Derik here is a real estate agent who wanted to update his head-shot and specifically didn't want the cheesy muslin background cliche. Bravo Derik, bravo. I honestly can't figure out the fascination most agents have with the cookie-cutter head-shots - this was definitely a welcome change.

The shot is really straight-forward: a set that tells us what Derik does, a composition that can be cropped for both horizontal and vertical orientations, and a two-light setup that defines and separates him from the background. The set and composition are obvious, but the lighting may not be as easy to decipher. The one-light setup works really well, but by adding a second light, we can further separate the subject from the background as well as light up his hair. Lighting up someone's hair may seem a little odd at first, but without it in this lighting environment, all we get is darkness, not hair. The light illuminating the front of Derik is diffused using an umbrella at a distance of about 3 feet. The separation/hair light is the bare flash (not diffused) about 2 feet behind him, and is also about 1 foot above his head angled down. All totaled, it makes a nice combo of light and shade which defines the features of our subject's face and clothing.

This place is a beautiful location for a wedding.

Most of the work is done for me by the setting - let's be honest. The sky and the dress are where we can choose what tonality we want. Believe it or not, I don't want a blue sky - it would compete with our focus on the bride. All we want is the outline of the view with an overexposed sky. Green and white are the colors we should be processing, not blue. If you look closely on the dress, you'll actually notice the different shades of white in the dress from left of right. That's because there's a strobe on it - the light defines the different shades of white as well as the edges of the dress.

This one doesn't have a strobe on it because the setting sun is defining the edges for us. The colors were desaturated and the vignette was added in post-production - just a unique look for the great location we're working with.

This was one of my favorites from this wedding - there's something about the symmetry, the parallel pews, the bride in the middle. This is a shot that doesn't follow the rule of thirds. In fact, it kind of flies in the face of it. That being said, I think it's a better image because of it.

The other effect that could be done to this image to make it stand out more is the use of selective color. Jamie here had a bouquet of roses that really make an impact. I chose not to do selective color because I think it distracts the viewer from the composition of the photo, but it could still be a pretty neat effect.

Back to interiors this week.

So here's the deal - you may have noticed a common thread between this kitchen and the previous one. No, not the similar composition (well, yeah), but rather the staging - citrus fruit! First oranges, now lemons. Believe it or not, I didn't pick either of those items for staging purposes, but they both fit really well. Kudos to the homeowners, they know what's going on.

I'm trying to think of a more interesting story about this shot other than oranges and lemons, but there really isn't one. This kitchen was captured in three separate shots, this happened to be the one I liked the most. The first image showed the entire kitchen, the second showed it from the opposite angle, and this one showed the highlights without showing the surrounding space. To me, the surroundings are less important than the highlights, and I guess that's why I chose this one.

Most of my recent posts have been either interiors or bridal work so I thought I'd change it up a bit with a little photojournalism this week.

Scary, eh?

Well, the mad-surgeon is actually about to fix up a dog's knee, so it's quite the opposite of what it looks appears. The point is that we can create the wrong impression with a few photographic tricks.

First, the doc's out of focus. He's actually smiling under that mask, but we can't see that. Second, we're looking up at him, giving him power. When we look up at somebody or something, we remove power from the viewer and give it to the subject. Third, it's off-axis creating a disorienting feeling, almost sense of imbalance - meanwhile, I subject isn't affected by this imbalance, further giving him power.

Add all of these things up and you get a relatively nefarious photo out of a skilled medical professional. Moral of the story: don't believe everything you see.

I wouldn't mind having this as my kitchen, would you?

Most of the time, we tend to pop a wide-angle lens on our camera to get a shot of a space like this, but that won't work here. We don't need to see everything to get a feel for the space, so in fact, the closer we get, the better. Instead of a wide shot, we tighten in with a 24-70mm, right around 35mm. Now 35mm may not seem very tight, but when you're capturing a space as opposed to a person, it's actually very tight. The added advantage of shooting at 35mm is that the countertops are compressed to appear almost like they would in reality. If we're shooting wide, the countertops appear wide - if we shoot tight, we get closer to what our eyes see.

If that's the staircase, just imagine the rest of the place…

While many interior shots need a significant prep and post-production time, the 'details' don't. Typically, they can be done on-the-fly and shot with ambient light. In fact, it's better when they are shot with ambient light as the captured image is very representative of the true feeling of the space.

There's not much to say other than I wouldn't mind living there.

Normally, the ideal exposure for an outdoor scene is neither under nor overexposed - it's average. That little exposure compensation dial comes in handy for scenes like this because the truth is that we know better than the camera does (hopefully, anyway). Dial in +2.0 and you'll be pleasantly surprised during your next outdoor shoot when the sun is high in the sky. The next photo is the same concept, just a different pose. 

Here’s one more for this post. Even though we're indoors, the lighting is still a little more than meets the eye - she's lit by ambient, the entire alter is lit by off-camera-flash. See, it doesn't seem like he's lit (which is why it works), but if there hadn't been a light down there, you definitely would have noticed more detail, which would ultimately detract from the foreground.

In the theme of my last post, I thought I'd continue working on my landscape photography. 

