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My name is Karen Schmautz and I live in beautiful El Dorado County of Northern California.  I am a photographer specializing in weddings, portraits and events. 

My Last “Studio Lights” Assignment

Tuesday, March 24, 2009

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I’m just finishing up my last “studio lights” portrait assignment for the Folsom Lake College Portrait and Wedding Photography class I’m doing.  So, as usual, I called in the fam.  Pictured here are my headless oldest son, my son’s headless girlfriend and her little boy (not headless).  He’s been in many of my pictures before and I got a fairly decent picture of him without his mugging for the camera.  Now this is not the photo I chose for my formal portrait assignment, but it is one of my favorite photos of the session.  I used my new studio strobe and pocket wizards.  I feel so professional…

This is the photo I chose for the assignment.  There are several things about it that I don’t like…mostly technical (like the chair back, the shadow on my son’s chest, her “bolt upright” pose), but it’s okay for a formal pose.

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I also had this one:

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which is OKAY, but my oldest son has a really fake look on his face and Dino’s smile is beginning to wane.  (He was getting pretty tired of this picture taking business by then.)  Plus, the boys’ clothes are a little disheveled.  And, there’s a little space between her hair and her face that’s annoying.  Picky?  Yes, but we are talking about trying to make a photo that you would be proud to have hanging over your fireplace.  After a while these things would start to bug you…so, it appears I need a little more practice with formal photos.

Now you can see why I like the first shot.  Here’s another one I really liked:

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Again, not a formal pose, but this type of shot is more my style.

And this one:

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And this is much better of my son with Dino:

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Both of them have a fairly natural look on their faces.  I think I still need to work with my oldest in order for him to feel more comfortable with the camera in front of his face.

So, thanks to my family who helped me out yet again.

Posted in Children, family, portraits | Tags: , , , , , ,

by Karen Schmautz

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Light, light, light.

Monday, March 16, 2009

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

Posted in Photography Business, light, portraits | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , ,

by Karen Schmautz

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Pin Up Photo Shoot

Wednesday, March 11, 2009

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I attended a Pin Up and Classic Car Photo shoot a couple of weekends ago.  It was located at the fabulous Heidrick Agricultural Museum in Woodland, CA.   It has all sorts of cool old agricultural equipment and old cars and fire engines and such.  One of the most interesting things is a full size 1956 pickup made entirely out of wood…including the engine.  That was pretty amazing.

However, throw in some pin up models and you have yourself a real humdinger (little agriculture talk, there.)

Now, I think the above photo epitomizes the 1940’s era Pin Up Girls.  The hair, the makeup and the pose.  The dress (I think it’s rubber or latex or something) not so much, but it sure is form fitting.

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Also, a bunch of classic cars were on site and so the models posed on these wonderful old cars.  The cars were provided by “The Poor Boys Club” of Sacramento.  The two gals above were sitting in the back of a wonderful old station wagon.  (Please be advised that I know nothing about old cars but I do know what is cool…and this car was cool.)  I love the pops of red in this photo and I wish I had gotten more photos of this darling redhead…I mean look at that hair and those eyes, will ya.

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Okay, here’s a shot of a cool car, a pin up model in the cool car, a cool poor boy watching the cool pin up model in the cool car.  There’s also lots of photographers milling around waiting trying to get “THE” shot.  Notice, that I am not doing a very good job of trying to get “THE” shot, but having fun anyway.

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Now, here’s the other side of the same cool car (am I in a rut?)  This shot is probably a little different from most of the shots that the other photographers got.  They, and most of them were male, had a different priority than I did.  Their priorities were more like:  1.  Shoot the girl, 2. Shoot the girl with the car, 3.  Shoot the car, 4.  Shoot the girl with the dog.  5.  Shoot the girl.  I was more fascinated with showing the girl as an accessory for the dog than the other way around…and yes, I do see things a little differently than most, or so I’ve been told.  The other advantage I had over the guys, is that I don’t think they would be gutsy enough to cut the head off the model as they’ve been told all their life that all they are interested in is…well, things other than a woman’s head.  Heh.  Advantage me (a girl).

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A lot of the Pin Ups had tats.  This darling gal had only one that I could discern and it went so well with her shoes that I had to get a shot.  I also thought that the white walls of the other car (in the background) looked kinda like a quarter moon…or not.  Anyway, I liked the look of it (again I haven’t shown her face.)

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And finally…may favorite photo.  This is Ed and he’s a docent at the museum.  He told me that he was a college professor before he retired.  He had a great sense of humor and didn’t mind me taking a photo of him.  (You are probably wondering where all my pin up shots are…

Maybe I’ll put some more up later on.

