Thing is, I’ve been to this park a few times, so there weren’t a whole lot of shots I didn’t already have, especially in the area we had selected.  But that forces me to look around more, which is a good thing(tm).  I picked up a shot or two of reflections in water, because I have a thing for reflections in water.  And a dead tree presented itself.  But then Steve showed up and we started work on the Christmas Card shot.

I have very little experience taking pictures of people, but I’ve seen quite a few Christmas Card shots.  So I set about recreating that.  Because of the relationships between the subjects I decided a Tallest-to-Shortest ordering (rather than Tallest-in-the-Middle) was appropriate, so we did that.  I found it difficult to find angles which looked natural but didn’t have things growing out of a subject’s head or shoulders.  The shot that ended up being the winner was the three lying down on a blanket, on their stomachs looking at the camera.  Add a bit of bokeh and voila, Christmas Card shot.

Steve’s girlfriend’s daughter is involved in some sort of modelling thing, and required a head shot.  I took a few random shots while waiting for Steve to retrieve things from the car.  They selected one of those shots to be the one she uses for her head shot, which was flattering.

Nothing new learned from this excursion.  Getting more comfortable posing people and telling subjects what to do (or, suggesting, rather).

Caddo Lake is a bayou and the site of the world’s largest Cypress forest.  The parts on the Texas side look like something out of “Gator” or “Swamp People”.  I pulled in a bit late to get to picky about sunset shots, so I grabbed a few shots of opportunity and decided to take a tour in the morning.

I managed to get out into the lake around 8a, a little later than I had thought.  But it was an overcast morning so that was ok.  Captain Billy took us out in his john boat and it was just he and I.  He was a colorful fellow, and most entertaining.

I had decided to take just my Rebel and one lens, as I didn’t think switching out lenses or installing filters would be practical on the little boat.  In retrospect, even though I don’t think I needed anything else, it wouldn’t have been a problem using stuff had I taken it.  I selected the 17 – 85 IS and left the circular polarizer, as it was overcast.  Again in retrospect I think this was the best option.

I took basically four kinds of shots.  Wide-angle vistas of the lake and the sky, usually shot forward with the path through the water lilies forming a leading line; Close-up shots of the water lilies; shots of trees with Spanish Moss and wildlife shots, which meant birds.  We saw an alligator nest (at least that’s what Captain Billy told me) but no alligators.  Captain Billy was sensitive to my photographic needs, even contributing some creative ideas of his own.  The lake was quite beautiful and, given the somewhat un-inspired weather and time-of-year I was happy with the results.

As always I need to check my settings before hitting the button.  There were quite a few shots with too high an ISO, and quite a few that were under/over exposed.  When shooting from a boat that’s moving with any sort of speed you need to pick a subject far away and in line with your current motion.  Close up subjects will blur, especially if it’s ninety degrees to your vector.  When shooting wildlife, especially moving wildlife, bump the ISO up to get the faster shutter speeds.

By the way, the morning after I checked into the hotel I discovered that I didn’t have my camera bag.  It’s hard to describe the emotions that I felt when I realized this.  Equally difficult to describe is how I felt when the front desk clerk told me that she had it.

Anyway.  We headed to Niagara Falls and I took a series of relatively typical tourist shots.  The shipwreck at the top of Horseshoe Falls, the full view of Horseshoe Falls and one emphasizing the mist coming from it, the Maid of the Mist below the American Falls, bridge in the background, the Maid of the Mist near Horseshoe Falls.  They came out well enough – nothing spectacular but still nice.  It was a relatively overcast day so exposure was pretty easy (no hot spots) but the lighting was rather boring.

I took a walk about with the 50mm dialed down to 1.8 (for the challenge and the possibility of getting some interesting DoF).  I found myself fixating on reflections in windows on the larger buildings.  This carried over into the next day when we wandered around downtown as a group, and then later as I wandered around Casa Loma.

Casa Loma is a castle of relatively recent vintage, with recreations of rooms set up.  I used the shallow DoF at 1.8 to isolate objects and was pretty satisfied with the results.  Fifty millimeters on my small sensor camera is a little zoomed out from “normal” vision, so it’s not the idea “walking around” lens, but the 1.8 means I don’t need the flash and I can get the bokeh I want.  Also it means I get it even if I don’t want it, but it’s a trade off I don’t mind making.  Plus the glass in that lens is really good (even though the lens itself has the cheapest build ever).

So nothing new this time out – more practice with the 50mm prime.  At some point I’ll go wander around with the 75mm prime from the Bronica and see how that experience compares.

