Blaze and Pepper Update

Thank you Cindi! 
I have been trying to get a decent updated photo of Da’ Girls for several weeks without ANY success.  Think about trying to do a portrait of two puppies together—Mission Impossible.  One goes one way and the other goes other way—that’s the play-by-play for such a shoot.   I must admit I was getting a little discouraged by the experience.  Then I read Cindi’s post and my life had meaning again. 
I shot each of the girls separately and then combined the shots in Photoshop CS5.  Since I did not have an assistant and was both cameraman and treat-distributor, I used Auto-Area AutoFocus, which automatically focused the camera to the closest subject in the viewfinder.  Overall, I think it did a good job in keeping Da'Girsl in focus.  Combining the two phots was very simple since both of the shots were shot on a white background and with consistent lighting and camera settings. 
Blaze (left) is currently about 5 pounds and Pepper (right) is about 5 pounds 9 ounces.  The only problem that I had with the images was that Pepper stood a little closer to the camera and therefore appeared even bigger than she is relative to her sister.  I adjusted Pepper’s position and size to more closely match Blaze’s. 
I was not happy with our hair stylist for the shoot.  I wanted an elegant, sophisticated look but I got more of a punk-rock look.  And, even though I paid handsomely in treats, I think that the Da' Girls gave me there “driver’s license” pose rather than the elegant, sophisticated look that I wanted.  I guess that I will need to give them better directions next outing—and yes, there will be a “next” outing. 
Enjoy  
Camera settings:  Nikon D3, ISO 200, Nikon 24-70mm f/2.8 at 48m, f/16 and 1/180^th of a second with two Elinchrom 500BxRi Monolights at an angle to the subject (see lighting diagram). 
Post Processing: 
Lightroom 3:  Used white balance eye drop to make both backgrounds a consistent white, set black point, and added contrast with a mild curve. 
Photoshop CS5:  Combined two images, cleaned up background and used nik Color Efex filters Detail Enhancer and Tonal Contrast to bring out details within Blaze and Pepper.

Pinewood Derby

Before I go into today’s photo, I would like to give a big shout-out to the fathers and mothers who work with the cub-scout troop of St. Vincent de Paul school.  They do a great job with the boys.

Now to the Pinewood Derby details. 

At the school, the troop has a shop where all the boys and their adult supporters can go to make the cars for the Pinewood Derby.  The shop has bandsaws, drum sanders and drill presses to help make the cars.  In short, everything that you might need to build a super Pinewood Derby car is there.

As to the track, it looks like something from NASA—polished aluminum with each line individual tested for speed.  The track is supported with a state-of-art computer system that electronically determines the exact time for each car and post it to a screen (car’s and scout’s name, time and equivalent miles per hour).  Pretty cool stuff!

Today’s photo is of the first and second place cars in the Bear den.  These two cars blew everyone else off the track.  Although the Orange Speed (which was built by none other than Cole James Patrick) beat the other car in this heat, the Orange Speed lost the gold medal by 0.002 of a second for the three heats.

In hindsight I probably should have used a higher ISO and shutter speed.  I think that a shutter speed of about 1/1,000^th of a second would have done a much better job of stopping the action.

Congratulations Cole—Great Job!

Enjoy 

Camera settings:  Nikon D3, ISO 1,600, Nikon 28-300mm f/5.6 at 70mm, f/5.6 and 1/350^th of a second with Nikon SB800 attached to camera

Post Processing:

Lightroom 3:  Set black point and added contrast with a mild curve.

Photoshop CS5: Dodged and burned image and sharpened cars using high pass method.

An Evening at the Beach #4

Here Sarah is not posing for me; rather, she is talking to Doug about how he wants her to look.  To me this photo is totally about the light—the golden light on Sarah’s face and the cool blue light on the water. 
I only took one shot of this scene.  I should have definitely worked it.  I think the photo would have been much better if I had moved about four feet to my right and thus shot her almost looking at me.  I think that I would have also liked the shot even more if I had shot somewhat down on Sarah.  Shooting down on her would have brought out more blue in the background and probably would have isolated here more against the background. 
Enjoy  
Camera settings:  Nikon D3, ISO 200, Nikon 70-200mm f/2.8 at 75mm, f/6.7 and 1/350^th of a second 
Post Processing: 
Lightroom 3:  Set black point, added contrast with a mild curve and increased the saturation of blues and cyans.