Posted in Pin Ups | Tags: , , , , , ,

by Karen Schmautz

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Back to College

Friday, March 6, 2009

I’ve been taking a Portrait Photography Class at Folsom Lake College two nights per week.  The teacher is a local portrait and wedding photographer and I’m really enjoying his teaching.  However, he does assign homework…sigh.  I didn’t think college students did homework anymore.  I guess I was wrong.

This latest assignment was a study in studio lighting.firstset-96psi

I used one of my favorite subjects, my daughter, for this exercise.  She looks so sweet and innocent.  A lovely flower in her hands…soft lighting…innocent look on her face.

My second set of photos was a little different.

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For this “shot” I had her stand in almost the same spot where she was sitting in the first shot (above).  The light is to her right at about eye level.  We used my son’s pellet gun to add a little drama.  (I “shopped” out the orange rim around the tip of the gun for a more realistic look.)  The problem is:  she doesn’t look like she means it.

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My next set up was to move the light about 5 feet higher than the previous shot.  That type of lighting is not very flattering as it looks like DMV or mug shot lighting.  So, I had her look up as if she’s trying to shoot someone off a roof top.  The lighting makes her look a little more serious, but I think we still need to work on a more fierce look.

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Ok…that’s more like it.  The light was moved below her giving a kind of “monster light” look.  “Monster light” names comes from the trick we all did as kids:  putting a flashlight underneath our chin and pretending to be a monster.  It casts weird shadows on upper lips, noses and eyebrows, while lighting underneath the chin.  I think she looks a little more serious here.

It was a fun assignment.  I just hope my instructor has a good sens of humor.

Posted in Uncategorized

by Karen Schmautz

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Photographing Children

Wednesday, February 25, 2009

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I’m kind of a romantic when it comes to photographing people.  I love to photograph couples in love (or even pretending to be in love for a photo shoot.)  I also love weddings and engagement shots.  But, when it comes to photographing children my fantasy of capturing those adorable, “AWWW” moments always crash with reality.  Children are really, really hard to photograph.  They are kind of like dogs…they don’t really like to look at the photographer through the camera.  They have a tendency to talk to you looking away.  Or they smile some kind of phony smile and you never really get a good photo of their personality.  Or…they wiggle and run and giggle so much that it’s just plain difficult to catch them.

Such was the case with two children that I (tried to) photograph this weekend.  The first little girl was about 4-5 and she was there to be photographed with her beautiful mom.  She was a wiggle worm.  She was also pretty typical.  She would pose for a while and then she wouldn’t want to do it anymore.  Then she would pose a little more.  Then she would run around and play.  Truthfully, this is the way it should be.  I’ve found that, like photographing anyone, I try to get a good repoire with children first.  Let them get a little comfortable with me without my camera to my face and get them to loosen up a little before I put the camera to my face.  Then, keep talking to them while snapping away.  I probably get maybe 1 good photo for every 10 that I take when I’m trying to catch a child’s personality.  The other thing is they get tired of posing for the camera really quickly, so the photographer has to be quick and the photographer has to let the child run and wiggle before trying to photograph them again.

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This little gal had the most beautiful brown eyes and lovely, curly hair.  And…she was a pistol.  So, I was trying very hard to capture her personality along with trying to get her to look at the camera.  I probably took 40 photos of her and I kept about 6.  I like this one because she is looking right at my camera, it’s got that lovely curl covering her eye and she stopped for one second to think about an answer to a question I asked her.

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Here she is again with her mom, sitting on the wing of an airplane.  This photo is cropped and doesn’t show them sitting on the wing.  I loved the original photo, but her little hands were moving and, unfortunately blurred.  Dang.  Anyway, this shows that even if you have one or two aspects of a photo that aren’t perfect, you can still crop a little to get a pretty decent shot.

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Here is another little 10 year old child that I photographed.  She was there with her mother, but the mother was not one of the models.  This little gal was absolutely beautiful.  Her eyes were amazing and she had lovely blond hair.  She brought several lovely outfits with her which made her look like a catalog model.  She was just a beautiful little child.  However, I could not get a personality shot out of her.090221_9871-copy

She had this same smile in every one of her photos.  This is the closest I could get to a natural look and it’s only because her hair is blowing a little in the wind.  I’ve had this personality issue before with other little children around the age of 10-12.  Usually they are quite familiar with posing for photographs and they have probably been told all their lives that they have a beautiful smile, or wonderful eyes or how photographic they are.  They have learned to pose when a camera is in front of their face.  Their poses are lovely and perfect, but they never show personality.  I see that I have a lot of work to do with personal repoire with children this age and with lots of practice in front of photographers.

Posted in Sacramento Portfolio Workshop, Uncategorized

by Karen Schmautz

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