Ginger apparently really liked some of the photos I've taken and has ordered 11x14 versions of them to hang up in the house. I must say it's very flattering. They're the ones sitting on the mantle (not the one that's hanging though). I'm fairly certain I've posted all those pictures on the blog at some point in the past.
So tonight when I got home I decided to put my theory of being able to take pictures as good as the ones from the Picture People to the test. I grabbed Quinn (Catherine was still asleep when I got home) and headed out into the backyard. And here's what I've learned. I may be able to take pictures that good under the correct conditions. Sadly, it would appear I lack the proper lighting equipment to take photos in a wooded area. If I used the flash (even with the diffuser) it would over accentuate the subject and the background would be thrown into almost complete darkness. The flash would also create some pretty harsh shadows on the subject that I didn't really like. And since I was outside, I wasn't able to bounce the light from the flash off a wall or the ceiling. And if I didn't use the flash there just wasn't enough light to take a decent photo. I mucked with a couple of the photos in Picasa and went heavy on the "Fill Light" option and got a couple that look okay, but nothing spectacular. Anyway, looks like I'm not giving up my day job anytime soon.
I've finished watching season three of 24. What a complete load of crap. I can't believe how bad season three was compared to how good the previous seasons were. I was just going to give up on the whole series at this point, but Barry has convinced me that season four is better than three. I'm guessing that three may have been okay to watch over the course of a year, but when you watch it all in one sitting you can see the utter chaos that was going on. Plot lines would come in, play for maybe 4 to 6 episodes and then they would be gone, never to be heard from again. And the whole sidebar plot line with the President was complete crap. I mean, that whole plot line had absolutely nothing to do with the 'threat'. It was like that whole aspect of it was just filler. At least in season two all the plot lines were connected. I take that back, I had forgotten that in season two the scenes with Kim in them were worthless (oh look, she's running again). So is Barry right? Does season 4 get better? I'm going to take a break from the series for a while no matter what and just crank through some movies that are in my Netflix queue since that's been filling up lately. Mind you, the standard for what constitutes a full queue apparently varies. I think mine if getting full and I only have like 30 things in my queue. It's nothing like Curt's (Cheryl's?) queue with 209 movies.
4 comments:
Season 4 is much better. And what a cliff-hanger!
Even the professional photographers are slaves to lighting James. If the lighting is right for your photo, then you either a) change the lighting with flashes or reflectors or b) change the type of photo you're trying to take. I like the two of Quinn.
All the professional fotogs use those umbrella light reflectors to get lighting that does not come from the camera, but from the side. Some use fill light behind the subject. In short, to geta pro-looking photo, you gotta have separate sources of light from the camera.
Most outdoor pro photos I've seen use sunlight to get the best effects, usually getting the sun in just the right way so it's captured in someone's hair and cheekbones.
The easiest thing to do for a flash is spring the 20 bucks on an Omni Bounce. I used it under a tent (effectively no ceiling) to shoot a wedding at night and I think the shots came out pretty good. The trick when using it outdoors or under a tent is to manually set the flash to give it a stop or two more power than the scale on the flash would indicate.
You can do good outdoor photography without the umbrellas and a small army of assistants. Some easy things to do:
- Even out your exposure. The easiest way to do this is shoot where both the subject and the background are shaded (e.g. subject in the shade of a group of trees). Another good source of even light is a cloudy day. If you want to highlight hair or cheekbones with sunlight, get one of your kids to be your reflector holder.
- If you can't even the exposure with clouds or setting, use your flash or do the reflector thing. When I just want to do fill flash, I'll use the pop-up flash on the SLR, not the accessory unit. Bullbunky is right in saying that sometimes you just need to change the type of photo you're going to take, and if things just aren't quite right, skip the portraits and do something else.
If you want to see some results, email me and I'll send you the link and access stuff to our website.
Post a Comment