An Evening at the Beach #3

Not a lot to say about this photo except that I used some of the same techniques that used in last Friday’s post—although, I did not have an orange gel on my flash which made Lauren’s face look more natural.  Rather than incorporating the sun in the frame, I used Lauren to hide it.  I wanted to maximize the edge lighting on her hair and shoulders. 
Enjoy. 
Camera settings:  Nikon D3, Nikon 70-200mm f/2.8 at 200mm, f/4.8 and 1/750^th of a second. 
Post Processing: 
Lightroom 3:  Set black point, added contrast with a mild curve and cropped image to 4:5 ratio.

An Evening at the Beach #2

In this photo of Sarah, I wanted to include the setting sun, the fast falloff of light from right to left and yet get some light on Sarah’s face.  
I underexposed the ambient light reading by about four stops and then just splashed some light on Sarah’s face by using a Nikon SB800 with a snoot and an orange gel (to simulate the light of the sunset).  I should have changed my white balance to K3500 to bring out more of the blues in the sky and to reduce the orange on Sarah's face. 
Because of the bright light from the setting sun, I was using such a fast shutter speed that my SB800 was forced to be in high-speed synch mode, which greatly reduces the range of the flash.  The flash was on my camera and I set it to TTL mode.  I must admit, I really do not understand all the decisions my camera and flash make when the flash is set to TTL mode so, for me, it's a hit or miss proposition every time I use TTL.
Enjoy.
Camera settings:  Nikon D3, Nikon 70-200mm f/2.8 at 200mm, f/3.3 and 1/750^th of a second with Nikon SB800 with orange gel attached shot in high-speed synch mode. 
Post Processing: 
Lightroom 3:  Set black point, added contrast with a mild curve and cropped to 4:5 ratio. 
Photoshop CS5:  Dodged and burned various parts of photo, added curves adjustment for contrast and used various nik Colorefex Pro filters.

An Evening at the Beach

Over the holidays, a group photographed Lauren (pictured here) and Sarah down at Galveston beach.   As always, both ladies were beautiful and a joy to photograph.

At sunset, the light was great.  Here, I tried to underexpose the ambient light by about two stops and then just splash some light on Lauren’s face by using a Nikon SB800 with a snoot and an orange gel (to simulate the light of the sunset).  I also made sure that my flash was dialed down by about a stop.

Camera settings:  Nikon D3, Nikon 70-200mm f/2.8 at 200mm, f/4 and 1/125^th of a second

Post Processing:

Lightroom 3:  Set black point, added contrast with a mild curve.

Photoshop CS5:  Dodged and burned various parts of photo and saturated background color.

Jay Maisel Workshop #16—Lessons Learned

 A lot of people have asked me what lessons I learned in Jay’s workshop.   I learned many, but to me, the most important ones were:

1.  Ultimately photographs are about:  light, color and gesture.  As the artist, I must decide which one is the most important and then work the scene to produce a photo that extracts the element(s) that are important.

2.  Gesture is not limited to just people.  Everything has gesture.  Gesture, in essence, is what makes something unique.  Something worth photographing—texture, smoothness, position within its surroundings, etc.  And gesture always trumps light and color.  If I get the gesture right, light and color will just be supporting actors within the photo.

3.   I am responsible for every pixel within my frame.  It is up to me to select what will be within the photo and what will be outside the photo.  I must take care to make sure that the photo is framed as I want it.

4.  You must work the scene.  I was standing in front of one of Jay’s photos that I really like when Jay walked up. 
Jay: “I remember that one.  I took three shots and this one is my final shot.”
Me:  In three shots, you got that.
Jay:  Yes.  I went there and fired off three shots and that is what I got.  Of course I had been to that location fifty different times, tried for what you see here and I got NOTHING!

5.  You must be your own severest critic.  If you are your own severest critic you will always be looking for that next “portfolio shot”, that next “totally different look”, etc.

Today’s shot is about two things:  the gesture of the beams under the FDR Expressway and working the situation.  The photo was taken early one morning while I was out walking.  I loved the way that the early morning light showed-off the texture, the rhythm and the complexity of the beams.  Because of the dynamic range of the scene I knew that I would have to resort to HDR, so I shot three shots (-2, 0 and +2 EV).  I took four different sets of shots and then moved on.  In hindsight, I realize that there was much more to this scene than I appreciated at the time.  I should have worked the scene much longer and harder.  The photograph is nice but it is not a game changer.  I should have not settled for anything less than a game changer.

Enjoy.

