Wine time

While my wife and I were on our recent cruise, I finally had time to look and post pictures. We were in Mexico when we returned to the cruise ship. We went to the top floor and the lookout window of the front. It was so relaxing and time for a nice glass of wine. Still holding my camera, I liked the backlight that lit this glass of wine. After finding the composition that I liked, I took a few pictures. I wanted to blur out the background because it did not add anything and wanted attention to the wine. I think my settings were like F 3.5, ISO 100, and a speed of 2,000. With that said CHEERS.

The Tall Sails

Wow, it's been some time since I have done a blog. I have been one busy photographer. Wedding, Commercial work, and having my kids from Wisconsin have kept me a little busy. I know, no excuse.

Last week, I was in Cleveland, Ohio, to see these great Sailboats for the first time. I have always seen them on TV but never live. We were advised to arrive early because parking for this event is very hard. I showed up 2 hours before the ships were to show up and barely found a spot.

The weather was great, and you could finally see these great ships in the distance. I was going to use a tripod, but because it was a very sunny day, I could hand hold my 400mm with a 2.0 extender and keep the speed at 1500. ISO was 200. The challenge I had was not holding the lens, but all boats were blocking our view. Most of these boats felt they needed to be right on their side and follow them for 10 min. But with some patients and help with Photoshop, I could eliminate them. I waited for an opening and then took the pictures. It is defiantly a challenge and very disappointing.

It was great seeing these ships and the work they have to do to improve our look of the past. Here are a few pictures that I came up with that day. I enjoyed looking at the past. Now off to Bermuda this weekend for a week.

Learning is Fun

As my business continues to change, so does my learning. This time I wanted to learn more about being better with macro photography. I use this a lot for product and food shooting. I recently attended a workshop put on by Roberts Camera in Indianapolis, In. If you never went to a workshop and you are a photographer who wants to take it to the next level, you should. Not only the learning but other photographers that you will be interacting with. At this workshop, we had a 2-hour talk about idea settings and sharpness.

Next, we got a chance to work for 6 hours in about 20 different setups to practice what we learned. We learned about stack focusing, stack focusing software, using a tripod, which is a must for sharpness.

I took a lot of pictures this day, practicing what we learned. I filled up two cards of photos. I took pictures and retook pictures of a different composition of the subject. It was a day of fun. Oh yes, being a Midwestern, of course, I talked with other photographers that were there that day—so much fun to see and talk about once again. I am a big fan of education. Even when you think you know it, you can always learn. Who knows, you may make a new friend that does what you love.

Playing and learning

The cool thing about photography is that you can do it anytime. I like to practice and learn and then practice some more. Today I wanted to play with gel lights and practice shadows and highlights. So I grabbed something that would not complain, and I worked with what I had. For I was at a bed and breakfast place, I had no idea I would do this.

I had two lights, one light stand, and my gels. The first thing I wanted to do was light from behind to give it backlight. Using a CTO gel and a MagMod Grid, I set this up first. I liked what I had, but way too much shadow in the front. I knew I wanted to reflect light back into the front but did not have one, or did I. Yep, pillowcase to the rescue. I brought in really close to the left side and got what I wanted. Next was to set up the fill light. I wanted the shadows to fill in with blue—my second light I set up using a blue gel. I had no light stand, so I set the light on the floor and flashed on the ceiling. Yep, I took advantage of a giant softbox with a flash of blue to fill in shadows with blue. It worked and did what I wanted without using Photoshop.

So much playing and learning. Just another thing to put into my back pocket.