Holiday Portrait Sessions

On the Sunday before Christmas, I decided to have an open house/photo session for friends and family. (This was a direct copy of what a friend of mine did, but she was charging for her photos.) The intent was to provide a disc to each family of selected and edited prints that they could print themselves. We had some treats out, and had six families come out over the course of the day to get family photos done. Some were formal, and some casual. I think people had varying expectations - one friend said she was surprised to see the 10x20 foot back drop and all the lights, as Larissa just suggested they come over for a family photo so André could practice a little!

It was a fun day - I learned a few things. Shoot less tight to accomodate for different prints - namely 8x10! (Thank goodness for Content Aware Scaling on the background!) Also, glasses are a pain - I think the best solution is to remove the lenses, but a slight tilt helps a lot (put the end of the arms above the ears up about half and inch). Lastly - remove distractions! There were lots of the photos of kids looking at other things in the room (namely other kids) and not the camera!

Oh Well - I guess they day was productive as I learned something, had a good time, and gave a gift to some friends.

Here are a few examples...








...and my sister!

Self Portrait

I recently had a project through the photo club to create a self portrait. We saw many examples exhibited - they ranged from the mundane to excellent images that obviously required much thought and skill in their execution.

I am posting this because, as a photographer I rarely get to the other side of the camera. Here is my example of what I consider an average entry into the topic of self portrait.



This image was created by cutting a circular image out of a photo of me, and copying it as a layer over the image of the camera - positioning it right over the lens. I selected the portrait layer and softened the edges a bit so the edge was not hard. I also used the distort > lens tool to slightly alter the portrait so it bulged out in the middle - as it was on a curved surface. I then adjusted the opacity of the portrait layer to 60% so the natural lens reflections would show through. (I darkened the highlights of the lens reflections as well) The last step was to merge the layers.

A friend of mine (and awesome photographer), John MacLean, has a great photo which he created for the assignment, he has given me permission to show it here.



I love this!!!

3 Light setup

In the process of taking the previously posted photos, I shot a few 'setup' shots. Here are the three lights , one at a time to show each effect, and how the final setup comes together.


...and here is a basic diagram of the above (or close to it)...

Faces of Alex

When I was shooting the kids 'school' photos the other day - I had to promise Alex that he could make faces for some of the photos. He made a lot of faces - they were awesome! We got the requisite portraits, and some funny faces as an added bonus. We just had to make a composite of a few!



I sampled the colours of the backdrop and shirt to make the background.

My own School photos!

A day off afforded me some time to shoot my own kids 'school' photos - they turned out well. Hope's shot is straight out of the camera!




And this one of Alex had only a minor exposure adjustment.



These were shot with my Canon 50D, with 28-105mm f3.5-4.5 lens. I had 2 umbrellas - one main and one fill (with flashes in them), and a flash on the background.

I'm number 1 !

Just tooting my own horn - this month my images were chosen for first place in our photo club's web and projected competitions. Here they are:

Projected Competition




Web Competition



YAY!!

New Camera Story

Recently I did a photo shoot where I was using both of my digital cameras...the Canon Digital Rebel XT and the Canon 20D. A couple of times I fumbled with the settings on the XT as it is more finicky when handling exposure compensation and exposure lock (and different to the 20D).

I decided that it was smarter to have another body that was the same. My options were anything in the 20D-50D line. I scratched out the 20D/30D as I was not comfortable buying something used that was that old (although mine works fine). That left the 40D and 50D. The 50D was a little more $ than I wanted to spend, and after some research I felt that the additional benefits that the 50D offered over the 40D was not work the price, especially when comparing the price of a new 50D to a used 40D.

To my delight I found a Factory refurbished 40D - I thought great! Some peace of mind as it is factory refurbished, and a good price! After receiving it in the mail, a quick test showed it was defective...

I called the store and they had no other that I could exchange it with. I returned it.

After some searching, the only other 40Ds that I found were $100+ more than the first one, and at that price, I started looking at the 50D again.

In the end I got a 50D, and I am happy as I have the latest technology, a NEW camera, with warranty, and it matches my 20D perfectly. There are still debates on the quality of the high ISO performance, but I am satisfied with what I have seen so far.

The XT is already sold - with the money going to fund the 50D purchase - now I just have to sell a few more things....