Camera settings:  Not important

Post Processing:  Not important

Jay Maisel Workshop #15

Jay did not officially critic this photo.  He did, however, look at it on my computer while I was reviewing my shots from the day.  Jay wanted to know why I did not include this one in my selection for the day.  I told him that I was not sure that people would see what I saw in the image.  At which, he said “%@#*! them” !  Jay liked how the image raised questions:  what is going-on? why so much white? who are these guys? 
Anybody have any answers to his question? 
Enjoy. 
Camera settings:  Nikon D3, Nikon 70-300mm f/3.5-5.6 at 170mm, ISO 1,600, f/8 and 1/90^th of a second. 
Post Processing:  None!

Jay Maisel Workshop #14

Jay:  OK, what’s the story here?

Me:  Again, this is at Bryant Park.  I saw this man sitting there lost in his thoughts.  He looked so dignified that I wanted to have a portrait of him lost in his thoughts.  So, I asked if I could take his photo.  I took a couple shots but was not happy with what I was getting.  The background was very distracting.  I moved to my left in order to minimize the distractions.  His expression did not change throughout my ventures.

Jay:  That’s what you did but you did not answer the question “what’s the story here?”

Me:  His name is Lucas.  He has three grown daughters that he reared by himself—his wife died in childbirth with the youngest.  He has worked two to three jobs most of his life.  He is 77 years old and his daughters have told him that he has to stop working and start living.  He said that he thought that he had been living for 77 years.  He did not know what to do.

Jay:  Even though you do not know what the story is, you know that there is a story.  You also want to know the story.  Did you offer him any of your thoughts?

Me:  No.  I think he knows what to do.  He just needed someone to listen to him for a few minutes.

Enjoy.

Camera settings:  Nikon D3, Nikon 70-300mm f/3.5-5.6 at 150mm, ISO 2,200, f/5.6 and 1/350^th of a second.

Post Processing:  None!

Jay Maisel Workshop #13

Jay:  Where did you find this much green in New York City?

Me:  Bryant Park

Jay: Three things make this photo successful.  One, the harmony of the colors.  Two, the soft lighting on her.  And, three, her very pleasant and warm look.  Her eyes are engaging the viewer.  Nice, but I am not sure that I would consider this to be street photography.

Me:  I refer to this type of shot as street portraits because I often move the subject and do some directing.  She was setting in a chair and I just moved the chair to face another direction so that I would have the ivy as my background. 

Jay:  I like the term.  But, I am not sure what criteria I would use to judge it.

Enjoy.

Camera settings:  Nikon D3, Nikon 70-300mm f/3.5-5.6 at 120mm, ISO 1,600, f/5.6 and 1/500^th of a second.

Post Processing:  None!

Jay Maisel Workshop #12

Jay: Really good concept, but you did not hit it out-of-the-park.  If the subject is man crawling out of a hole, then the man must be tack-sharp (which this one is not) and the background elements should be slightly out-of-focus—thus making the man the SUBJECT!  Great perspective—street level.  What the hell were you doing lying on the sidewalk. 
Me:  Yes. 
Jay:  If you are going to go to that trouble, then bring me back a real winner, not this want-to-be idea on paper! 

At this point, Jay talked at some length about working the subject.  He said that a great concept poorly executed produces another bad photo.  You must constantly refine your idea so that you distill it down to only the elements that you consider “the story.”  That may mean that you give up on it today and go back tomorrow—but, you go back until you get what you are seeing in your mind. 

While Jay was talking about refining your photo, my mind wondered to a Joe McNally seminar that I attended with Steve Schuencke.  Joe was working with a female model and the images that were flashing up on the screen were good, but, he keep working it, and finally, a photo flashed up and you hear a collective “wow” from the attendees.  On the way home from the seminar, the only think that Steve and I talked about was Joe working the image. 

Enjoy. 

Camera settings:  Nikon D3, Nikon 70-300mm f/3.5-5.6 at 300mm, ISO 1,600, f/11 and 1/180^th of a second. 

Post Processing:  None!

Jay Maisel Workshop #11

Jay like this photo because it zeroed into what was important—her suspicious eying me—yet still provided adequate context as to what was going-on.  Jay did say that this might have been a time where he would have opened-up the lens to f/5.6 to blur as much as possible around her eye. The lady’s name is Juda and she is an camera-woman who works with independent film makers in New York.  We talked before I took any photos of her.  She gave me permission to photograph her, but did not want me to interrupt the filming that she was doing.  So, I tried to stay as far away from her as possible during my shots.

I wanted the photo to be totally about how she was eying me.

