Overpowering the sun.

This was a concept that took me for freaking ever to grasp. But what it really means is you kill the ambient, shoot a flash at really high wattage, and shoot a small fstop. Make sense? Okay, no, but what it really is is to darken the overall scene. Here is a good example, if I had shot this with a speed light, there would be a ton of white in the background from the sun, well not that I was able to shoot at f10, the sky was darker, now Kelli here was black. But with a alienbees ABR800 from the left side, I was able to fill her in giving a harsh contrast between the subject and background.

So basically you are killing the abient and filling in with flash, one of my favorite styles.

God's light

First of all, this is not a hey let me shove my views down your throat session. The reason I named this blog to what I did is because of the lighting, every time I see a picture of God or a god in general you always see this peaking out light.

How I got this photo is a funny story. I am sure you guys know, I still do not have an LCD screen on my camera. Which sucks. However, I was on a set with a girl who paid me to help her develop her portfolio and learn how to pose and get more expressions. I usually will demostrate to, I am a visual learner myself. We had agreed on a country girl look with ambient sunlight, give her that dreamy look and some sunset bikini work. before the shoot, she had mentioned she was a cheerleader and wanted to show off her body.

So after getting all the details set in stone, we meet up at 7 P.M. and get into her first outfit which was simple we shot for about 45 minutes in some cowgirl looking stuff, including a white dress. About 8 or so we started walking back to her car and I noticed the clouds so the colors started coming out, and full sunset was at 835 so we got a crackin on the shooting. Her first swimsuit was a white one, we shot about 30 shots in that, then switched to a hot pink swimsuit. While she was changing I noticed the beams of light coming through and wanted to get a shot, which I did. I was not sure how it would come out because of the LCD thing. When I got home I got this.

The reason I was not sure what I would get is because your camera and eye are 2 totally seperate things, your eyes can see like 65 bazillion colors and your camera can only see 64k or so, when shooting in RAW, when shooting in JPEG 2,500 or so. Your lens, depending on which one, at most 6 stops of light, your eyes, 14 stops of light. Now how cool would it be to make lenses out of eyeballs? I think I am onto something here, instead of pixels reading the info there will be rods and cones. Just because my eye saw this, does not mean my camera did, and I just so happened to get it.

You ever wonder why your eyes can see the pinks in sunsets? But when you perfectly expose a sunset it is white? Listen to you eyes, and underexpose by 2 to 4 stops for sunsets.

Behind the scenes... a video I learned from

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yGfiAbUeLhw

Not the norm

Somtimes I just like black and white images with pure ambient light.

All you need is love! (and sunlight)

So lately if any of you have been stalking me on Facebook, you know I try 100s of lighting styles. One I have been doing a lot lately is pure sunlight. I never really mastered it when I started it, I got thrown into off camera lighting and making images with drama, strobist style. Still my favorite style though. To mme there was no point in using only ambient lighting. And for the record, I only use the sun as ambient lighting, I do not like continuous lighting or gravy training others flashes. Sunlight and only sunlight can be a good thing sometimes.

Sunlight pointed to the back give a girl a dreay look because you have to overexpose the background giving them a dreamy look, combine that with a shallow depth of field, they will love it. Anyways, the reason I am trying to do more of this is there are a lot of pros who use it, and their work looks amazing. I love the flare in it to, just gives it a well dreamy look. This image is SOOC, for all the cool kids who know. For the non photographers means straight out of camera. I think I like it a lot. I am going to have to do some more of this kind of work. And all you will need is sunlight and the girls will love it!

This model was awesome she was a blast to work with.

Dreamy look

I have been looking to do some dreamy looks with ambient light, women love it. Just saying.

What do you guys think?

Just thought I would say the sunset was purdy tonite! :D

Tulsa trip, old friends reunite!

So I just realized I know all the hot chicks, especially back in high school. Anyways, today was one of those days. I was talking to an old friend about a shoot a while back, but she got hurt and had to cancel. The injury she had gotten was the same I have experienced in the past. Well about 2 weeks ago we were talking and she had mentioned she was going to Tulsa to shoot with Kevin Camp, and I asked her if it would be okay to come along and shoot. Mainly to just talk with her and catch up, but also because Tulsa has stuff that Oklahoma City does not, like REAL LAKES! I talked to her and Kevin and they both agreed it would be okay, so I was excited. Got the trip planned and what not and yesterday (now) and decided to go, all she asked for was 20 dollars gas money. Fair enough.

So I woke up today about 10am, I might add that is REALLY EARLY for me, and got the camera ready to go, she called and confirmed.I took a shower got ready and met her at a 7-11 here in Oklahoma City, now the 7-11's in Oklahoma City are a great story for another day. Because part of the reason I wanted to go to Tulsa was because of Quick Trip, the worlds greatest convience store! Anyways so I got ready showered etc and went to the 7-11 at 12:20 or so, she was already there. I bought her a water and gave the cashier the money for the gas and had hit the road!

