Hand-held low-speed

Norah (larger)

My next roll was my hand-held, low light roll. ISO was held at 400 for this roll, but I wanted to see if shooting at f/2.8 and 1/30th was going to work out. Norah’s picture above was (if memory serves me) f/2.8 at 1/30th.

Let’s start by discussing what I think went well in this picture:

1. Clarity
   I’ve very happy with the overall clarity of the picture. I’m quite enjoying medium format.
2. The eyes.
   I’m also happy with the reflection in her eyes. I’m very happy to report that the reflection was quite intentional and I moved around to get it. Now, you can scoff and think to yourself “well, duh” but I’ll tell you that it’s not easy for me to remember all the little details when shooting.
3. Blur isolation
   I also like the blur of the lens that the aperture provided. Granted, I chose the aperture for exposure reasons, but nonetheless, I’m still happy with the isolation it provides.

Things that could have gone better:

1. Dust, dust, dust.
   Dust spots are still a major problem. I spent a considerable amount of time in Lightroom removing dust. I’m working on it, but I’m still not sure where it’s all coming from and how to mitigate it effectively. Aaargh!
2. Overall composition.
   It’s not bad, but it is just a grab shot. While nothing to be ashamed about, I’d still like to strive for better.

Stella on fire (larger)

Of course she’s not really on fire. I just think the rim lighting of the sun makes her hair look like fire. I don’t remember what speed I was shooting here, so I don’t know if this qualifies for my “hand-held low-speed” shooting or not. Still like the picture though….

Technorati Tags: photography, norah, stella, mamiya, c330, tmax, 400, tmy, children, b&w, black, white

Costume Birthday Party

Fighting Evil Doers At Every Turn

We went to a costume birthday party this past weekend. The kids got a trial run on their Halloween costumes.

Above is Lily and a schoolmate, who’s house we were at. We had a good laugh that they both were dressed as SuperGirl, but neither of them seemed to mind.

Stella as a dog

I find this picture hilarious. Stella with her screwed up face. Perhaps it’s ’cause I’m dad.

Norah

Technorati Tags: photography, kids, children, costume, party

Portrait Mood

Sarah and Norah

I’ve definitely been in a portrait mood lately. Sarah and Norah were kind enough to pose for several frames. This is probably my favorite, but there are a couple of “out-takes” that I find funny as well.

 

Norah whacking Mom                         Lucy wanders into view

The portraiture work has been both rewarding and difficult. I think my viewfinder awareness is getting better. I’m becoming more adept at posing too. I think the practice is helping. Also, using the light meter has been fantastic. Maybe several facets are simply “clicking” at the same time, but it seems that using the light meter has really enabled me to think about what each element will look like, and more importantly, what I want each element to look like.

In fact, I wanted to revisit using the pink background. The first time I used it (for Lucy’s birthday pictures) the colors seem to have an almost orange tint. So, I decided to add some light to the background and make the pink “pink-er” whilst photographing Norah.

Norah looking cute.

I’m very pleased with the background color. Just what I wanted. I think that had I moved the flags in closer I’d have at least mitigated the shadow line, if not mostly eliminated it.

Making progress.

Technorati Tags: photography, portrait, portraiture, lights, studio, lighting, children, kids, pink, black

Lighting and Portraits

I feel like I’ve been in a bit of a funk lately, photographically speaking. I really have had a hard time seeing anything interesting to capture. But, since I did get a light meter a few weeks ago I wanted to practice with it. Stella has been very cooperative lately so she’s been my main subject. I did manage to get a few pictures of the other girls, but they were a bit more on the “hostile model” side.

The first photo is Stella in front of a backdrop in the basement. The main light is a Canon 430EX strobe shooting into a bounce umbrella. The background light is a Vivitar 285HV shooting directly into the background, but angled down to get the differential exposure that I wanted around Stella’s head. Since the flash unit is on the ground, the bottom is brighter than the top. I’m not sure how I like that effect, but it’s not a bad picture. I’m trying to remember to pose, get the hands occupied, watch the height of the light so the catch lights line up correctly, etc.

The second picture was taken outside, in the shade. I wanted to try lighting from behind to get a bit of a rim light on Stella’s hair, and use a reflector to provide the main light. So, the setup was a snooted Canon 430EX shooting behind Stella and into a silver reflector. The reflector was angled to provide the main light source.

I think that it worked okay, but only okay. It seems a bit flat to me. I may have to play with it some more. A major flaw here (in my opinion) is the lack of distinctive catch lights in her eyes. There is a bit of reflection, but just not enough for my taste.

Technorati Tags: photography, child, children, portrait, portraiture, lights, lighting, stella

Why do we pay for toys?

Playing with toilet paper

Honestly, why do we spend the money? This is a picture of my 3 oldest girls playing with toilet paper (clean, mind you) in the living room. They were using it like streamers and just having a blast.

Queen Lily

And Lily has it wrapped in her hair pretending to be a queen.

Who knew that toilet paper could be so fun?

Technorati Tags: photography, kids, children, playing, fun, toys, film, black, white, efke

Norah at 3 months

Norah

We decided to have an impromptu photo session for Norah this past Sunday. She’s now almost 4 months old, and experience tells us that this is a good time to get some good baby pictures.

These are my favorite “selects.” I’ve not edited this pictures, as evidenced by the background in the first two. Once we decide which we’re going to print, then I’ll do a final edit and clean up.

Technorati Tags: photography, norah, children, baby, portraits

Random Film Shots

Stella by the Pool

Honestly, how is she standing? Stella’s straight, but nothing else is….

Norah in Sunlight

Lily making letters using her body

Norah finally sleeping

Technorati Tags: photography, film, efke, b&w, black, and, white, kids, children

5×5xMonday

In recent discussions with a friend, we challenged each other. I had to take at least 5 pictures every day by Monday and self-edit down to my choice of the best 5. Hence 5 by 5 by Monday or 5×5xMonday. His challenge was to draw 5 sketches per day and cull to the 5 best for Monday. There was also a loose theme of fun (maybe it was funny; I don’t remember though).

Here are my 5. They’re all centered around kids, as that’s a major part of my life right now. Plus, who best do define “fun?”

Here I come!

Not Happy!

Spinning

Fighting Gravity

Spinning with Ceila

Technorati Tags: photography, kids, children, fun, challenge, digital, canon, 40D, champaign, il

Child photographer….Not so much

From Norah Proofs

Norah

Norah is now 3 weeks old. You’d think that getting a picture for a baby announcement would be a snap, but no such luck.

We did a little browsing on Flickr for some ideas. There are some really good baby pictures on Flickr. I, it seems, can’t make pictures like those. What I can get is a pseudo-portrait type picture. The above picture was taken with window light, shooting at f/2.8, ISO640-ish. I think that I need a bit more practice with my lights, as I just couldn’t seem to get a decent picture with them.

The above picture is my personal favorite for an announcement, but this….

From Norah Proofs

Surprise!

Seems a bit more fun to me. I bet that others in my household would disagree….

Technorati Tags: photography, norah, child, children, baby, announcement