Bridget - Dramatic portraits in a pool

A couple of weeks ago, my neighbor (and model for many years) was in her last days at home before heading back to college, and we decided to do one more shoot before she left. I have always wanted to shoot portraits in a pool, getting the lens really close to the water level. So, we decided to use their pool and meet just before sunset on the following day.

Well...we were running a little late and lost all of our direct sunlight, so we took some images in flat light. These would serve as a test for another shoot, a little earlier on the following evening.

It was nice having a chance to "pre-shoot" this. It helped us determine the best angles, and also allowed us to see what we needed to change for the following evening. Here is what we learned:

* The photos look more natural when her hair was wet (we started out with her hair still dry).
* We needed to pay more attention to the brushing of her hair and get it behind her ears.
* Even though I was in the water, I needed to keep my lens low to the water line for best results.
* Due to the reflectivity of the water, I needed to shot in burst mode to get varying results.
* Even though the images were nice, we needed directional (reflected) light to make it more interesting.

So, now that we had our checklist of modifications, we set out to improve on the images from day one.

You can immediately see the difference that the reflected sunlight makes to the images. Bridget's skin has a much warmer golden color and the colors are more pronounced.

Using the direct sunlight coming from behind Bridget, I had her move so that her hair was rim-lighted and then had her brother hold a reflector to bring some more light to the left side of her face.

As we were shooting, and the light was dropping quickly, I became more aware of the variance between the light and dark areas of the images. Working with a reflector, we added light to the left side of Bridget's face and I dialed down the exposure compensation of the camera to -0.3, to add an even more dramatic look to the images.

These last two images are my favorites. Bridget has amazing eyes, and I really wanted to capture that in my photos. The combination of dramatic lighting and her piercing eyes really makes for beautiful photos. I wish I could take full credit for these, but as is many times the case, it is the subject that makes the picture, even more than the photographer!

A Safari in California? Yep - It's Safari West in Santa Rosa, CA

Last weekend was another fun trip to Safari West, which is located near the Napa Valley in Northern California. This time, I was up there to teach photography to some of the photo buyers from Target. On Thursday evening, I spent an hour and a half teaching them how to take control of a DSLR camera, get it out of automatic mode, and get creative. Then, after spending a night in the African tents (and dealing with a whole lot of noisy birds who apparently don't believe in sleeping), we got up on Friday morning, hopped into a couple of their open air vehicles and headed off to explore the 400 acres.

I brought Canon DSLR cameras and various long lenses (between 200mm and 300mm) for the students to use, while I used my Canon 5D Mark II with a 100-400mm lens. The photo above was my example of shooting at a wide open aperture, keeping the face and eyes in perfect focus but having everything else go soft in the background.

The great thing about Safari West is that you can get up close and personal with so many different animals. These shots of the giraffes were taken when we drove right into the open area with them.

I swear...I get no respect...not even from the animals!

The rhinoceros are not the most active of animals, but they are pretty cool to look at. These two were at the lower area of the property, and then we drove up into the hills.

We came across a herd of cape buffalo who were lounging around, minding their own business. This guy was nice enough to look up at us to let us get a nice portrait.

I love the long curved horns on the Oryx. This image was an example of shooting in portrait mode (tall) vs. shooting all the images in landscape mode (wide).

I like this shot of an Eland who was walking behind one of the Zebras. The contrast between the Zebra's stripes and the Eland's brown hair, help make the photo more interesting.

This Gemsbok was hanging out underneath some tree cover when we came around the corner. He turned and looked right at us and I grabbed this shot.

After taking the two hour tour of the property, you can walk around the "base camp" area and see some really cool animals in there pens. They even have this beautiful Cheetah (obviously in a caged area). I was teaching the students how to shoot through a fence to try and make the foreground wires almost invisible.

These Ring-Tailed Lemurs were too cute. They were taking some time to clean each other when I stopped by for some photos.

Also on the property are some really interesting birds. And because you can walk around and get really close to them, this makes for an outstanding photo opportunity.

Not to be forgotten, there are numerous Tortoises cruising around the property. And they actually move faster than you might expect.

As we were finishing up our 3 hour tour of the property, we watched these two Giraffe as they bumped necks (a show of dominance). We all took a lot of images of these two animals and they performed this act for us.

If you are interested in visiting Safari West, you can check out their web site at: www.safariwest.com.

Kayaking with my wife and my camera

A couple of weeks ago, my wife and I decided to get out of the house and go kayaking, by ourselves, with no kids. We headed up to Stevens Creek Reservoir, which is located near our house, and took off for a couple of hours. She told me that on a recent outing, they had seen some cool birds, and encouraged me to bring a camera. Nice! Not wanting to risk my 5D Mark II and L series lens in the kayak, I rigged up my Canon 40D with a 18-250 Tamron lens and off we went.

