Photography Lessons

Off Camera Flash Strobist DSLR Photography Lesson with Julie & Rebecca

in

Julie practices off camera flash as her friend, Rebecca (also my photo student), does an excellent modeling job for her!Julie has started her second 4-pack of 1-on-1 DSLR Photography Lessons with me and is really ready to step up her photography skills!  She has invested in complete setup for off camera flash, or strobist, photography.  This actually does not require a large financial investment (assuming you already have a speedlight).  To join the strobist portrait world it just takes a light stand, head for the light stand, radio triggers and maybe a brolly or other light modifier.  All that can be had for about $125.  Just add your DSLR & speedlight, and of course my photography lessons, and you can start making your own amazing portraits (see above).  

For this lesson in downtown St. Petersburg Julie brought along her friend Rebecca, who is also taking my photography lessons as well!  She was a very patient model as we setup up several different shots in North Straub Park and along the waterfront.  You can see the very simple one speedlight setup we used with just a diffuser cap on (as it was too windy at this spot for the brolly) in the image above and a resulting dramatic portrait.  I look forward to showing Julie how to become an even better strobist photographer in our next lesson!

1-on-1 Canon T4i DSLR Photography Lesson on dogs with Nicole

in

I met Nicole this morning not at my usual downtown St. Petersburg spot, but nearby at Northshore Dog Park as she had a specific assignment from her photojournalism class to photograph dogs.  She will be taking my 1-on-1 DSLR Photography Lessons to help her with that class and to be better at photography in general.  With the shots I was able to help her make this morning I am confident she will show up with the best shots in her class!

As Nicole needed to get a couple of very specific shots, and the number of dogs in the park was not a constant, for this first lesson I mostly just had her jump to the right settings for photographing dogs in motion so she could get the shots for sure, and then filled in the details as we went along.  Despite the overcast skies and puddles, we were fortunate that there were any dogs there, and even more fortunate that there were very playful ones that allowed Nicole to capture the insane faces dogs make as they wrestle with each other resulting in dynamic shots with a shallow DoF as I had Nicole shooting in Shutter Priority mode at 1/500th and ISO 400 allowing for a well exposed and sharp shot.  

I was impressed with Nicole's physical shooting skills and her ability to stay low at eye level to the dogs for extended periods of time and produce consistent results, including level horizons.  I look forward to helpin her with her next assignment!

Theory of Photography 1-on-1 DSLR Lesson with Irene & her Nikon D90

in

Irene with her Nikon D90 getting ready to go on her 4th African safari!I had a most unusual and interesting 1-on-1 DSLR Photography Lesson with new student Irene yesterday evening.  She already was familiar with photography terms and concepts like aperture, ISO, etc, but wanted to learn how to better apply them in combination when you hit the limits of each of those things, not to mention when available light is in short supply.  Getting all this right is key since she is about to go on her fourth African safari photography trip!  

Irene did a good job of asking questions to find out my own personal photography beliefs.  For example, if you are shooting with a 70-200mm f/2.8 lens in limited light, would you use f/4 ISO 400 1/200th or f/2.8 ISO 200 and 1/200th?  Those kinds of questions and scenarios made up the bulk of our initial 90-minute discussion.  We concluded the lesson with a few composition tips.  

I look forward to seeing all the great wildlife shots Irene will return from Africa with!

External Flash DSLR Photography Lesson with Kristin & her Canon 430 EX II

in

Me using Kristin's camera to demonstrate where to stand for on camera bounce flash.For our third of four 1-on-1 DSLR Photography Lessons I met Kristin in the usual downtown St. Petersburg spot.  This time she brought her new Canon 430 EX II external flash to practice how to improve her portrait making.  We started off using some bounce flash techniques by positioning the subject (alternatively me and Kristin) against a wall that was near another perpendicular well, or to put it simply, near a corner!  In this way we bounced the flash off the perpendicular wall to create softer shadows and more even light on the subject (see image above).

We concluded by using her external flash (on camera) to help make landscape portraits at sunset time and beyound.  It is a fine art of balancing the power of the flash with the exposure of the ambient light so that the subject does not look too "flashed."  I look forward to seeing Kristin's creative portraits when we meet for our next lesson.

Flower Arrangement Photography Lesson in Tampa with Gopal

in

Getting things setup to photograph flowers using an industrial light system in TampaI have taught over 200 1-on-1 DSLR Photography Lessons to people who were mostly hobbyists wanting to get better at making photographs for themselves.  However, I am increasingly teaching people who want to get better at photography for improving their own business.  These are what I call Commercial DSLR Photography Lessons.  Such was the case when I went over to Tampa to teach Gopal (holding camera above) how to photograph flower arrangements using the lighting and gear he currently had.  

I still began the lesson like I do any other, by teaching Gopal my step-by-step processing for setting the camera in order to procduce a well exposed and sharp image in any given shooting condition.  From there we went to using his very specific setup in the same room he would be photographing the floral arrangements.  I gave advice on where to better position the lights and how to manipulate the exposure to produce the darker overall tone to the images that he wanted.  

In addition to this shooting process we also covered a little bit of digital editing workflow.  I look forward to seeing his final images using all we covered that afternoon.

Real Estate Photography Lesson in Largo with Kelly & her Canon XS

in

Real estate photography often involves working in small spaces!This year I have started to teach more commercial photography lessons, that is teaching photography to those who will use those photography skills to directly help their own businesses.  To that end I met Kelly this morning in Largo for a 1-on-1 DSLR Photography Lesson on how to photograph real estate, as she is an agent and wants to improve her listings with better images.  She was a referral from Angela, another photography student and also family portrait client.  Thank you Angela!

The photography lesson with Kelly this morning was a combination of the usual 5-step methodology (in manual mode) I teach everyone for creating a well exposed and sharp image in any given situation.  However, I limited the scenarios this time of course to shooting indoor interiors.  In this way I showed Kelly everything from how to properly change lenses, how to get the most stability out of a tripod, why you would want to purposefully overexpose certain images and also how to compose and frame shots to best showcase each room of a house.

It was a nice change of pace for me to teach this kind of commercial lesson and I look forward to seeing the no doubt improved real estate photographs Kelly uses for her upcoming listings!  Visit her official business website if you are looking for a home in northern Pinellas.

Architecture Photography Lesson in St. Petersburg Florida with Chris

in

Chris composes an architecture shot with her Nikon D90 on her Induro CT214 tripod in St. PetersburgThis was my fourth of four 1-on-1 DSLR Photography Lessons with Chris in downtown St. Petersburg.  This time we focused on architecture shots and made use again of her awesome new Induro CT214 tripod.  A tripod can be an unwieldy thing, and just like any other piece of photography gear, the mechanics of how to use it need to be learned and honed so that excess time setting up the tripod does not start to cause one to miss shots, or even worse make one want to just leave the dang tripod at home!  Thankfully, the leglocks on the Induro CT214 are as smooth as butter and can be loosened and tightened with just about only a 3/4th twist.

Chris used her Nikon D90 in manual mode the entire time naturally as the meter did not often suggest the exposure we actually wanted when shooting in the late morning sunlight.  Through a process of getting the tripod in place, composing the shot and locking in the best exposure settings Chris learned that photographing an entire building is not often the most ideal architecture shot, where shooting only a portion of the structure can lead to a more creative final image.  

Chris has two trips coming up over the next few months and will soon be able to put all she learned in our eight hours of 1-on-1 instruction to great use and I really look forward to seeing her photographs!