Party in the Studio?

Haha, well let's just say it was a Saturday night. There's a lot of snow out, and nothing's happening. So Kaitlyn wanted to shoot in the studio and Brooke and I were her assistants. It was mad fun watching Kaitlyn trying to order her model around. The lighting was interesting, and she did a few different set ups as she was trying to mimic an advertisement out of a magazine.

As she was shooting, I managed to grab a couple shots with my new 50mm prime lens. It wasn't too expensive, 124 bucks off Amazon. Can't wait to shoot in the studio with it. I was shooting at ISO 800 and f1.8 due to the fact that I didn't have the pocket wizard on my camera; it was on Kaitlyn's. The one shot that seemed in focus (hard to do with an f/1.8 and a moving subject) is the one below.

Now this shot was without a flash, but the model lights were on. I did not shoot a grey card cause it wasn't my shoot, and I just toggled around with the exposure settings on my camera. In photoshop, I took some of the grain out, and balanced the color off the cyc wall, which is white...ish.

Ideas for the studio are flowing into my head! :D

Studio Shoot with Marcie

So today I scheduled my first shoot in the studio. Setting up lights and having assistants is extremely fun. Marcie was easy to shoot as she's a pageant lady. She wanted some head shots and crown shots for a pageant she's participating in within a week.

Light is fun to play with, so I've determined. I have started a little notebook of diagrams of different set-ups that I have already executed, seen someone else use, or plan on testing in the future. The shot above consisted of 5 different lights. A big soft box in front for her face, two rim lights on either side, shooting into foam board to illuminate her sides, and two umbrellas pointing towards the wall of the studio.

Marcie is Miss Cabarrus County, and is now going for Miss North Carolina. She asked for the shoot so she could have a head shot in a program going on this weekend. I gladly said yes, and brought her in the studio for one of the best times I've had behind a camera.

Charleston to Boone

Waking up at 8:30 after going to sleep at 4:30 is more than difficult to do. Starbucks, being situated one corner down, was a necessity. Much of the day was spent in a forum where we learned more than ever thought possible. I probably learned more in that forum than in all of my classes last semester.

After the forum was over, we got to look at the photography part of the Art building at the college. Very impressive, and puts Appalachian's tech photo department to shame. 12 mac's in their digital lab, with 4 printers. Wait, they can print their own work?!? Yessir! Hmm...

After the tour, we worked our way back to Boone. Great way to spend a weekend away from home.

Charleston SC

So a trip to Charleston sounds great, yeah? Two days away from the Boone cold, ice and school. Who knew so much knowledge could come from one night so far.

Coming to Charleston was an idea Kaitlyn came up with. Kudos to her for organizing it all. We piled in a car at 10:30 in the morning with ice all around, and drove down to South Carolina. Layne was basically hanging out the car window taking pictures of the trees.

Upon arrival, we sought out Heather's exhibit. A 3 minute walk from the hotel took us to an amazing showing of her shoots of Uganda. Through the images and descriptions, we felt emotions stir that were indescribable. After looking at all the pieces, I took a few shots of people in the vicinity.

It's nothing too special, but I felt the necessity to put a picture on here.

The rest of the evening was spent wandering around Charleston. Kaitlyn, Nikki and I talked with Mark at 11:40 for 2 hours. Most definitely the best conversation I've had in my life.

Overall, today has been more than productive. I will take more pictures tomorrow, and the next day, and the next day. Wahoo! 2:03am = sleep

8am - 1 am

So today started out with a depressing text letting me know my model for today's shoot was sick. Thankfully Kaitlyn stepped up and we shot each other! I ended up not shooting as much as I would have liked, but still ended up with a picture that, in my mind's eye, is decent enough to show on here.

Let's just say that waking up at 8:15 was worth the knowledge that Blowing Rock got the name 'Blowing' for a reason.

From 11am on, I got to drive with Taylor down to Raleigh to pick a snowboard up, and drive to Greensboro for a shoot on top of a parking deck! From the top, there were about 4 interesting angles in which I could shoot.

25 second exposure. f/22.

So my long exposure images used to come out with a HUGE purple lens

flare in the corner of them. The previous image is proof that buying a $45 UV filter, instead of using a not so nice one, helps improve image quality. Yay for less photoshop!!

Open Doors.

This is Steven:

Yesterday Steven came up from Banner Elk for a shoot. Really good model for the record. We started off by driving down Rivers into the middle of nowhere, and walking into an unfinished house. The house had poor lighting on the inside because it was cloudy. Using the slave as a backdrop on the white walls, I ended up with a few decent pictures inside.

Using a little photoshop, I brought more light into the background to accentuate him.

Our next journey led us to an abandoned house in the middle of the road...BIG turn right before it, so it's difficult to miss. This was shot with the external flash used as a diffuser. Can't wait to finally get my hands on some more lighting equipment.

Panorama

So today I woke up, and went outside to see the sun behind clouds. :) Wahoo!! I went out to the football stadium and found some open gates and wandered in. Kaitlyn and Jon are doing panoramas so i thought, eh, why not? This panorama contains 14 images. Here's the result:

What is this?

This is a space where I plan on putting up my most recent photography escapades. Through this blog I would like to achieve a sense of improvement in my photographs through the rest of my time on here.

Today consisted of hanging out with and shooting with Kaitlyn. After a half day of running around, I edit and see all this amazing grain in my photos! Come to find out my ISO was continently set at 800 instead of my preferred 200. Oh joy.

The first shoot consisted of hard light on snow. I didn't use my external, and it shows in the final images.

The second shoot was more entertaining in the sense that we got to climb on the roof...which was covered in ice and snow. Our model, Paige, slipped and busted her butt which we're certain was heard in the classrooms below. I enjoyed messing around with my slave flash, throwing it around the roof with my jacket,

using the black of the jacket to shield the snow from the light.

Sorting through the shots, I found the ones I like most to consist of softer light on the subject's face. We were both shooting in lower lighted shade, but my ISO was 800 so there was little problem there. Now that I think about it, my D70 wouldn't let the shutter speed go faster than 1/500. This was probably due to the fact that the flash has to have time to show up on the subject. Since I wanted the shutter to be faster than 1/500, it would have been smart to have LOOKED at the ISO and bumped it from 800 to 200...Sadly the D70 doesn't go lower than that.

The last shot I set up was one framed with Paige and Kaitlyn. This is one of the shots that shows more light on Paige's face. I think it'd have been better (if I had more memory cards(note to self)) to allow more of a diffused flash on both her and Kaitlyn.