Model Citizen

Sometimes I am slow. With working a full time job and also doing photography it can take a lot out of a person. I think I average 5 hours of sleep on a good day... that is trying. Oh well. I have got a few photos edited from an older shoot that I am excited about and some shots from a shoot done last Saturday that was fantastic. Take a gander at them.

Rock Stars!

So. Last night was pretty crazy. I got talked into shooting a bunch of crazy teenagers by my friend Liana. The church Poplar Creek had a contest going for quite a while with teams and at the end the winning team got treated to a Rock Star evening.

I finished up with work (You know... that thing that normal people do to pay bills) and rushed over to the church. They started to gather at about 5 and that was when i got off of work. I was shooting to get there by 5:30 and did pretty good pulling into the parking lot by about 5:45. I went and set up my lights the night before, so that helped. I came in and adjusted a few things then started to shoot.

My lighting was fairly simple. I used two strobes in the background pointed down and gelled pretty heavily. In the front I had an AB800 with a large softbox at about a 45 degree angle to the rockers. From there I just needed to turn on the fan and get them to rock out.

I shot all of them in groups and then we went out to the stretch hummers. From there we had pizza at a local restaurant and then went off to the lake front. Took some photos with my loverly 50mm 1.8. I love that lens! Get one. Now. We took the group photo, which was an interesting task. I packed my AB800, softbox, and stand and was ready to shoot, when I realized that I left my portable power pack in my car, which was about an hour away (I rode in the limos). So, no big light... that means I get to use a small one. Pulled out the 580ex II, put on the cactus triggers and shot away. I am a little frustrated with the lens I used though. It was the only option for the occasion, at least from my bag. I was using the Canon 28-135 IS, which has worked well for me, but it is reeeeeealy soft around the edges at 28mms. I hate that. Tack sharp in the middle, but soft as new socks at the edges. I really need a new lens. I am thinking of the Canon 24-70 2.8... anyone want to give me a grand? Anyoldways... I got the shot using the 580 on a stand over my head pointed at the crowd. It worked out.

After that we went to the bowling alley, where I didn't bowl, but I edited photos and had a mass of people watch me. It was kinda funny. I had a huge crowd watching me photoshop the photos, which was good because I got a lot done in a short period of time. Here is a before and after shot for you folks to see the lights and the original version as well as the PS version:

Pull!

I shot a shotgun once. Well... I shot it a few times, but I hardly ever hit anything. So since shooting a shot gun didn't seem like the thing for me I started to shoot a Canon... wow. Uh... Canon Xt to be exact. Got the camera and immediately went on a road trip to master the world and take amazing photos. Low and behold, my photos were bad. They were quite bad. I had no clue what I was doing. I didn't know how to make things brighter and didn't know what the M was or the different numbers that were changing. I just knew that if I moved it one way it got dark and if I moved it the other it got lighter. I think that I have come a long way from that, but my learning process is still the same. By the end of the road trip I could kinda use the camera to take an okay photo that wasn't all black and wasn't totally blown out. Which brings me to my point for writing this blog...

There are always new things to learn and learning how to learn is crucial for growth. I didn't know anything about weddings when I shot one and learned a ton. Didn't know anything about lights when someone gave me two and now I know at least a little bit. Didn't know anything about off camera flash, but got one and got some triggers to get that thing off my camera and now know a bit about it, but not half as much as Sir David Hobby of Strobist.

Tonight I got new flash receivers for my camera. Weeeeell, one for me and one for Sarah, who's receiver I happed to have dropped when it was attached to my flash. Oops. The other one that I needed was because I dropped my flash with my receiver attached to it. So I ordered two of them, one for me and one for her. I decided to break out the flash again and do a shot for my 365 photo project. I have always liked shadows. There are lots of stories in the shadows. You don't know what is hiding in them and you don't know if they hold something good or bad. If it is a horror flick, stay in a mall or someplace that is well lit, but if it is real life, go and explore (Unless you are scared of spiders like my brother). I had the idea of using a hoodie and getting shadows on the face and only having part of my face lit. Then I was walking in the kitchen and decided to take the photo outside.

Outside presents a problem because there isn't much light out there. That isn't much of a problem because it adds to the photo, but it makes it really hard to focus! The camera is good, but it is no eyeball that can see and focus with just the tiniest bit of light. It took a shot or two to figure out how to get the lighting to where I needed it and then a few shots to get something in focus. When you are shooting outside, bring a flashlight or some sort of light to constantly illuminate what you are trying to shoot, at least until your camera focus on it. I used my cell phone. I didn't know where my little pen light was, so I grabbed my phone and opened that baby up, focused on it, then took its place after I pushed the self timer button. Getting a shot in the dark without a remote trigger, without a flashlight, and without an assistant can be annoying, but I enjoyed the results.