I went into this with very little photo-shoot experience.  What little I had was from taking pictures of friends and family and those sessions were so informal as to not really be counted as “experience”.  But this time around the subject had some expectations (though I had set it low) and I had a vision.

One thing that I had going for me is that my aforementioned friend Charlie is a photographer, so he brought experience and a large safety net.  As well as some nice gear.

Going into this I had a vision of a series of shots whihc were high-contrast, black background shots which would paint the subject’s rather interesting muscle patterns.  You may recall that I played around with this idea earlier by using a slit to illuminate Charlie’s wife Jacinda’s face.

I forgot all about that about five minutes in and didn’t remember until the drive home.

We showed up at the site and set up some gear.  Initially we just used my little umbrella in reflective mode but eventually we stepped up to Charlie’s softbox.  Pushpak would start a pose and we would try to get some interesting shots of it.  Eventually things evolved into looking at a pose and deciding if it would best be served by the softbox providing broad illumination or using a grid spot for targeted high-contrast light (see how close I came to realizing my initial vision?) (I might go back in post and see if I can do something to come closer to that).  We took turns grabbing the pocket wizard transmitter; whoever had it would have the lights and the other would shoot natural light.  That’s about it.

Things I had problems with:

• I forgot my vision almost immediately and just started taking nothing but shots of opportunity.
• I went too fast.  I didn’t check settings (even when Charlie admonished me to)
• I also didn’t check focus and corners
• I also didn’t stop to think about the light or any of these considerations before a pose would happen
• I had no direction for the subject.  Luckily he was doing his thing and didn’t require hardly any direction, but when I saw a potential shot I should try and help that along with a little suggestion, but I remain too timid.
• I underexposed a lot – and not always because I forgot to check settings (though often that was the case) I just wanted the faster shutter speed and thought I could get away with lightening things in post.  Bad idea.

Almost all these problems stem from getting in a hurry and not stopping to think.  I need to be more intentional and take my time.  But there’s a time and place for that – and that’s before your subject has gotten into a pose which severely restricts his intake of oxygen.  I need to adopt Charlie’s outlook which is to think of making the most of the opportunity given to you and of producing “portfolio worthy” images.  Just hitting the button and hoping isn’t going to cut it.

1. Zombies walk faster than you would expect
2. When people are just doing their thing (i.e. not posing) moments come and go quickly
3. My “shooting speed” while shooting manual isn’t up to the task of capturing the moments referred to in (2)
4. I’m still too timid when taking pictures of people.  I mean, these people clearly wanted their picture taken.  Yet I still felt self-conscious pointing a camera at them

So, I need to practice more to get my “shooting speed” up.  It takes me too long to check settings.  If I try and keep up I end up blowing the exposure or blurring the pictures because I’m not checking that I’m right, but I don’t have time to check – so the only thing for it is to get it right without checking.  So practice.

By then end of the walk I felt relatively comfortable pointing the camera at people, so hopefully I’m on the road to addressing that issue.

Exposure-wise I tended to underexpose almost everything.  This likely came from the fact that I was shooting at sunset and was losing the light as I went.  I thought I was compensating by rounding down on the shutter speed (1/250 instead of 1/500) but maybe one more stop there would have helped.  All in all a successful outing.  I’ll need a few more before I can start getting a feel for it though.  For now the lessons learned are:

• If you need to take light out, don’t forget the circular polarizer.
• Pay a bit more attention to composition, in addition to the standard issues (level horizons and the corners).
• push the exposure more – things appear to be dimmer than you think.

My routine appears to have me wind the film after every exposure, and this seems to be working out well.  Also, and this would help with all cameras (well, except the Holga), check the exposure settings before each shot, even if you don’t think it’s changed.  Be more patient.

You may remember from last time that I had some issues (this thing has a battery?  the red mark means multiple exposure??)  Well, I learned from that experience so this time around I felt a little more prepared.  Taking pictures with the Bronica is a slow and deliberate activity.  With my Canon it’s:

1. see a shot
2. Frame it
3. Check exposure
4. Take the shot
5. Check to see if there are flaws
6. if so, retake the shot and go to 5
7. Move on

With the Bronica it’s:

1. Find the shot
2. Set up the tripod
3. Decide on the focal length of the lens to use
4. Attach the lens
5. Assess the ambient light and the contrast range
6. Set the aperture and shutter speed accordingly
7. Manually focus
8. Remove the dark slide
9. Take the shot
10. Insert the dark slide
11. Cross fingers
12. Remove camera from tripod
13. Write down the data so you can learn from this
14. Pack up everything

It makes you think about composition.  It also makes you think about whether the image is worth the effort – which I think is a good thing.  Well, for me it definitely is.

