Jumping Guy

Baby Face

What are you looking at?

Josh at work

Wedding Band

Sorry for not posting for a couple of days. I was in North Carolina photographing my niece's wedding and I didn't have Internet access for my laptop.

Plane Sleep

In Pain

Putnam County Pickers

I was sorting through some old files and ran across this photo from the early 1980s. If you lived near Charleston in the 70's and early 80's, you remember the Putnam County Pickers. This was when they were doing a concert with the Symphony and they were in the studio to get a portrait in tuxedos and (as I often did in those days) at the end of the session I told them to stick their fingers in their noses. Funnily enough, people often did it and then were surprised when I actually took the photo. This one took on special meaning because of their group name and they ended up using it on a poster later.

Interesting things...

... that I saw in Huntington on Wednesday.

A cowboy and his dog...


... a suspension bridge in the woods...


... a raptor flying high...

I looked this up and I think it's a "Broadwinged Hawk" which I don't recall seeing before. Can someone confirm this?

Farm on Fisher Ridge

I was working on location at a farm this morning.


"Are you going to give me another fig newton or not? I don't have all day."


The donkey likes his nose scratched.




Are these wild turkeys or domesticated?? I thought that wild turkeys were supposed to be famously reclusive?



Why in the world are goat's eyes so weird looking? Do any other animals have slot pupils?


"Who cares what you think about my eyes?"


Holy crap, that thing actually interferes with his walking.


Come in out of the rain little puppy. We won't bite.

Sunrise on the Helideck

6am in the parking lot

Knowledge... not gear

Or, portrait lighting on the cheap.

The weather has depressed my drive to take pictures for fun. So, instead of showing you a new photo (which I don't have) or drag an old one out of the files, how about a photography lesson? The subtitle of this blog is "Where it's not about the camera". In the past, I have preached that it's a lot more about knowledge than it is about expensive equipment. To do the lighting in these portraits, all one would need is a sunny day and a $4 piece of white foam core. I use a reflector like this only because it's convenient to fold up and carry around.

I keep threatening to write a book called "Everything You Know About Photography Is Wrong". One thing that everybody knows is that you don't shoot into the Sun. Look at this picture of a girl with the Sun on her face.

I like this one a lot better.


I always shoot into the Sun. I love the way the rim lighting gives a halo effect. The back lighting does all sorts of cool things, but you do need some fill light. Your camera manual suggests that you fill with flash on the camera, but that looks horrible. I fill with a reflector off to one side. Anything white will do if it's big enough. A piece of 20x30 inch foam core that you can get at Rite-Aid is perfect. But remember, the sun needs to be hitting the reflector!





People tend to think that reflector fill should come from below, but for these portraits, I think of the reflector (with the Sun hitting it) as the main light, so I want it kind of high and off to one side. It helps to have a friend around to hold that reflector. If you put it on a stand it's just going to blow over. I also recommend using a telephoto lens for portraits. It's flattering for the people and it throws the background nicely out of focus.

Here I Come

OJ Mayo

OJ Mayo is stirring things up at USC these days. Here's a picture I took of him at age 13 (I think) for Sports Illustrated For Kids Magazine. I've been around him on several occasions. I don't follow sports much, so I'm not starry-eyed about athletes. OJ has always impressed me as a serious and well-behaved kid off the court. I'm rooting for him to do well in life.

Jump!

Jumping is fun. Don'cha think?

Swordsman

I haven't shot much personal work since returning from my South Carolina trip so I dug through my files to find something to post today. This is a really fun thing I shot for Maple Creative and Kelley's Men's Shop. We were working on a KungFu movie theme and we had several models that day to work with. This guy was the only model that could pull off the martial arts poses. I really didn't expect it to be that difficult. But when we tried to pose the guys (who had no martial arts training) according to some poses we found on the Internet, only this guy really made it work. I love this photo.

The Washer

Underbite

The Hammer