HOTPPG Shoot Out – “Senior” Portrait

Our “Senior” was named Nimsi.  I tried getting pictures of her in one of the cabins, but the light cast shadows on her face, and the background was terrible.  So, we moved outside.

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Again, the light was a challenge.  Debbie did not like the shadow on her cheek, but there was little I could do about it.

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We shot on the shore of Lake Waco, and the lake made for an interesting background.  In this one, I like the strong sunlight on her left side.

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On this one, I again like the strong light on her left, but I think the lighting across her face was effective.

HOTPPG Shoot Out – “Family” shots

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My first shots were with a nice family, Brandy, Tye, and Tripp. It was windy and the light was pretty bad, but I found a nice place for them to stand, and things worked out OK.

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I kind of liked the wider view just as a little distraction.

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As with all kids this age, the challenge was to get him to look at the camera.  I really liked this one because he is actually looking at me (in spite of the hair problem).

HOTPPG Shoot Out

Last night, I had the pleasure of being a guest at the Heart of Texas Professional Photographers Guild open shoot out.  The event was held at Airport Park.  The HOTPPG is a group of professionals in the area.  In this meeting, they allowed local photographers who were not so professional to tag along.  I had a great time.

They had a variety of models representing different types of photography, and, there were so many I did not get to photograph them all.  They had a family, a bride, a teen age girl, a ballerina, a “tween” girl, an infant and a bride and groom.  We each took 10 minute turns with the models.

I had a great time, but it was hectic.  Ten minutes does not give you much time to find a location, build a report with the model, and get some shots.  Additionally, the circumstances made it difficult, if not impossible to use any kind of lighting.  The even was in the evening.  So, there was a pretty good sunset, but it didn’t really play into the even that well.

Anyway, it was a great experience.  I will be posting images as I get them processed.  This is a group I would like to continue to be associated with.  However, I may not quite be in the same league, professionally, as they.

Prints at Sam’s

On a recent CreativeLive, the speaker said he has all his work done at Costco.  He said they do it right there and do it fast, and, for the most part, the work is no different than that done at a custom lab.  So, I decided to try Sam’s.  I uploaded twelve images.  I went to order the prints and immediately saw that I had a problem.  The selection of sizes was limited.  The only sizes that would allow me to have prints of the full image were 4 x 6 and 20 x 30.  There was a selection called “True Digital” but there was no indication of what that was.  So, I was stuck with 8×10 or 11×14 and having to crop the image.  Well, I ordered one of the “True Digital” prints just to see what it was and one 11×14 of each of the images.

I did not hear back from them notifying me the prints were done.  So, I asked in the store, and I was told it takes about an hour.  The “True Digital” print was something slightly smaller than a 4×6.  The 11×14 enlargements were all well done.  They were printed on a semi-gloss paper that was acceptable for the images.  I got to manipulate the cropping.  So, that was acceptable from the point of view that the images were cropped where I wanted them to be.  But, they were still cropped. A couple were somewhat darker than on screen.  There is, of course, no ability to calibrate.  So, that might be something that needs to be considered.

My next job is to locate appropriate matts for them.

Galveston Historic Houses

Galveston has a huge number of large historic houses.  I have wanted to get HDR images of many of them to add to my Galveston images.  A few months ago, I got some of the Bishop’s Palace and a house across from it on Broadway, but didn’t have time to get more of other places.  I started today with the ones that the Galveston Historic Foundation lists on their web site.

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This was the Samuel May Williams house.

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This was the Michael B. Menard House.  Note the bird on the porch.  Those looked like herons. They were walking around the front lawn.  I don’t know if they were in some way domesticated, but they didn’t seem very concerned with me taking pictures.

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This was Ashton Villa.

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This was Moody Mansion.

Fourth of July Parade

I enjoy “event” photography.  It is a way of taking candid pictures of people.  The expressions on their faces are spontaneous and relevant to the moment.  Last night was the Fourth of July Parade in Galveston.  The parade was on Seawall.  It started at 59th St. and went in to 25th.  We walked down to about 57th and got a good spot on the curb.  Once the parade started it was a general melee and people crowded into the street, mainly because most of those marching in the parade were throwing beads or candy.  In spite of the crowd, I was able to get some good shots of the people in the parade.

