Lake Geneva Love
I have known Nick for a few years now, as he is the son of a former co-worker and good friend of mine. After hearing the stories about how these two met, I finally had the pleasure of meeting Melissa for the first time. The very first thing that I noticed was how these two interact with each other…they’re meant to be together. I’ve never seen personalties mesh so perfectly…they will have a terrific life together. We are shooting their wedding this upcoming April, and had the chance to take some engagement pictures of them at the Rivera in downtown Lake Geneva.
Read More»Fall Collages
Throughout the fall, I have been working on creating some collages from various shoots. When the creative juices begin to flow, I like to play with some Photoshop brushes, textures, and gradients. I like to setup the Photoshop images as 8×10′s so that clients can print them easily wherever they may take the images. Here are a few of the collages I have put together this fall…
Read More»Values and Traditions
I had the opportunity for the last 8 years to work for a truely inspiring individual. This is one guy that will accept the fact that you were doing your best, and make you achieve more. A man who lives and breathes education, and never shows any signs of wear. When he told me he was writing a book, I really wasnt too surprise since there are so many ideas and insights that needed to be documented. When he asked me to take the picture for the cover, I was stunned.
The cover of the book comes from a Flickr set I posted last year. We had gone to Wauwatosa, WI to the old Milwaukee County School of Agriculture and Domestic Economy. The cover of the book works really well with the education idea that administration gets lost in many of the budgeting practices, poor management, and micro managing of schools, that they lock out all the good ideas, positive teachers, and most importantly…the kids.
Back to Common Sense, Joe Dawidziak.
Hot Summer at Grand Geneva
A summer afternoon in Lake Geneva generally pans out to walks around the lake with a stop downtown for some refreshments. This time I had the chance to walk the grounds at Grand Geneva with two young families to capture their kids, their expressions, and their youthfulness. This summer I have been working on using the Canon 580EXII flash during the middle parts of the day to bring in a more washed out, over exposed look. In many other instances, I like to back up the subject against the light, so that the sun is behind them and use my flash as fill light to light their face. This has really helped with keeping some of that harsh midday shadows off their faces.
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The Train Yard
I recently found a fantastic venue to shoot at while taking a few shots of my 1986 Nissan 300zx. This place is great, our little subject could not stop talking and pointing to all the surrounding train related items. We found everything from rustic stock yard buildings, to rail spikes. A great place for a young train enthusiast.
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“Falling” for Families
I recently had the opportunity to take pictures for a close friend of mine. The St. Francis Monastery in Burlington has a beautiful area on the property. It is covered by many old trees creating an oasis from the sun. Coming in the fall time was not ideal as many of the plants were withered, but there were still some great places to grab a few shots. There are some great areas with old stone work that made great back drops. I had recently purchased a EF 17-40 f/4 L and wanted to use it on this occasion as getting the two little boys in the picture was going to call for a really short lens.
One thing that I am learning with my own kids is that you must have patience, and have an itchy trigger finger because you never know when kids will look up at the camera. Working with children at my full time job, I have learned a lot about how they behave in situations like this. They have a time limit, and once that has been reached, it can be very difficult to find any usable pictures. Naturally, bribery can work its magic, but generally its just an extention of the overall time they would have concentrated on the session anyway. Sometimes I’ve found that the pictures of the kids goofing around after they have reached their frustration limit can be some of the best ones. Many times the goofy, squirmish, and otherwise out of place shots have the most meaning to who that child really is. The parents really seem to like some of these.
One thing that I am learning with my own kids is that you must have patience, and have an itchy trigger finger because you never know when kids will look up at the camera. Working with children at my full time job, I have learned a lot about how they behave in situations like this. They have a time limit, and once that has been reached, it can be very difficult to find any usable pictures. Naturally, bribery can work its magic, but generally its just an extention of the overall time they would have concentrated on the session anyway. Sometimes I’ve found that the pictures of the kids goofing around after they have reached their frustration limit can be some of the best ones. Many times the goofy, squirmish, and otherwise out of place shots have the most meaning to who that child really is. The parents really seem to like some of these.Lighting in some of the pictures taken is less than desired. It was late in the day, and generally I like to take pictures then, but I was having a hard time with the fill light from my flash. Sometimes the sun overpowered it, other times there wasn’t enough depending on the location of the shot and the sun. A little bit of tweaking in Lightroom allowed to correct some of the inconsistencies with them, and over all I was happy with the shoot. In other situations, the strange lighting through the trees created a really nice look to them. I look forward to taking pictures at this location during the winter with snow, and in the spring with new flower growth.
