Miriello Photography

There's the reason. Believe it or not, that sun comes up mighty fast. I took about a hundred of these, and the one above was one of the ones I planned on throwing away when I first took it - I was frustrated when the birds got in my frame. Good thing I didn't delete it in-camera.

Now this one was taken before the sun came up. Even at f/22, I still needed a neutral density filter to get a 5 second exposure. I wish I had more than one ND filter on me, the waves were moving slow.

There's a nice shot for Sea Isle tourism...

Same dock, different angle - completely different mood.

End of the day, approaching night. 1/2 second exposure.

And finally:

Nothing like early morning surfing.

Nice kitchen...

Shooting it was actually more of challenge than you might expect. There wasn't much room to the left, and there obviously wasn't much room straight ahead. On top of the lack of space, there really wasn't a great vantage point that could cover everything. I made a compromise that paid off - I raised the camera about a foot above where it was and shot over the counter.

Details!

The underside of the counter had some decorative posts - I couldn't pass up shooting them.

One last set of details.

This was just the kitchen, imagine the rest of the home...

I've posted some water drop photos in the past, but I really think these take the cake. 

And one more - as simple as it gets:

The setup is a great deal simpler than you might think:

-Tall glass of water
-Some measuring spoons for making the water drops - various sizes for smaller/larger drops
-Studio backdrop (for the neutral background) - could even be done in a softbox
-Two lights on either side of the glass to light it up
-Cable release

For these, I used a 70-200mm f/2.8 lens, all the way in at 200mm to get that close. The tricky part with shooting that close with f/2.8 is the setup - finding your focal point can be a real challenge. Take your time, be patient, and don't give up. You can't see it in the camera because you are too busy making water drops - trial and error go a long way.

A little white balance shift goes a long way. The sun was on its way down, I just gave it a little extra help.

This one is, obviously, not how the image was captured, but I really like it the way it is now. Just pull the temperature slider down to around 2000 or so, that should do it.

The photo above has nothing to do with white balance. It was taken on the same day and I figured it would look nice here. It's a 360-degree panorama - the clouds make the photo, not the mountains.

William here is a phenomenal pianist. He's also a fun subject to shoot who's incredibly aware of the camera.

Case in point.

Lighting in this sort of situation can be very tricky. There's a strobe off to my left triggered wirelessly, I'm shooting at f/1.8, ISO 1600, and I'm still squeaking out 1/60 second. We've all shot in less-than-ideal lighting conditions, and this is a great example of shooting with an off-camera strobe and still getting that balance in the background.

I like this shot, but I'm the first to admit it's flaws: no set focal point, slight camera shake, and some blown highlights. But that's OK - I still like it despite those mishaps. This was one of those shots I took and didn't think about actually using - but after I browsed through the shoot - I couldn't throw it away.