What's so interesting about this, to me anyways, is that these bails were gone the day after these photos were taken. In addition to them being gone, about 1/8th of the farm is now flagged off for the ever-widening road. Kind of odd realizing that if I hadn't got off my butt to get see photos that day, they wouldn't have been possible to capture. 

So there there you have it.

I'm no landscape photographer. In fact, I'm pretty bad at landscape photography, but I'm not sure anyone could mess this view up. This view here features Cinnamon Beach and the British Virgin Islands - I mean, serious, how much better does it get? The view is so massive, you have to turn your head to see the whole thing, it's just incredible. 

I just like these next two shots.

When I'm out an about, I usually have a small point-and-shoot camera on me. You know, just in case there's an interesting shot waiting to be had. Well, when these were taken, I didn't have my point-and-shoot on me, I actually had my serious gear in the car. This place was packed to the brim with furniture, and then we discovered there was an upstairs - holy cow - that's all I can say. After I got a glimpse of the number of chairs in the upstairs area, I walked downstairs, out to my car, grabbed my gear, and headed right back up. I just couldn't pass up an opportunity to document something as eccentric as this place.

It's a good thing I had my serious gear with me, because I was shooting at ISO 3200, f/2.8 and still having trouble maintaining 1/60 sec. I occasionally bumped it up to ISO 6400, but that's where we get into some problems. It's not the noise I worry about, it's the lack of color accuracy. When it's bumped up that high, the sensor's pushing it's limits and does too much guessing for my comfort level.

Anyways, it was a fun day out, and I'm really glad I got to see this place. I hope my attic never gets this cluttered.

Just a nice kitchen, that's all. No story, just a photo.

Enjoy.

I was told today that we're expecting more snow over the next couple days - as if we need any more - so to try and cheer myself up, I was cruising through some photos when the weather was little warmer. I came across a bunch of shots that I had done for James Madison University as part of a stock-project during the fall semester, then I realized that they were run on the homepage - so there's one of the screenshots of the page from that time.

See, what's interesting about this is that these folks really do work with all of the equipment - from the test-tubes, to the super-refrigerator, even to the wanna-be-welding-mask - but not that day. They were really just humoring me for the sake of the photos. That seems to be a trend that will never go out of style.

You wouldn't know it from the photo above that there's 22 inches of snow on the ground. I would. Not only that, but the homeowner knows it all too well - her car was crushed by her car-port, which collapsed under the weight of the snow. Sheesh.

Anyway, I just liked that photo - that's why I decided to post it. You'd think I used lights coming from the right, as seen by the shadows coming from the objects near the fireplace - but I didn't, it's all exposure fusion. The shadows are from the natural light shining in through the windows - can't do much about that.

Onto the snow:

See, it's crazy out there!

So even though my assistant and I took over 5,000 photos that Saturday - the shot above was the shot of the day for me. It wasn't forced, it wasn't unnatural - it was barely even staged. We got Natalie to take a seat on the bench and it just came together. Megan (my wife, also known as 'the boss') is off to the left with the softbox, just inches out of the frame. You can really see the light's impact on Natalie's face, dress, and flowers - it creates a really nice shadow on skin, gives the dress a soft gradient, and does the same for the flowers. Because the softbox is small (I think it's only 12x12), it doesn't define the light int he rest of the environment.

When there isn't a great background to work with, I always try and make it symmetrical as not to cause a distraction, then try and get rid of it. In this case, I intentionally over-exposed those windows so the viewer looks at what they're supposed to - the guys - and not look at what's distracting - the background.

Dancing shots are a lot harder to get than you'd expect. Well, that's not true - good dancing shots are a challenge. Most are blurry or out of focus - if you do a get a good shot off, it's probably of people looking all funky and whatnot. Face it, dance-moves aren't often flattering when they're captured in a single frame. Limbs flailing, funny faces, you name it. Like I said, it's challenging, but that's what's so fun about the process!

This was a really nice kitchen to photograph. Simple, not extravagant, very functional - just a really nice kitchen.

There's no complicated lighting scenario here - it's all pretty plain. The story here is actually about a memory card - a corrupted memory card. Yeah, that's right, I actually had a memory card go bad on me. The brand will go unnamed, but I called up their tech support and asked politely for a refund, and they gladly gave it to me seeing as how their product didn't fulfill its end of the bargain. Anyways, this is the exact spot card went down. I had just taken my first set of exposures, then the card died, I panicked, then replaced the card immediately. I'm not a superstitious person or anything, but I made sure the card didn't get near any of my other equipment, just to be safe.

Same kitchen, different angle. It's not often I get to shoot vertical, due to the restrictions in real estate MLS systems, but this one called for it. The only part I'm not a huge fan of in this shot is the glare on the hardwood floor. Just like over-exposed windows, glare is a necessary evil. It not only shows you where and how bright the light is coming in, it also shows you the texture of your floor - whether it's flat or glossy. You can always cut down the reflection with a circular polarizer, but you'll never really eliminate it if you're using exposure fusion or some sort of HDR method for creating interior photographs.

What a view, right? Shooting here was amazing - the view never got old.

