Cale Yarborough

-- Its always a pleasure to photograph someone in their environment. First they are inviting you into their domain, something not always done lightly. Second, it usually gives an opportunity for props that normally wouldn’t accompany a studio session. This day ended with more props than I’d ever need. I met Mr. Yarborough at his dealership and photographed him next to a trophy as large as he was among several others but after he felt comfortable with me, he wanted to show me his trophy room at the ranch. We met his gracious wife and entered the room full of memorabilia from a career of 30 years. Lighting the the room was a bare bulb for the background and the Yarboroughs was a small umbrella. They were quite at ease talking about the past and the collection. One of my favorite celebrity pics.

If I didn’t mention it before, your light source can be varied including anything you might have at hand, candle? Flashlight? Cell phone even. This image was created with a small flashlight simply moving back and forth across subject during a long exposure. Allowing beam to stay in one spot of course brightens the area exposed. Less and darker. The pattern is up to the artist. Go do some light painting! A soft focus filter adds to the effect and emulates the look of the Hose Master technique brought to my attention by Scott Blaylock of Digital Arts and Graphics.

Broadway night aerial

Not often do you see night aerials, as the shutterspeed required to stop vibration is at least 1/125 of a second. And exposures such as this can be in the seconds normally. So what to do? The first thing is to bump up your ISO. The new digital cameras go upwards of ISO 6400, thats a long way from film days of maybe 800. This was ISO 800 and with steady hands, a large aperature and successive exposures, 1/15 of a second yielded several acceptable images . Yet to be seen what the new upside down house is going to do to this landscape!

This was an experiment in 'Painting with light'. My good friend Joe Carr http://www.joecarrphotography.com and I used flashlights to bring an otherwise completely dark scene to life by simply walking thru the scene and highlighting the areas we thought should be exposed, all the while the shutter is opened and exposing the sky. You have complete control in what elements you'd like to emphasize. It gives you the ability to really paint. We did use the tungsten feature of the camera white balance. A fun excersize to try.

Spring has finally arrived and no clearer sign than the dogwoods budding. The way they leaf out to those beautiful white flowers always amazes me, so delicate and unfortunately shortlived. Much like us!

Dessert

-- Just a grab shot at a function exhibiting trend in selective focus and tilted framing......Also added a little lighting effect vignette in Photoshop for further emphasis on the main subject. Hope your desserts are as yummy for your Holiday. Lighted with on camera flash bounced.

Magiquest

The client said it was impossible. I couldn’t resist, so proceeded to evaluate. Considering that this was done on the run among 90 other setups same day, its relatively successful. The challenge is to light a very dark room and the subjects in the foreground, yet still retain the image on the highly reflective movie screen. Previously they have inserted an image over the white screen in post. I simply bounced the light off the wall behind me therefore eliminating direct light on the screen. And since light intensity falls off as the square of the distance to the subject, there was not enough light to reach the screen which was 20 feet from the light source. The foreground however was illuminated enough for the shot. The other challenge was the movie itself, trying to stop the action with a slow shutter speed and yet retain the depth of field required to keep everything in focus. By increasing the ISO I was able to shoot at 1/8 of a second @f8, hand held BTW and maintain a balance that worked reasonably well. The client loved the results and we moved on.