MY YEAR IN PICTURES

Some of the images that I really liked or just worked out well are now posted.
CLICK HERE FOR GALLERY.

I thought the facial expression I got of Kwame, Detroit's, former mayor, in court was good. My son playing tennis is classic! There are some real nice wedding moments as well.
The coolest event I shot all year was the Detroit Electronic Music Festival. The craziest was also at the Festival, the Girl Talk set. Let me know what you like and don't like. If you have any questions about the images post those up in the comments as well.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

MERRY CHRISTMAS

SNOW GIRL

So Melissa contacted me months ago and said she wanted her senior photos shot in the snow. Move forward to yesterday and with her out of school, her mom willing to watch my daughter and a good amount of snow in the metro Detroit area we decided to head out to Maybury State Park. With 8 inches of snow on the ground and more light snow falling conditions were pretty good. The problem is the wind started to pick up and the snow got heavier. Snow always makes shooting more challenging. Keeping gear dry, you move slower making sure not to drop anything and try to keep everything covered up. Your subjects hair get wet and then freezes, snow get in the eyes and they squint and fingers get real cold making adjustments when the gloves have to come off. I shot some with strobes and until the contacts started to get to wet. Can you tell which shots have strobe? Anyway the results were pretty good despite the challenging conditions. Melissa was very relaxed and a good sport despite getting pretty cold at the end. But I know she will like the results. Oh and the roads were terrible on the drive home.

LET IT SNOW, PART 2.

It snowed a good 8 inches plus around here today. I wanted to go out and shoot but I really needed to get some slide show work done. The I had a portrait assignment for the News so I left early to see if I could make some interesting snow day photos. Becaseu if I sent them anything and they used it I could bill them for the use. I shot a few from inside my truck but wasn't finding anything really different that inspired me to shoot. Yes I saw people plowing and shoveling, people stuck in snowdrifts and the like. But nothing really different. I guess I really didn't feel like talking with anyone today to get ID's and such either. In reality I would have been shooting just for the money. I'm looking forward to taking a few days off during Christmas to play with my kids and re-charge my batteries. I'm going to try real hard to not even turn the computer on for a few days.

So anyway after the assignment I took my kids sledding. I still wanted to shoot somewthing for paper but made a few images of my kids instead. We will go sledding again in the morning and I think I might even leave the camera at home.

LET IT SNOW! And Hoops

I don't know why but I always seem to shoot photos while I'm driving in bad weather. I was on my way home from shooting a basketball game. I'm just glad it snowed. And Thursday night into Friday we are suppose to get around 6 inches to a foot of snow! Yippy, I love snow and I really love it at Christmas. If we do get that much I am going to try and make some snow images so come back Friday night.

Here are a couple hoops shots from last night and tonight. I have another game to shoot Thursday. Maybe I'll talk more about strobing basketball then. I'm real tired right now.

OASIS AND RYAN ADAMS

Ok shots. Decent light but the stage was real high and many monitors in the way. Oh well.

JAZZ UP YOUR LIGHT

Off camera lighting, strobe or other source, can really jazz up your images. Sometimes it’s subtle like in this shot but almost always better depending on the subject and mood you want in your images. It’s no surprise I’m a fan of the Strobist blog. I have always done many of the same lighting techniques discussed their however over the years I became lazy at times and that blog help motivate me to play with light and make it better once again.

So in this shot it’s just a strobe to camera left with a shoot through umbrella to simulate window light because the actual window light was not bright enough. Then I have a bare strobe behind the subject and camera right as a very little rim light and then a diffused strobe camera right for a very little fill in the shadows.

Want to learn more if you live in SE Michigan. I teach a basic photo class for Continuing education at Schoolcraft College and am in the process of proposing an advanced photo class that will be about flash and lighting and more specifically off camera lighting. I have also had several past students ask if I would be willing to do one day workshops and I am considering doing a few in 2009. If interested in either shoot me an email with your email and I will put you on a contact list.