See, what makes this shot work so well is the sunset. You're probably saying to yourself, 'I don't see a sunset', and you'd be correct - you don't see it, but it's still there. The actual sun set way-off to my left (you can tell by the variety in the blue sky, left to right). But we're still not talking about why the sunset made this picture yet - it's the pink in the clouds. That color was created by the setting sun and lasted literally 2 minutes - then it was gone. The shot only took a few seconds to create (bracketed 7 frames for exposure fusion in post-production), but the setup was hefty. Setting up the camera and tripod, filling the pool to the infinity-edge (it previously was down about 4 inches), cleaning the pool, cleaning the area, wetting-down the stone, and last but not least, waiting for that magic moment.

This one wasn't as magical, but it was still pretty neat-lookin'. Shooting four mansions in 10-days doesn't sound like hard work, but when one of those mansions is booked year-round, it means I get to shoot between rentals. Yeah - 8,000 square feet and 14 different views between 10 AM and 3 PM - following the housekeepers after they finish each room. I'm just lucky that turnover day brought me a nice blue sky to work with.

No, I didn't paint this beautiful piece of art - and artist named Kerry Minnion did - I gave it a digital life. This sort of thing can't be scanned in as it's 60-some by 30-some inches, not exactly scannable material.

If anyone out there has dealt with photographing paintings, then you'll know that it's not about holding a camera up to painting and clicking the button. There's more to it than that, much more, if I may say so. Want to know how much more? Alright, let's talk about it.

I didn't take a picture of the gear I used, but you'll need the following and the reasons why:

• Tripod: Essential piece of equipment for photographing artwork. You'll actually spend as much time leveling the tripod as you will balancing your lights. It is imperative that you place the camera directly in the vertical and horizontal center of the painting so both the edges and the content aren't distorted. If you mess this part up, you're going to spend a long time correcting the distortion, and you might not even be able to fix it, which means you have to start all over again.
• Camera with manual settings: Yeah, a DSLR will probably be your best bet - but there are a few point-and-shoot cameras out there that allow you to manually control the aperture and shutter speed. Crank that aperture down to around f/8-f/11 (depends on where the sweet-spot of your particular lens is - you don't want diffraction, so don't go overboard) for sharpness.
• Lights: Notice how I didn't say you needed a camera with the ability to fire off-camera lights? That's because you don't need one - that's how I did it, but you can always use hot-lights or even lamps. Yup, lamps. As long as all of the bulbs are identical in their color temperature, you're good to go. Just match the color temperature of the bulbs in-camera and you'll be fine.
• Distance: This one's free, but sometimes hard to come-by. You need to separate yourself from the painting as much as possible. Put it this way, the closer you are to the painting, the more barrel-distortion you're going to create. If you have an 18-50mm lens, zoom-out to 50mm and find your place in the room.
• Software: Find yourself some photo-editing software when you're done shooting and chop-away those edges. If you framed it correctly, it should take a few seconds. If you goofed, it's going to take much longer.

There's your materials-list. How about some of the process?

Notice how washed out the color is with this one? It's bad, really bad. There's even a glare on the left-side of the painting. All-around bad stuff. This is what you get when you take your camera and point it at a painting.

So we essentially turn the lights out, but not in the traditional sense, we increase the shutter-speed to cancel out the ambient light. If you look closely, you can still see some detail (it looks like smudges). That's about right where it should be. Now we have to add some light.

So here's one-light bounced off a white ceiling (you can't do that if the ceiling is any other color) on the right side. We're getting there. You'll notice how the light is perfect in the upper-right corner, then gets weaker as you look towards the lower-left corner. Not quite where we want to be yet, but we're getting closer.

All three lights (left, center, and right) are working their magic - all diffused via the ceiling - are doing exactly what they need to do. After that's done the image needs some contrast and sharpening. Our cameras can't see the dynamic range our eyes can (not yet, anyway) so you need to boost the contrast. You know you've got it when you look at the both the photo and the painting and you don't see a difference - if you do, you're either under or over-compensating. The sharpening is just to add a punch of clarity to the hard edges. Just like with contrast, don't over-do it.

So that's it - it's not rocket-science, but it's also not as simple as pointing and clicking.

This is why you need a good Art Director. I spent some time with Bethany here way back in the beginning on June 2009, got some shots, and even wrote about it on this site. If you go back to that post, you'll notice that this shot didn't make it to my 'top picks'. Now that I look at it, I can't help but wonder why it didn't. I guess that's why we have Art Directors...

Here's a shot that actually made it to my 'top picks' and made it to print. Both of them actually (the little one of the rifle squad). The thing that makes this photo work is the fact that the marching band is way back in the distance - nothing wrong with the marching band, except for the fact that they weren't marching, they were walking. They're way out of focus (intentionally) so you wouldn't know that, unless I hadn't just told you. Doh!

The past few weeks have really flown by - lots and lots of traveling. Virginia, US Virgin Islands, Pennsylvania, Florida (and every state in-between).  While I was away, I received a few questions about the silhouette and the location. It's a 191-foot-long historic covered bridge in Mount Jackson, Virginia. It's a beautiful place to have your engagement portraits done, that's for sure!