Sunday afternoon portrait shoot

This past Sunday Lily stopped by to get a few headshots to use in her portfolio while pursuing her acting career.

I used a pretty simple setup. On camera right (about 45 degree angle) I had my alien bee B800 with a large octabox and on camera left (about 80-90 degree angle high) I had my Nikon SB800 with diffuser and roughly 1 stop brighter than the main light.

Now I got around to finishing up a few of the photos and I guess eventually I will get some of them incorporated in a portrait section on my web site (http://udsigt.webhop.net).




After capture my workflow is to import the photos to lightroom using the camera raw plugin which does a very nice job at ensuring colors and light is right. (read more in this post).

After import I had Lily pick the top 30 photos to continue work on these.
Retouching portraits like this got soo much simpler and faster. I am pretty sure Emma could actually do it... it's that easy.
To process photos I take a few simple steps in lightroom:
1. Adjust overall brightness, color and contrast.
2. "fix" complexion with portrait professional (right click and select edit-in)
3. Crop to print size and if multiple sizes are needed create virtual copies for these.
4. Select all and make virtual copies
5. Select virtual copies and change to black and white with the develop setting.

Now all that is left to do is export and/or create a web gallery (using lightroom of course).

If you noticed it in the steps above you are absolutely right. I did not use photoshop at all in any of these steps...
The key to quick processing is the portrait professional package. You can read more about it here.

photostudio inspiration for home

Wouldn't it be nice having that 3.000 sq ft. studio with all the latest gadgets and lighting equipment you could ever find use for along with multiple cameras and lenses?

yeah well I would like it but then again I think I am short a few million $$ on that one. However there is actually quite a lot you can do at home at the kitchen table using anything from natural light with reflector cards, desk lamps and well any light for that matter.

Learning the basics behind light and the theory is well time consuming but strangely enough it's fun too. I just started reading a book on that (light, science and magic more about that later when I get further) and I have had a few aha moments as to why it works the way it works with studio light.

Anyway. I just recently found a great resource for those that would like to watch and learn and get inspired.
Photographer Jim Talkington is running a photostudio and on his website http://www.prophotolife.com you can find some really great video tutorials in his video library. Ohh and it may be worth to mention that these are free!!!!!

Mr. T. is easy to understand and it is really good information he is giving away here. If you want to improve your photography you can't help but to learn from him.

5 min studio shoot

With Halloween we had Uncle Dave and Aunt Linda visiting from Ohio (yeah that's a long drive).

So here is what happens when you have family see the portraits hanging just about anywhere and you are asked the question: "So you are doing those picture here in the house?".

Yep, scramble to do a 5 min setup hoping that you can wing it and get the light just about right in about no time.

With that in mind I did a kind of simple setup with the Alien Bee B800 in a octabox on camera right and the Nikon SB800 in a shoot through umbrella on camera left. A quick measure had the AB coming out with just under f/8.0 and the SB800 at f/5.6 or there abouts ;-)

Here is a drawing of the above description. Sooo much easier on the eyes ;-)



Ok first up is the toned and bw version of the sit down, look at me and ... smile



But that's no fun at all.... So of course there are a few others where it was actually fun and games. Somehow the "relax... this won't hurt a bit" doesn't always work ;-)

But here they are a little less formal.



Soo it was just about 10 min... but a fun 10 min :-)

Butterflies and such

Hosted by Cecily and MamaGeek

Here is another post with a line of photos from our trip to Hollins farm. This time looking at butterflies and bugs in that line ;-)

You can see the previous post on sunflowers right here.

Not that I am really the big expert on butterflies but Thanks to Cliff I now know that the next two photos is of the female Eastern Tiger Swallowtail.



Here's a pretty orange one. Not knowing the name of it but hey let's call it Bob ;-)





And finally a couple of close ups made with a 105mm macro I borrowed from Cliff just to see how it works... yeah it's ... man it sure would be nice to have one of those ;-)

Sunflowers

Hosted by Cecily and MamaGeek

One weekend after getting back from our trip to Denmark we went on a smaller trip (just about 20-30 miles) to Hollins farm to pick peaches and other fruits.

While being there I finally had a chance to get a couple of photos of sunflowers against a blue sky :-)

These photos are the result of the short but very interesting trip.

All of these I created as HDR images which I did by creating multiple exposures bracket around the measured value.
Being rather new to shooting for HDR creation I setup a 5 bracket exposure +/- 1 stop.

Here they are:

Food photography

Just like most of the world you probably know about Martha Stewart. You know all the good cooking, home making, tv shows and so on.

It's kind of funny in a way but I guess we are quite the little Martha Stewart family. I started with adding a tv in the kitchen and what better to watch while cooking and baking than the Martha Stewart show?

So now every episode is recorded and watched. Not "just" by my dear wife Jacki (which btw have a great cooking blog) but also our daughter Emma that just don't want to miss the show for nothing. I think she is paying more attention to Martha Stewart than the Little Einsteins.

Anyway to get on with the photo story... Jacki asked if I could grab the camera and snap a few photos for her food blog.
Now how could I say anything but of course my dear? adding a "let me just grab the flash too while I am at it".

So here is the setup in our kitchen:



Now to show how we prepare the tomatoes and spread them out on a baking sheet with a little bit of olive oil on it. How about getting a close up? and uh uh let's get one where we see your hand sprinkling the tomatoes on the baking sheet ;-)



And just like the cooking shows here are the tomatoes fresh out of the oven.



Ok before you say anything... I know... you don't sit on the table but on the other hand you have to be able to see something... right?
But yeah here is prepping for making a salsa to go along with the meal. Emma being the mini Martha has to be in on everything and we can even pose with parsley (bet that's a new one) ;-)



First we sort and cut the the parsley and pile it up. Gotta cut the stems off and chop it coarse.



Add all the ingredients to a food processor and tada you got the best salsa you could ever have.



Now this is an example what happens when you add a photo crazy husband with a dedicated wife that loves to cook and a mini Martha. It kind of all comes together :-)
Ohh and be sure to check out Jacki's food blog for some great food :-) http://accidental-cook.blogspot.com/

Taking a walk

Hosted by Cecily and MamaGeek

Being back home (yeah it's confusing) in DK there were a few opportunities to just go out and take a walk. Now that I have been living in the states for a good 4 years the landscape and all seem kind of new to me in some strange way. Now I notice things I never noticed before. If for nothing else then because Jacki is asking about it ;-)

Here are a few flowers lit by the setting sun.



Sometimes simplicity just works better than whatever you construct. The next photo is very very simple. Just a straw with a calm out of focus background. All with the setting sun.



As much as I like waterfalls and all that. A wheat field captured while dragging the shutter... It just does something. Hope you like them.



And finally a little extra from the beach with a very blue sky.



Hope it helped getting you all ready for Friday and you know... Finally it's the weekend :-)