Pete & Linda continued

Here's a family shot from Pete & Linda's shoot. Working with kids and dogs together is a total different dynamic. Patience plays a key role during these more formal sessions. This is why I block out a considerable amount of time when photographing families. It's all about having fun while getting the photographs. There's no need to induce stress by stacking appointments one on top of the other. The last time I photographed Pete & Linda's family, time was flying by and before I knew it, nap time was setting a precedence over the session. This time however, we alotted enough time to set up and get a bunch of shots.



I think Rachel was more excited about the lighting equipment than being photographed. Luckily, Pete set up a Dora DVD to get Rachel focused. I really want to do a location shoot with this family. Rachel has some great expressions that I think would come out if we were in a different setting.

I also want to thank Pete & Linda very much for becoming my first repeat customer! It's so cool when you leave a session and the client says, "We'll see you in May."

Post-Processing Techniques

It's time for another before/after segment. For tonight's images, I am using a photo of....you guessed it....Jake! This one was taken up at Dudley's Bakery a few weekends ago. The image was taken around 4:30 and the sun decided to move behind some clouds which diffused the light quite a bit. He was playing around this fence and peeped through at me when I told him to stop going onto the private property on which he is standing in this image. For those that are curious, I shot this with my 24-70mm f/2.8 lens set to ISO 100, 1/160 @ f3.2. The overall exposure is nice but the photo needs a bump in saturation & contrast.



I ran some actions but masked out the effect on the skin as I didn't like the saturation in the skin tones. I also ran an adjustment layer to get rid of the redness around the eyes. I finished off by darkening the edges of the frame to bring attention to the center of his face. Below is the final result.


I normally shoot with no color/tone/saturation adjustments in my camera as I like to have control over the final outcome in the image. I have tried different settings on my 20D but found I was having to do double the work on an image because I was trying to undo the adjustments so I would have a nice base image to work with.

I hope you all enjoyed tonight's post. The next couple days might not have any updates as I need to finish up some photos from recent photo shoots. It was nice having a 4 day weekend. I hope you all enjoyed your Thanksgiving holiday. It's hard to believe that Christmas is just around the corner!

Our Family Session

Rob was kind enough to shoot our family session yesterday at the beach. We wanted the folks that are experiencing cold weather to realize why it is so expensive to live in Southern California. It's called the Sunshine Tax. Granted, it was a bit chilly but not that bad. Rob got some great shots of us which was nice because I'm not usually in the frame. He also got some great individual shots of the kids which hopefully he'll post on his site. I'm stoked that he and I are collaborating more with our photography.

In between setups, I grabbed my camera and rattled off a few shots myself (Rob can't have all the fun). And besides, who wants to see my mug when you can look at my beautiful wife and adorable kids? This was my first real attempt at doing some portraits on the beach at this time of day. I have read that the light changes fast but I didn't really have a clue until I started shooting and changing setups in a few minutes.

Posted tonight is a shot of Jess spending some time with Jayden. Jake was busy running around for Rob to get some panning shots (I'm sure Jake enjoyed the break from me snapping away at him) so I had Jess and Jayden all to myself. I broke out the 85mm fixed lens for this shot which made me work a little harder to compose the shot. Zoom lenses have a tendency to make me lazy and I haven't shot enough with the 85mm lens. I REALLY love this lens. It makes me push myself harder to get the shot I'm after.

I'm really happy with this photo. It's definitely marked for another project I'm currently working on!

78 to Ramona

First off, I would like to say Happy Thanksgiving to all who are reading this. Judging from e-mails, the list of viewers is growing which is really cool because it makes me want to post more! I hope you all had a wonderful holiday. I finally fried my first turkey this evening and I'm wondering why I waited so long. My buddy Ev took the time out this last week to give me a lot of pointers and everything came out great. Thanks Ev for hooking me up. It was a big hit.

Now for the photography. Two weekends ago I was on my way to a buddy's house to help him out with his property. He lost his house in the Witch Creek fire and I have been going up there for the last few weeks to give him a hand and just help out wherever he needs the help. 78 was finally opened up again so I decided to stop and take some pix along the way. I was originally planning on keeping the color in this photo but decided to play around with some infrared post-processing techniques. I also decided for a square format as the right hand side of the frame didn't really add to the photo. I plan on taking some more landscape shots on our next mini-road trip to the mountains to see what else I can get.

I have some other photos scheduled to be posted this week so keep checkin' in.

Linda & Pete

I had another family session with Linda & Pete two weekends ago. They are a wonderful family to work with and I have enjoyed both sessions. This session was a little more formal and Pete saved the day with a portable DVD player and a Dora video. Thanks Pete for giving me the idea for working with kids. This was a fun session to shoot because of the dynamics involved.

The teaser photo from this shoot is of Linda & Pete. I have a few more from this shoot that I will be posting throughout the week so stay tuned.

For those that are holding me to my word, I have posted another image of Jake from last weekend. The photo is posted below yesterday's image so scroll down and check it out.

Julian

For the last two Sunday's, we have taken some mini-road trips to Julian. It's been nice getting outta the house and just hittin' the road. I like the small town feel that Julian has to offer. We met up with Rob and his family today and stopped in for lunch at the Julian Grille and then headed out to the various shops in town. I'm stoked that Rob is getting into this world of photography. We have started coordinating to shoot a lot more! We've been looking for some local talent so we can expand our portfolio and what we can offer. Hopefully there will be some more road trips in the near future, as well as attending some photo workshops.

For now, here's the big man Jake wishing I would photograph his sister. Last weekend's image will be posted tomorrow. I also have some images from a portrait session last weekend that will be posted this week.

Bate's Nut Farm

We obviously went before Halloween and I had every intention of posting these last week, but didn't. It was a busy week to say the least. I have a ton of pics to post for this month so hopefully I can get off my duff and get to postin'.

Here's a few to show off the chitlins as they played in the patch. Jake finally came around to being photoghraphed. He wasn't game for it at first but I used some Jedi mind tricks to get him to cooperate (video games can be a parent's best friend when you want to manipulate their little minds).