Once again, it is late Sunday night and I am watching a football game and updating my blog. The weekend was great, just too short as always. Below are some examples of what we saw followed by a few portraits I did for friends.
Now for the portraits. We ventured out to West Overton village and found some nice spots for pictures. This was my first time doing portraits here and I was pleasantly surprised. I hope to go back.
That’s it for now. Until next time.
This is one of my favorite times of the year to take outdoor portraits. The color from the leaves is so vibrant and can add so much to a picture. I did a few portrait sessions over the past few days and below are some of my favorite shots to come out of them.
I much prefer outdoor on location shooting rather than being stuck inside with a plain backdrop. The kids seem to enjoy it more too.
Working outdoors can be a bit tricky, especially when the sun is bright. Working in shade is a must. Even then, you have to be very careful about any stray shards of light streaming down through the foliage or reflecting off of water and windows. Once you find a nice area though, setting up a light or two and manually dialing in power isn’t difficult.
Of course, when children are involved, getting their attention is often the most difficult part of the shoot. The above shot is a composite of two pictures and Photoshopped together. I normally do everything I can to get the shot framed and correct in camera, but sometimes there is no other way.
I’ve been trying to simplify my process when working with children, as their patience level isn’t very high. This has lead me to use only a single light on a small lightstand with a small softbox on it. The flash is fired with a radio trigger set (low cost Cactus v4 set) and output is set manually. Once the flash is dialed in, just keep firing.
My new favorite combo for single subject shooting is my Olympus OMD E-M5 with the Olympus 45mm f/1.8 lens on the front. This kit is lightweight, easy to set up and shoots fast. The face detect autofocus actually works wonders in situations like this since it’ll track the face first, and if it can’t find it (unusual) it defaults to a focus point of your choice. It works great so you can compose and take a shot, then recompose for another without messing with focus points.
That’s all I have for now.
My family and I had yet another very busy weekend. Here are some shots I grabbed during the past few days.
Last week I got a text from a friends little brother asking if I could take some pictures of him and his girlfriend before their prom. I agreed, we set up a time and I started to pack the gear. We were going to meet a little after 4, so I knew the afternoon sun was going to be rough. As with all the prom-goer’s in our town, they wanted the pictures at a local park area. Almost all of the area was exposed to the bright sun and there was very little shade. I felt fairly well prepared for this since I had a plan going into it. Here is the first shot in a very harsh mix of shade and beams of light coming down through the tree’s overhead.
