The Model

Before I get too far into this blog, I do need to pay tribute to my lovely model. She has been very supportive of this hobby and continues to help me out learning new things. I am sure she gets sick of me trying to pose her, putting her in weird stances, that never seem to look good. But she stands strong and puts up with my lack of posing skills (something I'm trying to learn how to do at the moment). It's when she throws my posing ideas out the window and takes things her own way with her natural posing that the photos really start to look good.

We took this photo in my kitchen one night playing with her new coat. We wanted to get a photo with some edge along with an alluring look. I think she did awesome at that. I really enjoy the catch light I was able to capture in her right eye. We shot this with an alienbees 800 softboxed camera right and a gridded alienbees 400 to provide the hairlight. Shot at 85mm, ISO 160, 1/30 sec, f/9.

Bedtime Story

So, I put my famous (see below) photography skills to use and take some photos for the lovely girlfriend. See, her child can't see so well (like me) and he got his first pair of glasses today. She asked me to capture this special moment. I set out with camera and two speedlights in hand.

I wanted to recreate a photo I saw of a girl reading Harry Potter. (Read this if you haven't, they are great. And if you haven't yet, really? What's your deal?) We all piled into his room and started taking some photos. We put the 430ex speedlight in his lap and I used the 580ex II to trigger it. After a few test shots to make sure things were set up, we started getting some pretty good shots. This photo was one.

Why I chose this photo... I liked how the book covered up a bit of his face and let his eyes tell the story. Since the new glasses were the main focus, this one put all the attention right on them.

USA Today

I have some extremely exciting news today. I checked out Strobist last night and saw a post talking about an article in USA Today about the Strobist blog. I clicked over to USA Today to read the article. I noticed there were some videos done as well to support the article. I watched to see David Hobby in action. And then, there it was. A photo of MINE! Yes, USA Today used a photo of mine to help showcase some of the photographers that read Strobist.com. I was floored! A photo of mine in USA Today! How many amateurs can claim that. Ya, I had to brag just a little bit. I woke up my girlfriend to show her my photo was used in an article on USA Today.

Read the USA Today article (and don't forget to watch the videos)

So, now that I've had about 3 seconds of fame, so did my girlfriend. The photo was of her!

Lunch Break

I sometimes spend my lunch break studying photography. Whether it be reading online, reading a book I have, or snapping photos, I like to enhance my skills.

This particular lunch break I decided I would try to turn our boring conference room into a photo studio. It's your typical conference room - 4 walls, big white board, long table, and two doors. Nothing special, but certainly a place you wouldn't think you would take a portrait in.

So, I set up one Canon 430EX speedlight camera right with a shoot-thru umbrella. This was going to be my main light. I then set up another Canon 430EX speedlight at the end of the conference table. I got some books to prop the speedlight on and grabbed a plant from a co-worker's office. This is what was going to give me my background. I oriented the speedlight to shoot thru the plant, giving me a nice effect for the background. I then added a gel to give me some color.

I used the E-TTL function of the Canon 40D to fire the flashes. I had the main light in group A and the background in group C. What's nice about E-TTL is that you can set up the speedlights in their correct group and tell the camera what ratio you want to use. It then figures out how hot the flashes need to fire in order to get the proper exposure.

I took this photo, among others, and I was very happy with what turned out. It also helped that my co-worker stepped in to model or you'd be looking at a conference room chair.

Strobist.com

Before continuing on, I must pay some small tribute to Strobist.com. I found this site on the web when looking up photography techniques. I didn't realize what I would be getting into when I started reading this blog. I have gone to one of his seminars and was amazed at how simple he made everything look. I can only hope to get his DVD set when it comes out. Hopefully, it won't be too pricey.

The site is awesome. I read it daily, no joke. David Hobby set up this blog to share his knowledge with everyone in the world. It doesn't matter if you're a seasoned photographer or an amateur like me, there is always something new and exciting to read on his blog.

The blog focuses on off-camera lighting. There are tons of tips & tricks he posts about. He also links to various other sites and many cheap tricks that you can do yourself instead of spending tons of money on gear.

Give it a click, you won't be disappointed.

On a personal note, he used this photo of mine in one of his posts. Naturally, it has received the most views of any photo I have. It was awesome to see my photo be used for a blog post on Strobist.com.

Urban Ruins

After reading some websites about photography, I stumbled across some that talked about urban ruins. This fascinated me because it meant I wouldn't have to find some ancient ruins to photograph, I could go out in the city I lived in and find some abandoned buildings to photograph. I ventured around and remembered a steel company that had recently shut down. I headed down to the factory and found that even though it had shut down, there was still some activity going on. The furnaces hadn't been turned off but the buildings were still under demolition.

The whole place was wrapped in barbed-wire fences and were very high. I didn't climb any, since there wasn't an easy accessible entrance. So, I shot through the fences late in the evening before the sun had set. I believe it was about 30 minutes before the sun set. I got this photo of one of the non-functioning smoke stacks. I loved the tone of the color. What was amazing to me was the color of the sky. This photo was taken on auto-mode. I didn't know enough to take this photo with manual settings. Everything exposed this way and I like it.

My first gig

I had my camera about a month and my friend approaches me, "Hey Guy, would you be our wedding photographer?" What? Did I hear him correctly? I hadn't had my camera for more than 2 months and he was asking me to photograph his wedding?

The pressure was on from that day, because I agreed. What was I thinking? I set out over the next month learning everything I could and practicing constantly so that when the day came, I could hopefully produce some nice results for them.

The day came and I was sick to my stomach. I remember feeling as if I was going to puke. I was the only photographer there at their wedding. It was all on me whether they would have decent photos to cherish this special occasion for the rest of their lives!

I pressed forward even with this intense sickness. They day went by in a blur for me. Things happened so fast while I was trying to snap some photos of candid moments. The 3 hour reception felt like 30 minutes for me.

When we pulled up the photos I was amazed to see I had taken a few good photos. They seemed happy with the results. However, I wish they were getting married this month instead of 2 years ago. I know quite a bit more now, that's for sure.

And so it begins...

I wanted to start off this blog to track my own experiences throughout photography. I am an amateur photographer that decided to jump in head-first into this expensive hobby. I bought a Canon Digital Rebel XT for my first SLR and found out that I loved experimenting in photography.

So, my journey has been mostly self taught. I grabbed the camera and played with every setting I could find and read about in the camera's manual. After I got fairly familiar with operation of the camera, I went out and started playing. That's all I did was play, since I really had no idea what I was doing. But I took it one setting at a time. I would let the camera tell me what the correct settings should be in auto mode then I would switch to manual mode, copy the settings, then adjust one thing, like ISO or shutter speed, and watch the effect it would have on the image on the LCD screen.

That's how I started and now have a pretty decent understand of words like aperture, shutter speed, & ISO.

Since then, I have upgraded my camera and now shoot with a Canon 40D. I am very happy with the upgrade as the 40D has proven to be a better fit, even in size. It's a bit larger and fits my hands better than the Rebel.

This is going to be a long photography journey for me. I hope you enjoy the ride.