Admiral Farragut Class of 2010 Graduation Portraits

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Admiral Farragut Graduation Dinner 2010 by Jason Collin Photography

Welcome 2010 graduating class of Admiral Farragut Academy and the family and friends of the seniors.  Available now are the portraits that were taken in the lobby as well as a few candids before the dinner began in the ballroom.  Digital copies may be downloaded in full resolution from the gallery link below.  Prints may be ordered from the same link as well, which will be made by a professional printing lab on your choice of three different professional papers.  Thank you!

ADMIRAL FARRAGUT ACADEMY PHOTOGRAPH GALLERY FOR DOWNLOADS & PRINTS

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Snell Isle Series - 001 - "Eyebrow Cloud Sunset HDR"

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Nikon D300 Tamron 17-50mm f/2.8 @ f/11 ISO 200 9-bracket HDRThough I live in one of the nicer areas of St. Petersburg, I have photographed it very little in the 14 months I have lived here.  So this gave me an idea for another photography series simply titled Snell Isle Series.  The photographs I have made, like the one above, have mostly been from the area behind my back patio.  In fact I have made similar shots to this one in the past (a, b, c).

So now I plan on taking more than ten steps to photograph Snell Isle.  I am looking forward to going to this personal photography project taking me to local areas I might never visit otherwise.  I may even do a lot of shooting by bike as I can be more mobile that way and less hesitant to stop the car to get a shot, I can just hop out of the saddle.  

From May through July the sunsets over Smacks Bayou can be pretty outstanding.  I definitely feel lucky to be able to gaze upon them every evening, but then luck has little to do with it as I always try and choose a place to live that has a sunset view from it.  I last lived in Tokyo for six years before moving back to Florida, and in Tokyo I had exceptional views of the sunset over the western part of the city year round.  

I look forward to continuing this series and making it as diverse as possible.

Sunset Beach Wedding Treasure Island Florida with Mary & Matthew

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Nikon D300 Tamron 17-50mm f/2.8 @ f/8 ISO 500 1/200th strobist: SB-600 on light stand to frame left TTL modeIt is always nice to combine a beautiful wedding dress and a beautiful sunset, except I worry about tearing or damaging such a dress!  So with some hesitation I asked Mary (also the bride featured in "the kiss") if she would be able to sit on the jetties on Sunset Beach of Treasure Island, Florida.  She was up for it so the next challenge was for me to shoot while balanced on a jetty myself.  Fortunately, I started my rock hopping career long ago (in Yosemite National Park) and am comfortable teetering on rocks, though again I was not worried about myself so much as my Nikon D300 falling.  I believe the above shot was worth all the preparing and setup.

Nikon D300 Nikkor 80-200mm f/2.8D @ f/4 ISO 200 1/1250th natural lightMary was all smiles as she walked down the sandy aisle.  For these scenes I like to work with my Nikkor 80-200mm f/2.8D lens at a 200mm focal length to get up close and personal with the bride as she approaches the groom, and to take advantage of its great bokeh and sharpness at the f/4 aperture.  This allows me to have some distance between the bride and myself so I can get more of a candid shot.  Starting a wedding just about 45 minutes before sunset allows for some great natural light as well.  I used no flash in the above shot.

Nikon D300 Tamron 17-50mm f/2.8 @ f/8 ISO 320 1/320th strobist - SB-600 on light stand to left in TTL mode

The sun seemed to set slowly this evening, allowing us to try more types of shots than usual.  The staring off into the distance shot is a one I personally like to do as a photographer (I hope the client likes it too!).  I let them stare for a good bit of time to let their minds wonder onto what may.  Then I take the shot without any real warning.  I can think of no greater instrument for conjuring deep thought than the Sea at sunset.  I did not ask then what they thought of. 

Work on digital photography shooting & editing skills simultaneously

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Nikon D300 Nikkor AF ED 80-200mm f/2.8D lens @ f/4 ISO 200 1/5000th processed in Aperture 3, Photoshop CS5, Nik Color Efex Pro 3, Topaz Adjust 3

It is a source of pride still among pro, serious amateur, hobbyist and beginner photographers alike to get it right in camera.  By that they mean one should not need to do that much editing to images to produce a great finished shot if only the settings in the camera were optimal to begin with.  I used to think like that.  I still do not shoot lazily thinking I can fix this or that in Photoshop as much as I possibly can, the biggest exception being I know I will have to edit out my light stand's shadow in some backlit portrait shots.  However, I find myself more and more realizing having strong editing skills can mine gold from, well, a bland river (pun intended).

