Week 50 of 52 – Theme: “Flash” Dark Note!

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Ever since seeing these shots by amazing local photographer Jeremy Hall I’ve wanted to take a picture of my incredibly talented son and his trumpet. The theme “Flash” gave me the excuse to get him to pose for me so I took two strobes outside in our backyard positioned one on the ground behind him and another in a 20×30 inch softbox with a grid on a boom directly above him and triggered them with my Cactus V5 radio triggers, here are two of my favorites:

Dark Note! The rear flash wasn’t set up right on this so I had no rim light, but I loved the very subtle highlights from the gridded softbox above.

And with a little rim light…

I’ll have to try this again as a profile!

Happy Shooting!

Howard

 

 

Week 49 of 52 – Theme: “Family” A belated Christmas greeting!

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Merry Christmas! (I know it’s late! but the sentiment’s still just as valid!)

Thank you so much to all those who have visited my blog this past year (or longer) I am truly humbled that you take time to click through to my little corner of the internet and spend some of your precious time viewing my pictures and maybe even reading some of my rambling thoughts. It has made my life that much better knowing that I’m able to share these things with all of you, so from my family to you and yours a very Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

Merry Christmas!

Dad (me) to the Kids: “C’mon it’ll be fun”

Kids to crazy photographer Dad: “These things are hot! Are we done yet?”

Dad: “Just one more!”

10 minutes and 20 long exposures later….. “Ok we’re done”

Happy Shooting!

Howard

 

Family Portraits, Take 3!

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Cactus V5, children, family, family portrait, family portraits, fill flash, flash photography, Group Portrait, parents, park pictures, park portraits, Portraits, strobist, Utah family, Utah Family Portrait, YN-560 flash

So my second commissioned family portraits were supposed to take place before my first. However due to some family illnesses and snow we had to keep re-scheduling the shoot, no big deal except that now the shoot was pushed well into November and it was getting cold -did I mention we had to cancel once due to snow?..
The family had seen a nearby Park and thought it would be fun to try a shoot there. So I drove the 30 minutes dragging my ever handy and cheap support crew with me, and we met them at a nice little neighborhood park with a very large and unexpected earthern (is that even a word?) landscape feature at the southwest corner, it looks like it has running water in warmer seasons with multiple waterfalls and some paths that criss-cross it.

We set up quick as the sun was setting, unfortunately there were no clouds to be seen so I had a low angle sun to fight, along with a temperature of 40 degrees that was falling rapidly to contend with. I shot with my 18-200mm and used either 1 or 2 YN560 speedlights on shoot through umbrellas with Cactus V5 triggers.
Here are a few of the shots, I hope you enjoy them!

Strategic placement of a pine tree to block the sun

My first Commissioned Family Portrait session – Everyone starts somewhere…

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Cactus V5, camera, camera controls, Camera Mode, D7000, D7000 Blog, Digital Camera, Digital Photography, Draper, Draper railroad tracks, DSLR Modes, family, family portrait, fill flash, focusing, Learning D7000 controls.Camera Controls, New D7000 user, new DSLR, Nikon, Nikon Blog, Nikon D7000, Nikon D7000 Controls, Nikon D7000 From Snapshots to great shots, off camera flash, off camera strobe, Photography, portrait, radio trigger, railroad family portrait, railroad tracks portraits, remote flash, strobist, Using a Nikon D7000, Utah, YN560

I’ve shot plenty of family portraits over the last few years, but they’ve always been of my family or just some quick snapshot style pictures at a family party. This time the “shoot” was actually planned and prepared for ahead of time including location scouting, and for the first time ever for me I used off camera flash.

Here are just a few of the shots I took, unfortunately the family’s schedule limited the time we had to around an hour total, and it was a little earlier in the day than I would have preferred, we stopped just as golden hour was about to begin instead of starting at that time – Oh well.

Our first location was in a park, I loved this fence and it's great fall foilage backdrop.However despite the great color present I really liked this sepia treatment for an antique look.

A short walk from the park was an abandoned (but sadly soon to be rejuvenated) train track covered in trees and bushes.

Sisters portrait, one YN560 strobe with dome diffuser camera left held by my trusty VAL (VAL = Voice Activated Light stand aka - my son)

This is my favorite shot of her, she was laughing at her Dad who was standing just out of frame.

Brothers portrait, he has such a great natural smile and amazing eyes.

This distance marker made a fun prop. YN560 with dome diffuser camera right held by VAL

Mom and Dad - YN560 with dome diffuser camera left held by VAL

Mom and Dad a little wider. I should have brought Dad out a little more to reduce his shadow, or add a reflector. YN560 with Dome diffuser camera left held by VAL.

The feeling of the overgrown tracks lends itself to a vintage look. Strobe with dome diffuser camera right held by VAL

A candid moment between "poses". Strobe with dome diffuser camera right held by VAL

A strong hand in post processing turned this into something I really liked.

I learned quite a bit from this portrait session that I look forward to implementing in the future. One of those was that I should have used an umbrella on my strobes to soften the light a little. For these I was using 2 YN560 manual strobes with Cactus V5 radio triggers, most of the time I was using only one strobe but it was nice to have  the second strobe available when I needed it.

Happy Shooting!

Howard

PS: here’s a shot of my trusty, hardworking and cheap VAL’s

Caught my flash!