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This was a little boy who was “dancing” to the music provided prior to the parade.

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The expression of concentration on this woman’s face was great.

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This woman was on the Yaga’s float.  She had a variety of small stuffed animals, and she would reach out with one and shake it back and forth.  she would then toss it to one of the children.

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I Pirate relegated to driving a golf cart in a parade.

Bird of Paradise

We went to the pool.  Behind the rock waterfall is a Bird of Paradise plant.  I have looked at it for quite a while, and thought it would be interesting to take some shots of it.  This time, the blossoms were perfect.  I used my 90mm Tamron macro.  I like that lens, but it was a little difficult under these circumstances.  The plants were between the rocks by the pool and an iron fence.  So, I had to get the picture by shooting between the bars of the fence.  But, it still came out nicely.

Bird of Paradise

Business Matters

Things have not gone altogether is envisioned.  I was kind of hoping that this year, I might start getting some actual paying clients, but so far it is not working.  Debbie and I had a little chat about things and decided there must be some way of getting the word out and marketing.  But, what that is eludes me.

I have visited a few internet sites and they provide a fair amount of information on the business aspects and getting those going.  I have completed a form to register the name and do business in the county.  I have gone on line and looked into insurance, but it seems like that is not really necessary unless I have clients.  So, that is kind of on the back burner.  Everyone says I need a business plan.  So, I will be giving that a lot of thought as I proceed.  But, there is very little in the way of advice on how to find clients.

It is July 4th, and I will be giving this topic a great deal of thought over the holiday.

Beauty Lighting and Head Shots

Saturday, I watched a video of Peter Hurley doing head shots of various people. He took some amazing shots, but the video was really about his “process.” Debbie was doing a bunch of things and heard it more than watched it. She hated Hurley. He was loud and abrasive and even somewhat abusive with these people. He would say things like “You’re eyes aren’t the same size. Turn your head so the beady one is closer to the camera.” but, he did do something quite interesting.
He had a chart called “How Does Your Inner Child Feel Today?”. It is a bunch of faces that correspond to emotions. He would look at it and randomly choose one of the emotions. He would say, “Show me innocent.” He explained that the expression he got might or might not be something interesting that he could photograph, but he said that the person would always realize they made a silly face and break out with a huge smile.
OK so, today I decided to try some beauty lighting. I powered my beauty dish with the Polaroid PL135 as the key light with a reflector underneath in a clam shell orientation. I added a Qflash T4d as a hair light. I had to power both down as low as they would go to shoot at iso 100 and 1/100, f/2.8 with my 85mm lens.

So, I told Helen to give me Joy.

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Then, I asked for wistful

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OK. Rather plastic.  So, I sat down.

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Serious.

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Apprehensive

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Anticipation

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Relief that this is over.

 

Landscape Contest

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I am not sure where I found out about ViewBug, but it is a site that has photo contests.  You can join for free, but that limits you to 10 uploads per week.  Some of the contests are free to enter.  Others cost.  You can also have a paid membership.  With that, you can upload as many photos as you want, and you do not have to pay for any of the contests.

I was looking at their contests, and one was a free contest for landscapes.  It was sponsored by a weekly photography news web site. So, I entered two of my HDR photos. The idea is that anyone on the site can view the pictures and vote on them, and after the submission deadline, judges will decide the winner.

This is kind of like American Idol.  I could have gone on Facebook and told everyone to go to the site and vote for my picture, but then it is no longer about photographic quality, it is about how many people you can get to vote for you.

The deadline for the contest was June 1.  I was just notified that this picture was “ranked in the top 20 most voted percentile.”  I am not exactly sure what that means.  There were 8900 pictures entered in the contest.  If mine received enough votes to be in the top 20%, then it was one of the 1800 best.  So, it is kind of hard to get all that worked up, but all in all, I still think that was pretty good.