-09T13:20:00.006-05:00

Hello everyone.

I trust you are all having a great week so far now that Monday is over.
It is pouring rain here in the big D and that makes me want to stay in bed and watch a movie. But I won't since that would be a big waste of a day. Instead I have made some minor updates to the Radiant Squares website. I've been toying with some ideas for new galleries or new layouts but nothing too major yet has happened. Of course I will keep everyone up to date as things do change. I'm just one of those people who can't leave well-enough alone and I always feel like there is something I need to be changing or upgrading.

I would like to throw an invitation out there to any other photographers reading this.
Some local photographers and I are organizing a little meetup (probably towards the beginning of November) and would love to have people join us. You can check out the discussion for it on Flickr. Should be a fun time!

Well I'm off once again. I have some images that I haven't edited so I am going to go do that. Maybe I'll post a tutorial later on. Hope you all have a great day. Stay dry!

Breaking the Ice

2008-09-03T12:09:00.001-05:00

Welcome to the new blog for Radiant Squares Photography.
I hope you will enjoy an occasional visit to my blog to find out news and get a glimpse into the life of a photographer. I will try to make this as informative as possible. If you have any feedback for me, or suggestions on what you'd like to see on here please feel free to comment or email me.

For now I will start off the blog with an image that I shot a few weeks ago of Destini.
Destini was recently voted Miss Irving 2008 and is pretty excited about that. This shot was from our first time working together.

For this setup we used 3 lights. One light was in a soft box just above and to the left of the camera. The other two were pointed at the background - which in this case was a 9' black seamless taped to the wall.

I processed the image in Camera Raw, and then in Photoshop.