So I wandered around the park with my friend Chris’s light meter.  This meter gives a raw number which I don’t know what to do with.  I simply recorded the number with my other data (f/stop and shutter speed) and hopefully after reviewing the frames and this manually recorded EXIF data I can start to get a feel for how to expose.  I leaned pretty heavily on the Sunny 16 rule (thanks, George) as a place to start and adjusted for what I thought needed to be adjusted for (making notes as I went).  So, as soon as I take five more exposures and get this developed we should be able to start coming up with a system.

It’s a process.

I had a half-formed idea of black and white shots with high contrast and some grain.  I think it’s safe to say that I didn’t really get those shots.

We scouted locations and decided on an alley near a grain elevator/mill of some sort and the railroad tracks.  The alley had some interesting brick walls and some odd textures and the railroad tracks had railroad stuff.

The alley smelled fairly badly.  But we dealt with it.  I set up the umbrella in its reflective mode, mostly because it was easier.  I put it at 45 degrees to the wall, took some test shots and then stuck Steve there and took some more test shots.

I didn’t know what I was doing, exactly.  In retrospect I should have found a shutter speed where the sun coming in from camera right would be a stop or so under the flash coming in from camera left and used it as a fill for the flash.  Or maybe used the sun as a key/accent/kicker thing.  Instead I think I dropped the shutter speed until the sun was gone and used only the flash.  But there was a weird secondary shadow coming from somewhere else that I couldn’t figure out that I wanted to go away.  In retrospect I think this was my camera’s pop-up flash.  I was using it to optically trigger the off-camera flash because I’d forgotten my PC Sync cable.

At this location I had (from camera left to right) a concrete wall, an old metal ladder attached to the wall and a garage door set into the wall (about loading-dock high).  I placed the model between the ladder and the garage door.  I placed the light to the left of the model at about 45 degrees, about six feet away and above the model’s head by about 45 degrees.  This setup was advertised as “safe” (and boring).  I figured it was a good place to start.  Steve just kinda leaned up against the wall and proceded to James-Dean out on me with a cigarette.  I worked with this for a bit, but I didn’t really have any direction for him.  I had no idea what to do with Karen, but shots of her with the garage door worked out well for me.  The lines going off to the vanishing point looked good with her in front of them.

The next location was this odd suspended wire birdcage.  I had no idea what to do with it, but it seemed strange enough that I wanted to do something.  Steve climbed up on some saw horses and I shot him inside the cage, same with Karen.  The only interesting shot (to my mind) was from significantly below the model (made easier by the model being up on saw horses) so the curved bars were visible against the sky.  So I took that one.

We then sat the models down on some painted stairs and I basically took that shot.  Nothing too interesting there.  After that I wanted to get some shots of Steve in his car, a convertible.  I pictured a wide-ish angle shot from the front driver’s side headlight with Steve all lighted up – but I don’t think I worked hard enough to get it and basically just hit the button a few times, to sub-par effect.

After this we headed to the railroad tracks.  I knew I wanted one of Karen sitting on the tracks and I wanted to do something with a rail car.  I found a rail car and set the light at about a 20 degree angle to the wall of it and stuck Stephen in there and got some decent shots that way.  Same for Karen.  Then I set Karen down on the tracks and got a decent shot that way.  While sitting there I looked up at Steve and had him block the sun and hit him with a flash and that looked pretty decent as well.

We then went up to Steve’s loft’s roof.  I was a bit tired, as I’m sure Steve and Karen were, so I was just gonna skip it, but Steve’s moving out in a few weeks and he was game, so up we went.  We found a little shade and made the most of it, using the skyline (such as it is) for a backdrop for half the shot and the wall we were leaning against (and that was providing the shade) for the other half.  It was, meh.

So, this was kind of my first solo experience with the lights, and on balance I suppose it was a success.  I did get a handful of shots I liked, so there’s that.  And lessons were learned:

1. Weight the light stand.  Come on, this should’ve been obvious – remember all those scenes in movies where the umbrella catches the wind and gets messed up?
2. Have an idea of what shot you want before you go in.  At least one.  And work on making that happen.  Shots of opportunity are good, and take them, but if you want something think about how you’re going to get it.  Detail the shot.  Write it down, say it out loud or something to make it clear.
3. Remember your gear.

