The Newest Gerber Baby

This last Thursday I had the pleasure of photographing my new nephew for my brother and his wife.  It is wonderful to be able to provide this service for them.  I've been taking family pictures for them since their daughter was born almost two years ago now.  Before we get to the good stuff (the pictures) I'll explain a little about my strategy going into a sitting like this.

Whenever I'm contacted about photographing a family I try to get as much information about who is involved and what they are looking for.  Besides showing an interest in the family it provides me with vital information on how I plan the session.  Generally speaking we start with whatever the most important grouping is.  In this case it was the whole family together.  From there we start doing breakdowns with the shortest attention span first.

Since my niece is under two she has the shortest attention span for this type of event.  After taking the full family shot we moved on to some shots of my niece and her new baby brother.  This way if she needs a break or just doesn't want to take pictures anymore you will have something in the bag already.  Sammy was only a week old at the time of the sitting so I wasn't that concerned with his attention span.  Generally speaking if you keep infants fed and warm they can do really well even in a longer sitting.

When my niece didn't want to do any more pictures we sent her off to play and take a break.  This way you can hopefully bring her back in at some point and continue to capture images.  In all my family shoots I ask if they have something particular in mind.  Involving the family in the creative process is a great way to help them feel like they are getting what they envisioned.  I always come with a game plan of images that I would like to get as well as an open mind to situations that present themselves. 

Now on to the good stuff.

Back to My Side Project

A few posts earlier I shared about my Star Wars Lego fun side project.  While waiting for the storms to start rolling through the area I decided to add to that project.  This time I used Lightroom 4's tethered shooting mode.  On the plus side it was really nice to view images on my laptop immediately after shooting.  This makes checking focus much easier than the 3" LCD screen on the back of the camera.  On the down side I wasn't able to use the live view mode that I use when manually focusing macro shots.  There may be a way to do this but I haven't had the time to investigate that yet.

I always loved the speeder bikes in Star Wars.  The Lego kits do a pretty good job recreating these speeders.  Despite what some may think of this as a nerdy project, it does have real world application for photographers.  It gives me an opportunity to work on lighting.  Finding ways to creatively light objects like this is very helpful for when I want to do product photography.  The surfaces of Legos are surprisingly reflective.  Hit a surface with direct flash and boom, all of the detail is gone.  On the previous post of the Storm Trooper I moved the flash around then masked in the parts that I liked to create the final image.  In this example I had a diffuser on my flash and only shot from one position.  This gave the final image a little more contrast and harsher shadows.

I may play around with this a little more to accentuate a few areas but for now I like how it looks.  Almost forgot one of the practical applications.  Ever taken a picture of someone with glasses only to have a giant flash spot covering their eyes?  To eliminate the flash spot move the flash.  If you can't do that try slightly tipping the glasses or turning the face away from the flash slightly.

New Beginnings

It has been a few days since I posted and a lot has happened since then.  My brother and his wife welcomed their new baby Samuel into the world a week early.  Sammy insisting on being born a week before the scheduled C-section reminds us that despite all our careful planning, children often have a mind of their own. 

The whole family is doing well and will be at home for the first time tonight.  Big sister Natalie reacted well to her new brother at the hospital.  Thankfully I could be there to help document her first interactions with her little brother.  The picture below is one I took while he was still laying in the hospital bassinet.  If you get in close you can eliminate the distracting elements (such as the plastic bassinet).  Make sure that you aren't shooting from an angle that is too low because then you get an unattractive up-nose shot.

I will work on getting back to regular content now.  Until then enjoy little Sammy.

Something Fun

Sorry I missed yesterday's post.  It ended up being day with lots going on.  Thought I would post something totally different today.  Every since I was young I had a love for all things space.  One of those things is Star Wars.  The original three (IV, V, and VI) captured me and provided hours of entertainment.  It probably didn't hurt that it had probably my favorite actor, Harrison Ford.

Elsewhere on the internet I've seen some awesome examples of photographs taken of Star Wars Lego characters.  This seemed like the perfect little personal project that I could revisit from time to time.  Some of the examples out there have very elaborate settings while others are very simple.  Since my Star Wars Lego collection is pretty limited I decided to go with the latter. 

Using a black piece of 3/16th inch foam board I set up my Storm Trooper in a position that looked good to me.  I knew that I also wanted the background to be black so I used a faster shutter to lower the amount of ambient light.  The next step took a couple different experiments with moving the flash around until I got a couple shots that looked how I envisioned.  Since I only have one speedlight, I took a couple different exposures with the light in different places for each.  This allowed me to simulate a more complicated lighting setup with only one light.