Enjoy.

Camera settings:  Nikon D3, Nikon 70-300mm f/3.5-5.6 at 180mm, ISO 1,000, f/8 and 1/180^th of a second.

Post Processing:  None!

Happy Thanksgiving

As always, the Patrick’s have a lot to be thankful for—our wonderful son and special daughter, our three great grandchildren, Cole, Chloe and Cameron, our many friends and our good health.

Janice and I are also thankful this year for our newest members of our family—Blaze and Pepper.  They have been with us a little over a week but they have firmly cemented themselves as members of the family—all 2 pounds 3 ounces of Pepper and all 2 pounds 5 ounces of Blaze.

All three of our grandchildren have played at the base of our kitchen table so it is only fitting that Blaze and Pepper also do so.  Da’Girls are a real joy.  Although we have papers saying that Pepper is 100% toy poodle, I know that she is really 50% toy poodle and 50% turkey.  She is everywhere and into everything.  Blaze on the other hand is Miss Sweetie, most of the time.   Of course there are times that Blaze thinks that she has to act like her sister.  Janice and I have spent many hours playing with them and watching them run around our house.

In the photo, Pepper is on the left and Blaze, who has a little white on her chest and the tips of both of her back feet, is on the right.

Enjoy and have a wonderful Thanksgiving.

Camera settings:  Nikon D3, Nikon 24-70mm f/2.8 at 50mm, ISO 1,600, f/6.7 and 1/30^th of a second with a Nikon SB800 using a LumQuest 20/80 attached.

Post Processing:

Lightroom:  Set black and white point, added contrast.

Jay Maisel Workshop #10

Jay:  Welcome to New York. This photo is totally about gesture. Look at his expression.  Look at how he has forcefully positioned his arm.  Look at how he is separated from everyone else—by focus, by the lighting, by being the only male, by not being engaged with everyone else at the table.  He is a New Yorker. How did you get this one, yell look like New York?

Me:  Just saw it and shot it.  Didn’t think about it.

Jay:  Good, leave the thinking home more.

Enjoy.

Camera settings:  Nikon D3, Nikon 28-300mm f/3.5-5.6 at 250mm, ISO 1,600, f/5.6 and 1/350^th of a second.

Post Processing:  NONE!

Jay Maisel Workshop #9

Jay liked this photo because it did such a good job of isolating the subject and showing gesture—which brings me to how Jay thinks about photographs.

According to Jay, photographs are usually about three elements—light, color (or lack of color) and gesture.  It is the job of the photographer to determine which element is most important to the photograph and then select the angle, cropping and composition that supports the selected element.  Before I went to the workshop, I believed that my most successful (i.e., the photographs that I liked best) were ones that I saw something within a scene and then successfully showcased that element within my image.  The workshop did two things for me—it confirmed this fuzzy idea that I had haphazardly followed and it made me really focus on asking and answering a very basic question about a shot before I took it—what am I trying to project in this photo.

By making us (the workshop participants) shoot in jpeg and show “right out of the camera”, he forced us to make the decision about what the photo is about before we took the shot and he made us eliminate all distracting elements in order to distill what we wanted the photo to represent.

This photo was taken of a woman buying some ice cream at an out-door vendor.  To me, the subject is not the transaction (her face and the money in her hand), but it is the intensity of her face.  The money merely supports and gives context to that intensity.  I originally took the photo at f/11 which made both her face and the money in focus, but as I looked at it on the back of my camera I thought that I did not get what I wanted—there seemed to be some confusion about what was the subject, the woman, the money or the transaction.  I quickly changed my f-stop to f/5.6, focused on her right eye and retook the photo. 

Whether anyone likes the photo is not important.  To me, what is important is that I saw something—the intensity of her look—and was able to capture it as I saw it in my mind.

Enjoy.

Camera settings:  Nikon D3, Nikon 28-300mm f/3.5-5.6 at 300mm, ISO 1,400, f/5.6 and 1/180^th of a second.

Post Processing:  NONE!

Jay Maisel Workshop #8

Jay did not critic this photo.

I saw this guy giving directions to two girls but could not get the shot because the girls were in my way.  After he finished, I told him that I thought his bag was really cool.  He immediately told me that it was not his but was his niche’s bag and he was taking it over to her house. 

I asked if I could take a photo of him pointing like he did when he gave the girls directions.  He was a little reluctant, but then he agreed.  After a few minutes, he really got into the scene.  I had a couple shots that I liked but it seemed that something was missing.  I saw the guy on the bike coming up the street and so I suggested that we take another shot with the bike in the background.  I think the bike helps sell the shot as street photography and helps add depth to the overall photo.