Tulsa was going to be fun, get to see 2 old friends from Aspen Athletic and hang out and shoot a gorgeous girl! So we had hit the road and man that road trip had seemed like forever! But we get into Tulsa, Oklahoma about 230 where we met up with Andrew and she took a shower and got ready, Andrew gave me a Red Bull, I felt so lucky! Anyways, apparently Andrew is now into tennis so I shoot the breeze with him and his roommate for a little while, and hit a ball around. Now I know why I am NOT a tennis player.Andrew got to catch up with her for a little while to, just kind of caught up.Now off to shoot with Kevin Camp.

We left from Andrew's house at 4:30 p.m. or so and I decided that I was going to try several different looks with her as far as lighting goes. Anyone who knows me, knows I am not scared to do something different, My only prayer is I got some good images without an LCD screen on my camera. Kevin called her and gave her directions, and the way Tulsa is laid out it was REALLY easy to get to, Oklahoma City you do need a GPS. So we arrive about 5 p.m. or so and met up with Kevin. Her first dress was a cute little form fitting dress with black and silver stripes. We shot that dress downtown, I wanted to do some pure ambient light looks with a 300mm f2.8 lens that Kevin owned and some 50mm 1.8 looks. Really shallow depth of field, and blend falsh with ambient.  As well as some dreamy looks to with an edge light. So first looks we did downtown I focused on blending the flash and ambient with her dress, I would say I did pretty good here. Now it was for the second look.

I sure do miss my paw print watermark, that was my signature. But when I get my laptop back up, I will have it again! Back to the story though, the second look we did was a formal dress she wore for a pageant one time, it was a limited edition Sherri Hill dress, for those who do not know fashion designers, she is big in pageants, about as big as Johnathon Kayne Gillespie. The dress was gorgeous, I told her to bring it out because it was just gorgeous! So we shot in that for like 15 minutes because it was hot as a mofo out and that is not cool. We went to a little park that reminded me of Kerr Park here in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. It was cute, had a few buildings in the background and grass and trees overall I liked it a lot. Pretty place! The lighting I went with here was kind of overpowering the sun, a little. I muted out the background a little and underexposed it just a tad bit while filling in her with a flash, overall I liked the outcome. It gets tricky because you have to meter the sky and background first, than go 1 to 2 stops underexposed. But it is a lighting style I like, a lot.

Now you see why I love the dress? It is gorgeous, like the model in it.

Last thing we did was swimsuit at Lake Oolgah, I think this is how you spell it. This lake is trippy as hell to, because apparently it used to be a town, but apparently the town got flooded and replaced by the lake, so if you go into the lake at certain parts, there are buildings, sidewalks, and various other town stuff there. Most have not been very big, I thought it was eerie, but it is a pretty lake. Of course swimsuit at sunset I got to do my style, the strobist style. You know shadows and harsh contrast between subject and background. Oh I do love that style. Except this time I did something different, there was a dramatic blue and purple sky so I did the strobist look  but without a sunset just a dramatic blue sky. I also tried out raising ambient lighting to get a more advertisment style bikini, here is an example.

Well you guys probably do not care what we did after, which was eat and a long ride home. But it was nice to reconnect with an old friend and have her model for us, she totally did rock it! :)

Dreamy light, huh?

Blue Sky!!!!!

Harsh light, wolfie what the f&*&?!

Lately I have been using a lot of harsh light, and people think I am nuts. Well I am an artist, so that is a good thing, no artist is normal. Well harsh light kicks ass, if you can use it right, I love it personally and it is my style! But learning how to use it was always a challenge.

I am primarily a location shooter, personally studio work is boring to me unless you are doing something like nudes. But I also do live in Oklahoma, where the wind blows! After several torn up softboxes and lights, and hearing of photographers horror stories, I decided to use a bare SB800. I had used it once prior before my last 4 shoots, and it was with a local photographer named Kevin Camp. Well I say local, but he is really in Tulsa, Oklahoma. But it was such a wide angle stobist style with a model named Traci Lacek, I never thought about ever using it again. But I do love being a strobist, why I am a starving artist, a successful starving artist I might add. But the thought of the sundial shadow, and the hot spots on the models skin or even blown highlights. A big no no in photography. I decided I would give it a try. The first shoot I did with harsh light was a formal dress, I had the flash too close models face got blown out, and you will never see those photos (and I thank God everyday I had a few good ones) and was like, well I will need practice.

I had a shoot a week later, she wanted some sunset stuff done, with a maxi dress, and I was fretting about lighting again. I had always used a modifier. Than it hit me like a brick wall, as if I were running 100 mph. Chuck Majors, www.shotbyephoto.com, had apparently used harsh light a lot! Everyone always says that he does, so I decided to Facebook him one day and ask him if he really did, of course like any good photographer, he said he did depending on the situation. So I asked him for his advice, he said with speed lights back it off about 10 feet, and about eye level, maybe a little higher and do not go over a quarter power. So I kept that in mind. Well the shoot comes up, I have no LCD on my camera, and I am nervous as hell, so she got into the dress and I got ready and went at f8 to control the flash, flash at a quarter power, and 200th of a second shutter speed to kill the ambient (ever want a dramatic sunset? underexpose!!!)  backed it off about 10 feet, that I counted, and started shooting. Not knowing what I was going to get, I got a great surprise when I got home, and I think I like it. Makes the models skin look smoother, harsh contrast, and well the wind blowing isn't going to break a bunch of stuff.

Almost NO editing.