Jeff Cable's Blog

Monday, June 6, 2022

Another visit to the rain forest of Costa Rica!

It has been a while since I have written a blog. It is not for a lack of wanting to, it is just that things have just been a little crazy lately. In the last month I have spent 10 days in Costa Rica, then came home to photograph some large events and then back out on the road again. While in the rain forest for another photo tour, we saw some great wildlife, and I wanted to share some of those photos with all of you.

For our first day, the rain forest showed why it is called that. It rained just about all day. This is unusual, since we usually do not get the heavy rains until the late afternoons. But nonetheless, we had some really nice photo opportunities.

Almost all of these photos were taken with the Canon R3 and the Canon RF100-500mm lens. I did also use the Canon R6 and Canon 100-400mm EF lens with the Canon EF-RF adaptor.

We usually see monkeys on the first day, but due to the rains and chance, we ended up seeing more birds on this day trip along the coast. But we were all good with that, knowing that we would likely see all four species of monkeys throughout the week.

We watched this roadside hawk move from one perch to another.

Dennis, our guide, spotted this toucan in its nest. As you can see from the photos, the overcast skies provided good light for photos.

After many trips to this area I finally got a decent photo of a macaw in flight with a dark background as opposed to blue skies. And we saw this one flying with a nut in its mouth.

Our second day was our macro day, photographing the frogs, lizards and snakes.

While our guides were setting up our shooting locations, myself and my guests looked for other photos. I saw this bee repeatedly flying to these flowers and happened to get it tack sharp in a couple of frames.

Then it was time to photograph the frogs from the area.

I never get tired of photographing the red-eyed tree frogs.

This is a dart frog, which is really tiny. These things are less than an inch long and they move pretty fast. This little guy provided a real challenge to my students.

The red-eyed tree frogs tend to stay put for a longer time, making them much easier to photograph.

This lizard has great features and made for a perfect vertical shot.

Our guide, Eduardo, placed this eye-lash viper on this plant for us to photograph. For the snake photos, we used our longer zoom lenses!

We always eat lunch at Eduardo's place. While we were eating lunch, we watched the birds in the bushes around us, and had fun photographing them as well.

This one caught a small moth and was bringing it to the nest. One of my guests saw my photo and said "the fact that you got that shot shows that you are a professional photographer", only to look in his own viewfinder to see that he got the same shot! I love that.

The next day was a free day to explore the property. We started with some of us photographing the butterflies. They were all over the plants in front of our resort.

We also had a visit from these howler monkeys, who were on the fringes of the resort.

Then we were back to the butterflies...

...and awesome hummingbirds.

These egrets were mating, hence the enhanced color in their heads.

The following day, we headed across the bay to the sanctuary to see more wildlife. For this shot, I set the camera's ISO to 50, the aperture to f/29, and the shutter speed at 1/20 sec to motion pan our second boat going next to us.

The spider monkeys never disappoint!

This time around, we had a rare chance to photograph a 3 week old sloth that had been found without its mother. We all loved taking photos of this little sloth only to find out that it passed away on the following day. Very sad.

On our boat ride back to the resort, we were super excited to see a large pod of dolphin. A couple of us were able to grab shots of them jumping and spinning.

Another boat was following along as well. I think we saw a total of 150 dolphins on all sides of us.

On our second "day off" I decided to walk the property of the resort to see what good photo could be found. I really did not see much until I got back to my room and saw these howler monkeys from my balcony. It was a rare chance to photograph down on these animals as opposed to pointing up into the trees. I saw this one rubbing it's back on the tree branch. This made me laugh.

I sent a WhatsApp message to all the guests to come to my room (where I would do our critiques and lessons) to shoot with me from the 4th floor balcony.

Here is some fun interaction between the howlers.

Again, I loved photographing these monkeys from their level.

A couple of years ago, I added a sloth day to the trip, and this has been a highlight. We visit the La Perica Sloth Garden and this time we were lucky to get great shots of sloths and even this one with a youngster. I love the interaction between the mother and child.

On our final full day on the Osa Peninsula, we did the boat tour on the Sierpe river. We came across a large group of grasshoppers and had fun shooting images of them up close and personal.

Our boat captain brought us in close to this birds nest. We were taking photos of this young chick, when it briefly opened its mouth. Bam! Got the shot.

We always see lots of iguana on the Sierpe river. It was fun to get in close to this one using the Canon 100-400mm lens all the way at 400mm.

For only the second time on this river tour, we got to see a snake in one of the trees.

This is a crop of another image, but still looks pretty nice.

This last shot was also taken from the river boat. Just before we turned around to go have lunch, we saw this white face monkey grabbing some lunch for itself.

The next Costa Rica photo tour is already sold out, but I have added two more trips in 2023. Please contact me if you would like to join me on this awesome trip.

__________________________________________________________________________

Subscribe to the Jeff Cable Photography Blog by clicking HERE!
__________________________________________________________________________
If you are interested in purchasing ANY equipment, please click here to go to B&H Photo, as I get a referral from them if you enter this way. It does not change the cost to you in any way, but it helps me keep this blog up and running.
__________________________________________________________________________
Check out my upcoming photo tours to amazing places around the world. I have photo tours to Africa, Costa Rica, Cuba, Europe, Asia, India and more. And Canon will loan you any gear you want for FREE for any of my tours.

__________________________________________________________________________

Saturday, May 14, 2022

What a difference a year makes - the photography world is restarting

It is clear that Covid has not gone away, as many people I know are still getting it, but I have to say that it is really nice, even at the risk of getting sick, to be back to some sense of normalcy in the photography world.