Here is a shot of my wife, Annette, as we headed away from the launch area.

And a rare shot of me (since I am usually on the other side of the camera).

We did see some cool birds as we paddled across the reservoir. I was focusing on this Double Crested Cormorant (identified by my friend Rob Aramayo - thanks Rob), who was sitting on a tree branch, when I saw it prepare to take off. I quickly repositioned myself in the kayak and followed him on his takeoff to grab this shot. (Photographer's note: Shooting images from a kayak is pretty limiting. Not only are you rocking from side to side, but you are also confined to a pretty small sitting area. You really need to position the boat to allow you to shoot in certain directions. This works much better than trying to twist your body in this confined space.)

A couple more shots of the local wildlife. This is a Black-crowned Night Heron (also identified by Rob).

It was fun to shoot photos of these birds from the kayak because you can paddle in very close (slowly) and get some tight shots.

Annette, paddling through the narrow passage at the back of the reservoir.

As always, I wanted to take some photos from a different perspective, so I put the DSLR low to the bow of my kayak and took this shot of my wife in the distance. I shot multiple images, trying to keep the camera straight and at the right height.

For this shot, I put the camera even lower than the previous image, and also pulled it back against my body. For the two shots above, I think that they help tell the story. If the images did not have my kayak in the frame, you might think that I shot the images from the shore. Having the front of my kayak in the frame tells the viewer that I am in a boat too. In this shot, I lined up my kayak directly up the cove and made sure that Annette's kayak was in the corner of the frame.

Cool photo opportunities traveling to / and at Disneyland in Anaheim, CA

Before the summer was over and the kids went back to school, we made a week long trip down to Southern California. As you may have seen from a previous blog entry, I was shooting the U.S. Open Men's Water Polo tournament in that area, and it was right around the corner from Disneyland...so...off we went to combine the two.

We were heading east on Highway 152, only about 45 minutes into the trip, when we came across this beautiful field of flowers. Before I could plead my wife to pull over (since she was at the wheel), she was already pulling over. She knew that this was too much for me to resist! We were on the other side of the 2 lane freeway, so I had to play a game of Frogger (for those of you who remember the video game) to get to the other side, without becoming road kill. It was worth the mad scramble. :)

As you can see, the tough part was deciding where to shoot the images. Moving 10 feet in any direction, or shooting from different heights, gave a completely different look to this field.

It was early enough in the morning that the skies were still overcast, so I did not have to fight any harsh sunlight and shadows. I did shoot some images straight down the rows of flowers, but preferred the lines going diagonally across the frame.

And then, mid afternoon, we drove into Santa Monica, CA to stretch our legs and check out the beach. For this shot, I waited for many of the bike riders to intersect each other in the middle of my frame.

Two days later, after photographing the water polo tournament, we headed to the Magic Kingdom. As always, the place was crowded, but we had a great time on all the rides and avoided a lot of the congestion by having a good plan. To make the most of Disneyland, you need to make creative use of the fast passes and avoiding the park in the middle of the day. I took this image to show the congestion along Main Street. (Photographer's note: This is what we call a scene setter. Although I took many other images of the kids and the park, this one helps set the scene and give the viewer an idea of the location and the crowds. Make sure to capture these to help tell the whole story in images.)

As much as I love photography, I did not bring my camera on the first day of the trip. I wanted to give that day to the family without any distractions. This is not an easy thing to do when your brain is saying "Oh - look at that - that would be a cool shot!" On the second day I actually dragged my 5D Mark II with me. I am glad that I did. This is a shot of my daughter (3rd from the right) and her friends on a swing ride with the "California Screaming" roller coaster and the moon in the background.

This is probably my favorite photo from our vacation. I remember seeing this view on our last visit to "California Adventures", but did not have the right equipment for the shot. This time I went to the park with my 5D Mark II and a monopod. I went onto a nearby bridge, to get above the water line, rested my monopod against the railing to sturdy it, and grabbed this image. I love the colors of the rides and the reflections in the water. My wife looked at this shot and asked how much post-processing I had done to boost the colors. Believe it or not, I didn't have to modify this image, this is how it looked!

I really wanted to photograph the "World of Color" show from the best vantage point. Earlier in the day, I called the media relations group at Disney to see if I could get press access for the show. Being a last minute request, I was denied. But, I used other creative techniques (don't ask) to get a prime position and shot images of the show. For these images, I used the same technique as the shot from the bridge, with the monopod resting against a railing. Normally I would have brought a tripod, but the limited amount of standing room made that impossible.