Weiß, Blanco, and белый
I have been doing some reading recently and trying to determine the best possible way to shoot against a white backdrop. There is something about a subject placed against a sheer white background. The crispness really appeals to me. Now, there are plenty of ways to Photoshop the background completely white, but that takes plenty of time. I wanted to find a way to use a low f/ stop slower shutter speed and my speedlites to blow out the background, yet keep enough light for the facial expressions.
I have been doing some reading recently and trying to determine the best possible way to shoot against a white backdrop. There is something about a subject placed against a sheer white background. The crispness really appeals to me. Now, there are plenty of ways to Photoshop the background completely white, but that takes plenty of time. I wanted to find a way to use a low f/ stop slower shutter speed and my speedlites to blow out the background, yet keep enough light for the facial expressions.I first setup the white linen backdrop, and covered the front half on the floor with a fake fur that I picked up on the cheap from Wal-Mart last week. The added texture would help with the softness of the look I was going for. I placed my usual speedlite behind myself, fired down towards using a white shoot through umbrella. I placed my second speedlite behind the backdrop pointed back towards me shooting through yet another umbrella. I knew that the linen would help diffuse the light, but wanted additional softness so using the umbrella really help spread the light across the entire backdrop. I used my 24-70mm f/2.8 L dropped to f/2.8 and set the shutter to 1/100 – 1/125 which helped saturate the image and blow out the backdrop.
Up until this point I had been afraid to use their type of technique because the background just appeared gray and unlit, but I will be using this one again in the future. The help of a monolight will assist with setting up the shot.
Farm Life
I had just finished up with shooting an engagement for a couple at Minooka park, and I was heading home. It occured to me that I needed to stop at a few places on the way home and take pictures. Why? Since I didn’t have my wife and two little girls with me, I could take my time to get home, stop at these places that I drive past all the time and finally check them off my list. I left the lens that I usually keep on my camera when stored in my bag, and threw it in the front seat. Stopping off at two farms on the way home in Saylesville and Mukwonago I keep my 50mm lens stopped down to f/1.4 and grabbed these pictures. Towards the end of the drive, the sun was setting under these wrinkled clouds that with a little Photoshop to enhance the purples really makes for a nice background.
Frame Park Falls
I had to run a few errands one afternoon up to Waukesha, and it just so happened that I had my gear with me. I have been wanting to try out my neutral density filters since I got them a few months back. Its funny, when shopping on Ebay and purchasing something from China, you cant wait to get it during the three weeks of shipping. However, once it gets delivered, I never seem to use it right away anyway…so why don’t I shop there more often? Thats another story for another post. The purpose of a ND filter is to although greater flexibility with the shutter speed in daylight. In this case, I used a ND8 filter and slowed the shutter down to 1/5 – 1/30 to let the water soften through its natural motion. I really like the effect however, some blur did occur as it was a bit windy for even the tripod. I look forward to taking some pictures again here soon…there are other areas that I didn’t have time to explore.
I had to run a few errands one afternoon up to Waukesha, and it just so happened that I had my gear with me. I have been wanting to try out my neutral density filters since I got them a few months back. Its funny, when shopping on Ebay and purchasing something from China, you cant wait to get it during the three weeks of shipping. However, once it gets delivered, I never seem to use it right away anyway…so why don’t I shop there more often? Thats another story for another post. The purpose of a ND filter is to although greater flexibility with the shutter speed in daylight. In this case, I used a ND8 filter and slowed the shutter down to 1/5 – 1/30 to let the water soften through its natural motion. I really like the effect however, some blur did occur as it was a bit windy for even the tripod. I look forward to taking some pictures again here soon…there are other areas that I didn’t have time to explore.Mans Best Friend
Having some steak leftovers is the best way to get a dog to do what you want. In this case, letting our dog outside usually means he is looking for birds, rabbits, and other assorted vermin. I was able to keep him occupied…for at least few moments with a hunk of steak. This is one guy that I need to take more pictures of in the future.
Head…Shoulders, Knees, and Toes
While our oldest daughter was sleeping, I took my youngest outside and let her roll around on a brown backdrop. She is at the stage now where getting form point A to B involves rolling, so I figured this task was not going to be easy. It turned out that this was not going to be as difficult as I originally thought. She looked around at the trees, and played with the grass…she was intrigued. I was able to grab the grouping of pictures I wanted in B&W. Took them back in for a quick white balance routine, and threw them into a couple of collages.
Click the images for larger previewing.