People have asked me why I stopped doing the bi-weekly Zoom get togethers, and the reason is...I just don't have the free time that I did during the height of the pandemic. Between shooting, retouching, running the business, and traveling, there isn't much down time.

I was talking to a friend of mine the other day, a guy who was putting out a lot of really great content on his podcast, and he said the same thing. No time to do that any more. Things have changed so much since 2020 and 2021. And thankfully!

That is not to say that everything is back to normal (especially here in the San Francisco Bay Area) but it seems like we are getting closer every day. People are having events again and the parties are going strong.

Over the last couple of months I have been shooting a lot of bar and bat mitzvah, senior portraits, a handful of weddings, corporate events, headshots and more. It is tiring, but after more than a year of sitting around and not doing much, it is refreshing.

Here is a small sampling of what I have been doing recently...

Fun family portraits in San Francisco

I was taking portraits of this lovely young lady when I saw this blossoming tree and just had to get her in there. I shot this at f/2,8 to get her perfectly in focus, but have the background in various levels of blur.

A senior portrait of a college graduate.

Family portraits in my area.

A different kind of family portrait (just for fun).

A wedding the Northern part of the Bay Area.

Some corporate events, including this one with the largest group shot I have ever taken.

Lots of bar and bat mitzvah...

Many senior portraits for those kids graduating high school and about to head to college.

And, of course, I have been taking photos of my granddaughter. Most of those have been with my iPhone.

And now I am off to shoot another bat mitzvah party this evening, and then fly off to Costa Rica for another photo tour in the morning. The days of sitting around are long gone. Do I miss the slower pace? Just a little bit. :)

__________________________________________________________________________

Wednesday, April 27, 2022

It is that time of year again - Senior portraits

As April comes to a close, we are getting that much closer to the end of another school year, and this is the time of year when many parents are looking for portraits of their future graduates. Over the last couple of months, in between photographing lots of personal and corporate events, I have been capturing senior portraits.

For all of you who are looking to capture portraits of your graduate, I thought I would share some tips with you in order to get the best photos.

If you already have your cap and gown, this is a great chance to give it a trial run. For this portrait, I found a good shady area to avoid any harsh light on my subject, and took the photo at f/2.8 to create a lot of separation between my subject and the background.

My goal when taking any portraits is to show who they are, not who I am. Here, we included this young man's skateboard since this is one of his hobbies.

I took standard portraits of him, using my favorite Canon 70-200mm lens...

...but I also broke out the Canon 15-35mm wide angle lens to try something different.

This young man is really into tennis, so his mother asked me if we could do senior portraits of him in action. For these images, I had the camera in I/O servo focus mode (follow focus) and made sure to have a shutter speed of at least 1/1250 sec to freeze the action. I also positioned myself to get the cleanest background possible (with less distractions).

Whenever I shoot, I try to push the boundaries and go beyond the obvious photos. While I was taking photos of him playing tennis, I noticed the shadows and thought that this would make a cool image as well. For this shot, I waited for him to serve the ball, focused the camera on the shadow as opposed to him, and bursted out a bunch of frames. The key here is to look for something different every time you shoot.

One of the trickiest parts of taking a good portrait is what to do with the hands. If you have ever seen someone stand with their arms straight down, it really does not look very good, so I try to get my subjects to cross their arms, lean against something, or both.

I never stop looking for good shooting locations, and try to place my subjects in places which will add to their photos. This is a tile staircase in San Francisco that has always been a favorite of mine.

Since we were shooting Hannah's senior portraits in San Francisco, we had to make a visit to the Golden Gate Bridge. For this image, I used an off-camera flash (to my left) to light her and keep her from being silhouetted by the bright background.

As I mentioned before, I am always looking for places for my subjects to lean against and to rest their hands.

It is not uncommon for the kids to have different outfits to change into. In these three photos, you can see three different sides of this young man brought out in the images.

Almost all of my senior portraits now are taken with the Canon R3 and Canon RF70-200mm lens, and usually at f/2.8 or f/4. And 90% of the time I am popping a flash (powered down to -1) to add a bit of fill flash to the subject and catch light to their eyes. In the photo above, I also had some late afternoon sunlight shining through the trees, which created beautiful backlighting on her hair.

I am always very aware of my foreground and backgrounds, and love to capture images with many layers of color.

I really like trying a wide variety of poses. This gives the client more variety in their images, but also gives them some very different looks to choose from.

My favorite thing to do when posing subjects is to ask them to sit or stand how they think it is most comfortable. Inevitably, I find that I can get the best photos when they are feeling like themselves and not overly posed. There are many times when I will ask them to make small changes, but it is a good starting point.

I don't know why, but over the years I have made it a habit to ask my subjects to give me two thumbs up. It is a fun pose and most everyone has a good time with it. I never consciously started this,. it just became "my thing". The most important tip is to have fun when you are taking the photos, so that both you and the subject are relaxed, having fun, and getting great shots.

I hope this helps you get great shots of your graduate!

__________________________________________________________________________

Friday, April 8, 2022

Want to join me in Costa Rica next month? I have 2 spots open!

On May 16 (next month) I am leading another photo tour to the rain forest of Costa Rica. I had two people postpone their trip to 2023 and so I have room for 2 people on this trip. It is an amazing place to capture photos of monkeys, sloths, tree frogs, birds and so much more.

The good news is...this is your last chance to go at the older price. Since the resort has been completely rebuilt from the ground up, the price is going up $1000 starting in 2023. And, as always, you can borrow almost any cameras and lenses from Canon to use on the trip for free!

If you are interested in taking one or both of these spots, please let me know ASAP. You can get more info from the link here.

Here are just a few images that were taken when we were in Costa Rica four months ago.