Eden in SheBloom

My wife has a small business called SheBloom. SheBloom outfits little girls with boutique-style clothing. Often my wife needs some product shots taken for the website. Our latest shoot used a friend's baby girl named Eden.

During our latest shoot I hit on something obvious, but until now never uncovered. I needed to overexpose the shot a little to make the baby pop. Couple that with a little depth of field play and you get shots like this:

Eden in SheBloom clothing. 27mm. f/2.8 1/250 Sec.
Flash set to  about 1/8 power.

I was stunned when I saw the image on my computer. The eyes clearly grab you along with the pouty lips and the blurred focus background that draws you back to the eyes. Everything was sharp where I wanted it to be and blurred out in the right places. While I submitted the camera settings in the photo caption, that only tells part of the story of this image.

First we set up the bed with white everywhere. A white bedspread with white pillows in the background allowed us to preserve a bright atmosphere and create a dreamy backdrop. The next step was to prep the model. Wipes were readily handy because baby faces get dirty easily, and Photoshopping an image will never compare to getting it right at the moment of capture.

Once Eden was ready, I prepped the camera with a couple of shots. I mounted my 430 EX II (for which I had the 600, but that is for another blog post) onto the camera and pointed it up and away from Eden. Since I was in a small room I knew I could bounce the light from the ceiling and walls to give a more natural look to the image. Remember - The larger the light source the more natural the light will appear in the image.

This is how I positioned my flash  for
Eden's photo above.

It might seems strange to point the flash away from the subject, but knowing I could use my wall as a larger light source I could then obtain a more natural look to the final image. Here is a sketch of the room and how we were positioned as well as the placement of the flash. I had light bouncing from the walls and ceiling.

Once I had my settings dialed in, I started to shoot lots of shots. While my wife and Eden's mom were rattling noise makers above my head, I kept moving in front of Eden's face trying to capture her eyes directly into my lens.

One final tip I noticed made a difference in the quality of my photos was raising the exposure value in Lightroom. Making the whites whiter as well as pushing the contrast made an ok photo look much better.

Before

                       

After

Taking Family Christmas Photos

I recently had my first paid gig. My friends Laurie and Brandon asked me to take photos of their extended family on Laurie's side. I met everyone (10 members in all) at the pier in San Clemente. I was both excited and nervous at the same time. I knew I could get great shots, but will I?

I mad sure the batteries were charged, sensor was clean, and memory cards were emptied. I knew there would be no way I'd fill all 32 gigs of memory, but it is better to be safe than sorry.

I thought about lighting for a while. Should I bring my Speedlight? Should I bring a bounce reflector? If I bring this stuff should I bring an assistant? As the questions started piling up, my wife said, "Keep it simple". So I did just that, I brought my Canon 7D with my 24-70 L 2.8, and my 430 EX II. Nothing out of the ordinary, just a guy with his camera and on-camera flash. I was hoping my manuverability would overcome my ability to overcome lighting limitations. I was going to have to rely on my knowledge of lighting to create interesting photos instead of using manufactured lighting to give me what I wanted.

How did it turn out? At the end of the shoot I was exhausted. I had been thinking hard for 2 hours straight and I was spent. I filled both 16GB cards and my right hand was cramping. I had no idea you could get fatigued like that by just taking photos.

Here are a sampling of my favorites from the shoot.

Once I was done with editing the photos and uploading them to Costco for the client's printing needs, I decided to create an Animoto video to present the photos. In a few short minutes my video was ready for viewing. I skipped off to show my work to Laurie and her mother. Here is the video I showed them.



They were thrilled. Laurie immediately ordered prints at Costco and framed them in her house. They had photos to share on Facebook and more for the photo albums. For me, it felt good to be a part of family memories that will last a lifetime.

Beach Babe Photo

Click on the photo for a larger view.

Here is a photo I took of my daughter, Bella. It was an unusually warm November day and we decided to spend some time at the beach. I was also anxious to test my 430 ex ii against the sun. With the San Clemente pier in the background I began firing away. My first thought was to have the sun provide both a back light and rim light for Bella, check. The sun was at 11:00 and providing lots of light.

Since I had plenty of light I knew I could use a fast shutter speed. I started with setting my aperture to f/5 mostly because I wanted to make sure Bella would be sharp and I knew my Tamron lens didn't get sharp enough until I stopped down to f/4. I chose f/5 also because I wanted to include the pier as a reference, but still wanted Bella to be the focal point, I was afraid f/4 would blur the background too much since I was only 5 feet away from her.

The shutter speed had to be fast. Even though the aperture was stopped down I still had too much light for a good exposure. This is where I used the camera's light meter to tell me where to set the shutter speed. I was going for a slight underexposure to help Bella pop a little more when I lit her with the flash.

Next I had to set the flash. I didn't want to think about this setting so I set the flash to ETTL, or automatic. The purpose of the flash is to provide a fill light for Bella's face. since I was exposing for the background I knew her face would be too dark to see, so I added some light.

One I had my settings it was a matter of patience before I had the shot I wanted. Bella was busy practicing her hand stands and digging holes next to me. The photo I settled on was probably the 10th photo I took in the series.

Sunset Surfer Photo

At best I think this image is interesting. The cool part is I shot the exact photo I wanted to, actually it would looked better if the surfer was closer to the water. If you're curious how I created the photo you can play the video below.

Here is the filter I used for the Surfer photograph.

I used my new polarizing filter I ordered from Amazon. I was anxious to see if it would enhance the colors of the photo, unfortunately I didn't take a photo without the filter. I think I was too excited to have a subject to photograph that I wasn't thinking of taking comparison shots. The filter was made by B+H. I heard you don't want to fool with cheap filters, especially when you invest in an expensive lens like the 24-70. I paid about $150 for this filter.