I know that some people might be concerned by the pole behind him looking like it was growing out of his head.  It does not bother me because of its size and because this is a street photo, not a portrait.  The thing that I do not like is the red sign and alarm on the pole.  To me, red is a very hard color to control in your images and I think that they take the viewer's eye away from the main subject—the bright pink bag.

One thing that I forgot to mention earlier is that I h ave presented a few photos that were in 4x5 format rather than 2x3 format.  The Nikon D3 has an option to change the format from 2x3 to 4x5.  So, this was done in camera with Jay’s permission.

Jay and I got into a big discussion as to why I wanted to do this.  I told him it was simple:  I had less real estate (i.e., distracting background) to worry about in a 4x5 format and I thought that the 4x5 format was better suited to photographing people.  Jay listened, but I do not think I made a sale. 

Jay said that he thought that all photographers look at things from a specific perspective—a wide or telephoto perspective.  He told me that he had a telephoto-perspective which meant that he zeroed-in on slices of a scene thus eliminating a lot of distracting elements.  He told me that he never thought about how people might look at scene from different aspect ratios.

Enjoy.

Camera settings:  Nikon D3, Nikon 28-300mm f/3.5-5.6 at 62mm, ISO 400, f/8 and 1/180^th of a second.

Post Processing:  NONE!

Jay Maisel Workshop #7

Jay did like this photo.  No, he did not like it because of the girl.

Jay:  How did you get this shot?

Me:  I took this this early this morning on my way to the workshop.  I was photographing some details on a building when this lady yelled from across the street:  “Whatsa doing?”  I replied that I was photographing the building behind her.  She replied:  “I’ll give you something better to take.”  At which she began to strike various poses.

Jay:  You are s@#%#*&! me. 

Me:  No.

Jay:  Something like that has never happened to me in the sixty years that I have walked these streets.  You lucky son-of-a-@#%#*&.  What makes this photo so good is the fact that the subject is completely separated from the background.   It is separated by color, sharpness, focus and gesture.  As you look at the photo, there is no doubt what the subject matter is.  Even though there is the separation, all the elements of the photograph work together.  Nice job.

Me:  Thanks.

Jay:  Your skill as a photographer is definitely enhanced by your luck.  I hope you never get unlucky. (shy smile on his face)

Enjoy.

Camera settings:  Nikon D3, Nikon 28-300mm f/3.5-5.6 at 300mm, ISO 1,600, f/5.6 and 1/250^th of a second.

Post Processing:  NONE! 

Jay Maisel Workshop #6

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Jay did like this photo.  I liked it, but have some reservations about it.

Jay:  Did you ask this guy to pose for you?

Me:   No.  I saw this neat background and then waited for people to walk in front of it.  I liked this guy because he looked at me and because his shirt was a solid, bright color that seemed to go with the background.

Jay:  Although his look is not really an inviting look, it still draws the viewer into the scene.

Me:  I am not real happy with how I have him placed in the center of the frame.

Jay:  You talking about the rule of thirds?

Me:  Yes.

Jay:  @#%#*&! the rules!  Does the photo have impact?  Yes.  Does it draw you into it?  Yes.  So, @#%#*&! the rules!

My thought:  Not sure about that!

Enjoy.

Camera settings:  Nikon D3, Nikon 28-300mm f/3.5-5.6 at 300mm, ISO 1,600, f/11 and 1/250^th of a second.

Post Processing:  NONE!

Jay Maisel Workshop #5

Jay did not like this photo.  I liked it.

Jay:  What is this photo about?  I have no idea what you are trying to convey here.  There is nice light and an interesting shadow on the Brooklyn Bridge and then there are two homeless people.  What am I suppose to look at?  What am I suppose to think?  Did you trip your shutter by mistake?

Me:  It’s all about opposites—the largeness of the bridge versus the smallness of the men; the beautiful golden light on the top of the bridge versus the murky shadows on the bottom of the bridge; the cleanliness of the top of the bridge versus the dirt of the bottom of the bridge; and finally the dejected look of one man versus the smiling of the other man. 

Jay:  Yea, right.

You:  ?  

Enjoy.

Camera settings:  Nikon D3, Nikon 28-300mm f/3.5-5.6 at 300mm, ISO 1,600, f/8 and 1/180^th of second.

Post Processing:  NONE!