This is another favorite image from the trip. What really makes this shot special isn't all the water and color in the background, it is the silhouette of the little girl presumably on her dad's shoulders. (You can click on the image to see it better.) I have a couple of different shots in this sequence, but in this shot, she was turned perfectly towards Mickey. I have to admit that I did modify this image. In the original shot, there were a couple of other tall people in front and a couple of outstretched hands with cameras, which I cloned out. I really wanted to draw attention to the little girl up front. (Photographer's note: It is very important for your image to have a subject, or a point of your image where you want to draw the attention of the viewer. This image really helps to show off that point. When I show this image to friends, even though there is a ton of color and action in the background, they immediately comment on the little girl high above the crowd.)

A beautiful Bat Mitzvah outside in the Santa Cruz Mountains (at Maison Du Lac)

Many months ago, I was approached to see if I could shoot a young lady's Bat Mitzvah on August 13th. I talked with the family and their coordinator for quite a while to get all the details. One of my first questions is always, "Which Temple do you belong to?" This time the answer was totally different from the normal response. They told me that they were doing the service and party outside, up in the Santa Cruz Mountains. At this point, I almost insisted that I be their photographer! This was such a cool opportunity to shoot something totally different. If you know me, you know that I live for this type of opportunity.

A couple of weeks before the event, I drove up to this amazing private property called "Maison Du Lac" to scout the area. As I walked around the grounds, I realized that this place was so amazing that I would have to resist the temptation to shoot portrait shots at every great spot. There were too many!

We met at 8:45am to allow plenty of time for family portraits. I did this for two reasons. First, I knew that there were a lot of cool locations on the property which would make for great family pictures. Secondly, I never like shooting images right up to the start of the service. This causes too much stress on the family (and me to a certain extent).

I picked this location by the large redwood tree, because Emily wore this light colored dress which really popped against the dark background. I used my flash to help light her and separate her even more from the foliage. (Photographer's note: Most photographers do not use a flash when shooting outdoor, especially in the shade, but adding just a small amount of flash helps to even out the small shadows under the eyes and nose. I usually set my flash at -1 stop and stand back pretty far so that the added light is very subtle. You never want your images to look "flashed". )

A nice family portrait in the same location. I could have moved them back into solid shade, but I liked the patches of sunlight on the grass by their feet. It adds a bit of contrast to the image and also gives a hint to the viewer that the morning was progressing and the sun was rising above the trees.

The family had a quick rehearsal before the service started, which allowed me some time to shoot images directly in front of the makeshift bema. One of my favorite shots is to get low and shoot a detail shot of the torah and the child at a wide aperture. I usually shoot this in portrait format, but really liked the star of David in front of the scroll, so decided to do something different. (Photographer's note: If you click on the image to see it a little larger, you will notice that the focal point is very narrow and directly on the end of the yad (pointer). I do this to draw attention to the yad and torah, but allow enough detail in the foreground and background to keep the image in context.)

I have photographed many mitzvahs but never had a chance to take photos with a natural background like this. I stood in the back of the tent and used my 100-400 lens to get in nice and close. And...for the first time ever...I used a flash during the service, with permission of the Rabbi. (Photographer's note: Since my subjects were in front of a very bright background, without the use of a flash, they would appears as silhouettes. BUT, I really did not want to draw attention to myself or pop a flash directly at the participants. So, using the white ceiling of the tent as a giant reflector, I pointed my flash directly up and bounced the light from above. Since it was in the middle of the day, nobody could see the flash, but it really made a huge difference to the final images.)

At one point, I walked outside the tent with my other camera and took some shots from a different vantage point. I was really glad that I did this because it sets the scene.

In any Bar or Bat Mitzvah, there are certain critical moments which have to be captured. When the child reads from the torah, this is a key moment that can not be missed.

But...it is the unscripted moments which I REALLY love to capture. This is one of those shots. During the speech from the parents, something was said that cracked them all up, and I fired off a couple of shots (hoping that the flash would keep up) and grabbed a couple images which highlight this great moment. Yep - this is why I love being a photographer!

Once the service was over, it was time to break for hors douvres, lunch and party. It was during this time that I saw this gentleman shooting images and video with his iPad. Hey, I have seen countless people taking pictures with their point-and-shoot cameras and cell phones, but this was a first! I had to get a shot of this.

Another key moment during a mitzvah party is the horah, when they put the child (technically now an adult) on a chair and lift them high in the air. I have photographed this many times, but never with a grove of redwoods in the background.

There was a nice pond on the property, and I saw these two young girls off by themselves having a chat. Too priceless not to photograph this. :)

This image just proves that it does not have to be nighttime for the kids to dance and have fun.

At 4pm, the party had ended and I was packing up all my gear, when Max (the very awesome DJ) held up this centerpiece. I quickly unpacked one of my cameras and took some fun shots of him. This is why I never leave a party before it is over. There are always fun opportunities to photograph right up until the end...and somethings even after the party has ended.