Red Lake - Canon 7D

The above photo was taken with my Canon 7D, which is a fairly expensive DSLR camera used by many professional photographers. I used a tripod and 5 different exposures (combined).  It is a wonderful fall scene.

The below photo was taken with my Canon G12, a point and shoot camera. It is relatively sophisticated, but a point and shoot nonetheless. I did not use a tripod and I popped the on-camera flash to brighten up the foreground.

Red Lake - Canon G12

The quality of the G12 photo is not as good as my 7d (phew), but you can see that you do not have to have a “nice” expensive camera in order to take a wonderful photo.  You just need to know a little bit about good composition and light. Try it.

As I was sitting on the floor in the MGM Grand Convention Center waiting in line for the first speaker of the convention (Sal Cincotta who was fabulous, by the way), this is the view that made me happy to be there.  I spent 5 days in fabulous Vegas attending one of the biggest photographers’ conventions of the year, WPPI or Wedding and Portrait Photographers International.  Sixteen thousand wedding and portrait photographers, vendors, and other people affiliated with the industry were present.  Although most of my days were spent either listening to speakers or browsing the trade show, I did have some time to walk around the city with my camera and a photographer friend of mine. Here are some of my impressions.

And, of course, I made a video slideshow of the whole adventure.

It was tough to pick because I had so many fantastic people that I was fortunate enough to photograph this past year.  Thanks to all those who touched my life with beauty and grace and down right fun.

Enjoy

These are the people that make the photographers job easy.  Hair and makeup, done properly, can cut down the processing time for me by 10-20 minutes per model.  When I have 5-600 photos to go through, that’s a lot of time for me.  I am very grateful to these hard working artists.

The models are already beautiful, but a good make up and hair artist can turn a beautiful gal into “Drop Dead Gorgeous”.

Also, for brides, I would highly recommend a makeup and hair stylist.  Less stress and they know how to make up your face so that it will look good in pictures.  If you need some recommendations, ask me.

…right in downtown Placerville.  They will be hanging in River City Bank, Placerville, CA through September, 2009.

What a rush!  Many thanks to River City BAnk for allowing me to show my prints.

I was beginning to feel like I had hit a wall with my photography…especially with the last photo shoot I did up in Woodland with the pin ups.  I really felt the need to branch out of my natural light comfort zone and head into the “artificial” light, so to speak. Plus, I want to open a studio in my house and I would love to add studio style portraits to my repertoire.

So, I invested in some pocket wizards and a couple of Elinchrom strobes to try out.  I got my pocket wizards I tried it out with my Canon flash – off camera with John Evans who is the chef and owner of Zachary Jacques Restaurant in Placerville.  I had to take an environmental portrait for my Portrait and Wedding Photography class that used off camera lighting to light the subject but also showed ambient lighting behind the subject.  I had to do this really, really quick because his restaurant was about to open for the evening.  So, I positioned my husband to camera right with the flash and the pocket wizard.  I took a couple of test shots and then I took this one just as the first customer was walking in the door.  I got some ambient lighting, you can see that there is a restaurant in the background, but it could have been better.  At any rate, I think his photo turned out pretty well.

The next day I got my two new strobes and light boxes.  I can’t tell you how hard it was to figure out how to put the stupid light boxes together.  I finally got the larger one on the strobe and began to look for my first victim.  I tried a few practice shots with my husband but he was busy cooking, and I didn’t want to bother him.  Then my daughter showed up and she’s always a good sport.  So, I snapped this shot.  This will give you a good idea of the type of cool catchlights (the little lights in her eyes) that you can get with softboxes.    My softbox is actually rectangular, but because I have it set at an angle to her face, it gives the catchlight a funky shaped light.  Perfect.

Yesterday my oldest son and his girlfriend came up for dinner, so I dragged my softbox out and they wanted to see what was so cool about it.  Their eyes began to glaze over as I discussed the possibilities, so I snapped a picture instead.

Now, I love the light in their eyes on this photo.  I’m not overly crazy about the pose, but they are so cute…I couldn’t resist.  They are coming over on Thursday with her little boy to help me out with another school assignment and be the first ones to help me try out my new studio arrangement.  (I even have a cool new backdrop system to use.)

Here’s a photo I took of my youngest son with my older continuous studio lights, which use brellas to soften the light.  I really like this photo, so I guess I’m not ready to give up my old, non-strobe lights.  The color of the light is much different than the strobes and the catchlights are round due to the use of umbrellas.

Hint:  to make sure your photos of people have some “life” to it…make sure they have those little catchlights in both of their eyes.  That goes for pets, too.  Actually pets look kinda scary unless they have catchlights in their eyes.  You can get catchlights by making sure they are facing a window or lamp or something that puts off light besides the sun (it will cause them to squint) or direct flash (little annoying pin point light in their eyes.)

Thanks to all my kids.

Now…I’m on the hunt for new victims.

Heh.

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