I picked up a cheap flash, a light stand and an umbrella.  These items, combined with the cardboard I already have, should provide a good entry into the world of small-flash photography.  I played with the gear just to make sure it worked and then headed over to my friend Charlie’s place for some education.  Charlie is a co-worker, but he also does studio photography.  I went over to his house and we, along with his wife Jacinda, went through the basic setup of a one-light shoot, graduating to a light and a reflector and then eventually to a couple lights.  It was very fun, and nicely informative.  Jacinda is a great model because a) she’s pretty and b) she has a personality.

I had an idea I wanted to explore, which was to use hard light to light one part of the model’s face.  Neck and cheekbone seemed right to me.  I had no idea what this would look like, or if I would like it if I saw it, but I wanted to try.  At first I zoomed the flash all the way in (out?) and thought I’d hit her face with the edge of it, but light was spilling all over the room so that didn’t work.  Then we thought we’d try blocking all but a strip of it, perhaps by masking off the lens of the flash.  But then Charlie stuck his face in front of the slats on his door, placed the flash behind the door, and obtained something close to what I was looking for.  So we held a couple pieces of foam core between the flash and the subject and made a vertical slit.  But still too much light.  Charlie then cut a slit in a piece of cardboard, mounted that on a light stand, positioned the light stand close to the model and pulled the flash back from the slit.  This came very close to what I envisioned.  We then used the two pieces of foam core to box in the slit (preventing light from spilling out around the cardboard) and we pretty much had it.  We used a flashlight to position the light on the subject’s face and started shooting.

Thing is, this is pretty much what I had in mind, but the realization of it didn’t quite measure up to what I had hoped.  I didn’t really know what it would look like, but this wasn’t quite it.  But it provided a good exercise in solving light problems and we followed some inspiration along the way to get some shots I liked.  After some reflection I think the shot I was after would be reminiscent of a singer in a dark, smoky bar with one flood kinda skirting their face and maybe one of those old metal microphones.  Next time.

Charlie outlined some basic rules of thumb for a photo shoot, which I will try to remember and enumerate here:

• “Safe” is umbrella off to one side and up, stick pointed at the eye
• add a reflector or second light to get the detail below the neck
• When the subject’s face is at an angle to the light the “broad” side of the face is toward the light and the “short” side of the face is away from the light – lighting the short side of the face thins the face.
• “Safe” is putting the subject at a 45 degree angle to the light – guys have their left shoulder forward.
• Keep your parabolics straight.

More was discussed, but those stayed with me.  I’ll practice more, and likely collect more light modifiers.  Which means I’ll need some space to store stuff…  oh my.

Side lit via slit - bounce flash off wall to fill

Side lit Umbrella

Droplets

My friend Stephen came up this weekend and we headed south back to the Arcadia Valley area to poke around in the woods.  It was a very rainy day and I wasn’t sure we’d be able to do much poking around, much less take pictures of it, but we headed out with camera bag and hoped for the best.  Things just sorta worked out.

I was just in this area two weekends ago so I had most of the shots that I wanted.  This time around I planned on looking for small macro shots of plants or critters, or possibly portrait shots of Stephen.  With all the rain I thought some “water on vegetation” shots would be nice.

The rain swelled the river (the East Fork of the Black River, to be precise) so some “holy cow that’s a lot of water” shots were available.  I couldn’t figure out a good way to frame a flooded river, so I basically repeated the shots I had from the last time so at the very least I could do some interesting comparisons.  I got some pictures of Stephen and some “water drops on vegetation” and we headed off to Elephant Rocks.  I took a few of the shots I’d already taken, but things were a bit greener now so I had that.  But mostly we just played on the rocks a bit.  From there we went to Taum Sauk mountain where I was keen to go visit Mina Sauk falls, which were sure to be roaring from all the rain.  Unfortunately another effect of all the rain was the creation of a muddy bog/river on the trail, which I didn’t feel like negotiating.  So, we abandoned that.  We did wander up the lookout tower where I took some wide-angle shots of the valley in hopes of doing some HDR work.  That didn’t work out so well as the fog/clouds in the valley were moving too much.  I plan on revisiting a shot and doing a single-shot HDR (by creating an over and an under exposure) but I’ve not gotten to that yet.

When we returned to my place I broke out the cheap Lowe’s clamp lights I bought for the lightbox and set up a studio of sorts to take some headshots of Stephen.  I couldn’t get the shadows to behave, and I couldn’t seem to get the depth of field I needed to get his face sharp all the way through.  So, not the best work.  But I think it improved from start to finish, so there’s that.

Black River, Flood Stage

Stephen with some shadow issues