Weekly Workshop – Wide angle with Analise in the Mission

May 12, 2010 By 2 Comments

This week I wanted to accomplish two things – explore a neighborhood and work on my wide angle shots. I generally gravitate to highly cropped shots in my portraits. I like the connection with the camera/audience that cropped shops provide – especially when photographing families and children. But one always must try new things I forced myself to shoot wider and capture the surroundings. And I had the perfect subject. Little Analise is an explorer and living right of 24th st in the mission is an ideal location. Debbie (her mom) and I followed her as she went from store front to bubble gum machine to playground and back. It was all I could do to get ahead of her for a second, take a picture and then move on. Great fun for sure and we got some really nice results.

Thanks Debbie and Analise.

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Bloglink:  http://jchandlerphotography.com/2000

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Weekly Workshop 6 – Reflector and Asher

April 29, 2010 By 7 Comments

Yesterday I received my order for a “Lastolite 32″ Tri Grip Collapsable Triangular Reflector, Silver / White, with Built-in Holder.” Sounds cool and it is. It’s a silver and white reflector with a handle and its sooo very easy to use. I’ve seen Ed Pignol speak twice in the past two weeks and these are one of his tools for getting great exposure in his photography. I gave it a try and am very happy with the results.

Couple things that make it very nice:

*  Very satisfying “thwac” when you open it up. It goes from a little folded circle to large guitar-pick shaped reflector in less than a second.  Lucius (my son) loved opening and closing it.  You could hear Thwac-Fold, Thwac-Fold, Thwac-Fold for about 15 minutes in our house this afternoon.
*  Folds nicely first and every time – I was shocked that I got it back into the pouch so easily.
*  Handle makes using it a breeze – cannot figure out why there aren’t more of these.  Calumet – you gotta catch up.  Works fine for a single shooter (like I am mostly)
*  Great results – can’t say that it reflects light better than other reflectors but because it was so easy to use, I found myself using it throughout my shoot with little Asher.

I can definitely see myself using this again – especially with photographing children and families.  Will be a nice addition for working in the San Francisco Fog and in homes.

This week I worked with Asher and his mom Jennafer.  Asher has fabulous curls and its pretty clear that Jennafer won’t be cutting his hair anytime soon.  He is a great little guy – very determined to explore most everything.  And because he wasn’t so interested in staying still, the mobility of the Lastolite reflector was very helpful.  I could place it on his shadowed side or at his feet to add just a bit of light to his face and eyes.  Allowed me to snap a few shots before Asher moved on and then quickly reposition it.

I think it worked out really well.  Thanks Jennafer and Asher (and Daddy Paul who made a cameo).  Hope you enjoy the photos.

Blog link: http://jchandlerphotography.com/1770

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Weekly Workshop 5 – Flash and White Balance

April 22, 2010 By 6 Comments

This week I met Elyse and her beautiful daughter Rose.  We were going to meet outside but a cold spring rain kept us inside.  Fortunately, they have a wonderful home in the inner Richmond of San Francisco so it wasn’t a problem at all.  I continued my work with on camera flash and added in a white balance challenge.  A few days back I saw Ed Pignol speak at a PPGBA meeting (Professional Photographers of the Greater Bay Area).  He said that a key aspect of his photography (which is amazing with a capital A), is fine tuning the white balance.  He was the first photographer I heard say that he uses the manual WB setting predominantly rather then the camera presets (Automatic, Sunny, florescent, cloudy, etc).  I had never done that so I thought I would give it a try.  I am always looking for ways to improving results while reducing my post processing time.

Hard to say if it was the great light, beautiful little girl. wonderful house or the white balance fine tuning that produced the results but overall I was really happy with this approach.  Does require for greater awareness of surroundings and settings but that is probably a good thing.  You can see the light got green in the shots from her room (with the horse) where the walls were green, a bit warmer with the hard wood floors, a little cooler/bluer when she was looking out the frontdoor glass.   Next step will be learning the manual settings for different colors.  One big bonus was that post processing was much easier. One color preset to pop the colors a bit and then just a little exposure correction. As a San Francisco Photographer, I think this will be really helpful for shooting in different houses and apartments. Light can be so crazy in San Francisco with the ever changing weather.  Getting great exposure no matter where the house is and no matter where the family is in that house, will be very helpful.

Thanks Elyse and Rose. Hope you enjoy the photos.

And if you want to hear Ed speak this week, come to the San Francisco Smugmug User group meeting.

Blog link:  http://jchandlerphotography.com/1703

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Weekly Workshop 4 – more flash

April 16, 2010 By 8 Comments

This week, I wanted to follow up from my practice session last week when I used Niel VN’s “black thingy.”  I wanted to work on balancing the flash with the ambient light in the room.  Especially with kids i would like to be able just a bit if light with out blowing out their faces.  Definitely not as easy as it sounds.  I had the good fortune of working Carrie and her two little ones Conner and Winston.  The boys are 5 months, super cute and have the bluest of eyes. Unfortunately for the practice session, Carrie’s house had too much good light and the flash was overkill for a good number of the shots.  Probably wouldn’t have used a flash if was a real shoot.

Still learned a couple things:

*  Flash is great for the eyes – those baby blues  really sparkle with the extra light

*   At this point the black thingy approach works best for me when there is a fairly strong directional light (like from a front window) as opposed to a larger diffused light (like a ceiling light)

Still lots to learn – going outside next week.