The last step was to composite them in Photoshop.  This was actually pretty easy since the subject and camera hadn't moved, just the light source.  I simply masked in the areas that I wanted from each photo then merged the layers before sharpening.  I look forward to posting more of these little projects as time goes on.

Bringing the Past Back to Life

While working on a project for church I started to scan some old slide that my Dad had.  First I had to find the adapter for the flatbed scanner then the right settings.  Now I'm hooked on converting all the old slides into a useful format.  Each picture will require some additional work in photoshop but it is a valuable way to transfer these images that otherwise sit in a cupboard and never get viewed. 

Looking at these images are a virtual trip back in time.  I've been using his old Montgomery Ward slide viewer to preview each image and each view is something special.  There are even slides of my brother and I when we were very young.  For now the personal project will have to be sidelined as the deadline for the church project is looming way to near.  It should be a project that keeps me out of trouble for quite some time.  There are thousands of slides in the cupboard over at my Mom's house.  I'm sure I'll post up some more pictures as the project continues.  With those images I will talk about what was done to improve the image quality.  For now I'll leave you with two images.

This is my brother and me Christmas 1984 (I'm on the left and Jon on the right)

This is my Dad when he was in high school in 1967

Sun Rays

I've always been fascinated by the shafts of light coming down from the clouds.  They seem to make any situation more interesting. On a late evening I was out at Mounds Park shooting sunsets when the sun started to peak out from underneath the cloud layer.  For just a few moments these sun rays, some call them God beams, shot out across the sky.  Thankfully I was well prepared and was ready to shoot the scene.

For this scene I was working on my HDR landscapes.  Not really knowing how they would turn out I shot the series and hoped for the best.  Once I got home I processed the image and the shafts of light looked just as they had when the picture was taken.  There are a lot of people that don't like HDR.  I think most of these people don't like it because it is easy to over process the image resulting in a surrealistic unnatural look.  For me HDR is a useful tool for difficult lighting situations. 

Here is why I like HDR.  The combination of the human eye and brain is much better at dealing with contrast range and tonal range than any camera on the market.  You can see this easily by standing indoors and looking out a window into bright sunlight.  With the combination of your eyes and brain you can see the detail in the much darker interior as well as the scene out the window.  Now try to capture that in a single exposure and you'll likely get a properly exposed outside scene and a very underexposed indoor scene.  This is because your camera meters off the very bright exterior and doesn't have the capability to capture the range of light in the scene.  Now you could take an exposure of the exterior and another of the interior and combine them but that is a lot of extra work.  For a scene like this you determine how many exposures you need, fire them off, run them through Photomatix (or similar program) and many times you are left with a reasonably good image.  There will be some cleanup or other adjustments to do in Photoshop to finish the image but overall you can get pretty good results right after minimal processing.  Personally I like to keep my HDR's as realistic as possible. The goal is to reproduce what the scene looked like when you were there.  With practice and learning materials you can get very quick at processing scenes.

Those Unexpected Moments

Sometimes the best photographs are ones that have no planning at all.  The moment comes and you are lucky enough to have your camera ready to catch the shot.  It could be spectacular lighting, a dramatic scene or an exciting event.  The possibilities are endless when it comes to the unexpected.  Depending on the situation you may only have a moment to capture the scene.  For fleeting moments it is important to have a strong understanding of your camera so you aren't sitting there fiddling with it while the scene passes you by.

When my niece was still very young I had one of these brief moments.  She was playing on the floor of my parent's living room while I was sitting to the side taking some pictures.  In an instant she went from excited giggling to a very peaceful calm demeanor.  She turned her head and looked straight at me.  I had just enough time to take the picture before she looked away and started to play again. 

I'm always on the lookout for these situations.  They happen more often that you might realise.  Pretty much any time families get together there are little moments, that if captured, can create lasting memories.  In a lot of cases these moments make for the best shot you will take all day.  When involving people these moments are usually full of emotion.  As a photographer if I can capture the emotion of the moment for my clients they will be all the happier with the final product. 

To improve your chances that you can capture such a picture make sure you have a camera with you.  I know it sounds silly but I bet it wouldn't take long to think of a situation where you thought "If only I had my camera".  I know I've had such experiences.  It doesn't have to be a DSLR, it could be a point and shoot or even your phone.  As mentioned before the other important component of catching these situations is a strong understanding of your camera so you can quickly take the picture.