Thanks Carrie and good luck with all those fingers and toes.

Blog Link:  http://jchandlerphotography.com/1530

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Weekly Workshop 3 – Flash with Zane

April 12, 2010 By 6 Comments

Last week I gave flash photography a go in my practice session with Zane (thanks to his mom Caitlin for opening up their house to me). I’ve never been a huge proponent of flash photography because it always seemed that to get really good results (i.e. not looking like you actually are using a flash), you needed to use off camera flash and that required additional setup and equipment. Lighting equipment has definitely gone down in price and in footprint size but it still requires extra time and it requires the subject set up in generally one place and face generally in the same direction. Especially with children, I like to follow them around and capture them in action. At this point I feel like setting up a lighting system would hinder the “natural” feel of my work. So I’ve always stuck with natural light.

But last week I listened to the Camera Dojo Podcast and heard the interview with Neil van Niekerk.  Neil talked about how he can get a natural light feel with an on-camera flash by bouncing the light off a wall/ceiling and by using a black piece of foam to keep the flash light from going directly to the subject.  I knew about bouncing the light but the black foam thingie was a game changer for me.  I love the idea of combining the benefits of off camera flash with the freedom of natural light.

I meet Zane and Caitlin in their NOPA/Western Addition home in San Francisco and gave Niel’s technique a try.  I have say that I was very please with the results.  Having the the flash option freed me up to shoot Zane from many different angles.  Their house gets beautiful reflective light from the buildings across the street.  Without the flash I would position Zane facing the windows so I could keep the light on his face and crazy big blue eyes.  Those shots would turn out fine but I would have serious exposure problems anytime he turned around.  The shots of him reading in the chair (with his back to the windows) wouldn’t have worked at all with out the flash.

And the black thingie addition was amazing.  I using black construction paper and a hair tie and it worked great.  Rotating the paper as I rotated the flash and the camera took some work but I was happy with the results and I would improve with more practice.  But without too much trouble, I could bounce the light of their their walls with out blowing out his face.

I liked how bouncing the light off the wall or ceiling made for a natural feel but then I could create something more dramatic by bouncing it off the floor.  Also, but changing the flash output I could darken the rest of the room and highlight just Zane.

And definitely follow Niel’s advice about fast lenses.  My 50 1.8 worked great all the time but my variable aperture 24-70 didn’t work one I got above 2.8 or so.  I would also say that a battery grip would be a good addition so that you can better stabilize the camera while shooting in portrait rather than landscape.  My sb900 sticks out quite a ways in portrait mode and that reduces my ability to get a clean shot.

Overall, I think Niel’s suggestion is very effective.  I can shoot natural light when ever I want and then with no fush I turn on the flash when ever the lighting requires it.  Looking forward to try this out at my next family shoot and next wedding.

Thanks to Zane, Caitlin, Kerry from Camera Dojo and Niel.

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Blog link:  http://jchandlerphotography.com/1522

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Weekly Workshop 2 – Exposure in bright light

March 10, 2010 By Leave a Comment

With the days getting longer, I thought it prudent to practice photographing in bright sunlight. I met Erin and her two fabulous sons Logan and Miles at the Golden Gate Park Playground in San Francisco. It was a beautiful, bright afternoon so it was perfect. I shot in manual with my 85 1.8. And to reduce the “I’ll take care of that with photoshop” thoughts, I shots jpgs instead of RAW. I worked on reading the photographs via the histogram and changing the settings with out moving the camera from my eye. All in all it was a really great shoot – Logan and Miles were perfect models and played in the grass and the trees and I think we got some nice shots.

One cool thing was seeing Miles’s face get lit up by the reflection off of Erin’s shirt. You can see it in the photograph with her laying down and him standing up. His face is ever so slightly light up by the reflection. I never realized that would happen. Might be useful next time I photograph a baby or a toddler.

Thanks Rudsenke Family. I had a great time and learned a ton.

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Weekly Workshop 1 – Reflections in the Panhandle

March 4, 2010 By 1 Comment

I wanted to keep track of what I learned in my Weekly Workshop so I figured I would just blog about.

Yesterday, as has been common place this year in San Francisco, there was crazy rain up until 4pm.  Rain was so heavy in fact that I had tentatively canceled the practice session.  But the sun popped out so I ran down to meet Annika, Loden and baby brother Shael in the Golden Gate Panhandle.  I was there to practice reflection shots but Loden was there to fish.   Cutest thing – he kept handing me a stick and asking “do you want to fish with me?”

I was inspired to try reflections after seeing the work of FC Wong (http://www.fcwongweddings.com/).  His work is awesome and so original that I wanted to give them a go.

What I learned:

*  colors look great after a rain storm

*  Reflections for reflections sake don’t work – entire image still needs to have artistic quality

*  With a reflection, I need to clarify what is the main focus – the reflection or the real item/person.  If it isn’t identified, then the observer has the unsettling experience of going back and forth between the two.

*  Make sure that that the reflection contains everything – I have one shot below would have been the money shot of the shoot if I hadn’t cut his head off in the reflection.

*  in a flat reflection like a puddle, you can turn the image upside down for an interesting effect.

Great first practice session – that you Ehrlich family.

Gallery is here.

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