The above shot was made while teaching a photography lesson to a student.  My full attention was not put into photographing the subject matter as best as possible as I was of course focused on helping my student make the best possible image she could.  Still, there was something about the shot I liked, mostly the one guy sitting down facing the opposite way, as well as the graffiti and color reflected in the Hillsborough River.  Basically, I saw the potential the image had.

So I opened up my digital darkroom as Rick Sammon likes to call it, and mined a final shot that though technically not perfect (focus slightly behind rowers, etc.), has some pop to it due to the color Topaz Adjust and Color Efex Pro were able to bring out from the RAW file.  I then applied selective contrast adjustments to the wall and the water.  

Therefore, I recommend working on your editing skills just as hard as you work on your in the field shooting skills.  Develop them simultaneously.  If I combined my shooting skills today, with my editing skills of even just one year ago, I would not be able to produce as many images that pop as I can now.  This is especially true for when shooting during non-golden-hour times.   

One day soon I will return to this location to do a photo series of crew rowers, as I find it is a subject matter and location I am drawn too.  I made this photograph from the University of Tampa campus side of the river.  It was about 3pm on a weekday afternoon.

Just the basic processed RAW file, as "straight out of the camera" a photo made in RAW can get

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    • DSLR Photography Lesson with April in St Petersburg

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    April and I had a very relaxed DSLR Photography Lesson in St PetersburgThe new late spring time I start my DSLR Photography Lessons at is 9am, in an attempt to beat the heat.  So that is when new student April and I met in downtown St. Petersburg.  Thanks to a decent breeze and low humidity, the weather for our lesson was almost pleasant.  

    April is a new DSLR owner, a Nikon D5000, a great budget choice for entering into the world of DSLR photography.  She had some exposure to a pro photographer in her past so she was familiar with photography terms and knew her way around her D5000's menus pretty well already.  In our lesson we focused on learning how to set the right aperture, ISO, white balance and focus mode for various typical shooting conditions.

    While we walked around the downtown St. Petersburg waterfront park area, the third largest in all of North America, I had a very good time getting to know April better as we shared a few stories about non-photography topics as well.  

    We ended up in Vinoy Park practicing how to compose landscape portraits, i.e. do not put the horizon across the person's head, get the person's head above the horizon actually, and while you are at it keep that horizon straight!  I look forward to more lessons with April in the near future. 

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    • Sunny Florida at f/11 project #04 - Fossil Lake Park

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    Nikon D300 Tamron 17-50mm f/2.8 @ f/11 ISO 200 3-bracket HDR handheld (breaking my own rules again!)Continuing what I have now determined will be a summer long project, the latest entry in my own personal photography project -- Sunny Florida at F/11 is an impromptu HDR shot of Fossil Lake Park.  I had heard of this park for a long time, and driven by it several times only glancing its baseball fields.  When I first heard that St. Petersburg had a "fossil park" I obviously thought it was something like the San Andreas Tar Pits, a place I imagine to have dinosaur bones just lying around in the open!  

    However, there were no fossils or even bones of any kind, unfortunately.  I would not even think the park old enough to even begin decaying a banana peel, sadly.  

    Still, disappointment at not being able to finally realize my boyhood dream of paleontology work aside, it was a surprisingly nice park for what it is, a small oasis in the middle of a not so green area of central St. Petersburg.  There was decent wildlife with strange ducks, turtles and bluejays among other creatures.  Basically, it's a decent place for a 15 minutes or so stroll.

    Florida Botanical Gardens flowers in brief macro

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    Nikon D300 Nikkor AF-S 105mm VR Micro f/2.8G @ f/8 ISO 640 1/25th natural light

    I made these macro flower photographs during a recent DSLR Photography lesson with a student at Florida Botanical Gardens.  I was of course focused on teaching her, but I did have a few moments to shoot along side her after I helped her get her camera set to make a similar shot.  Sometimes I used my Nikon Speedlight SB-600 on and off camera, sometimes, like above, the natural light at 8am was good enough.

    Nikon D300 Nikkor AF-S 105mm VR Micro f/2.8G @ f/11 ISO 200 1/200th strobist: SB-600 on cameraThe above magnolia flower was offering parts of itself, or getting rid of parts of itself, in a very interesting manner to me.  I wonder how often a magnolia flower's lower petal aligns just right so that it can catch those stems?  Maybe it is not uncommon?  

    Nikon D300 Nikkor AF-S 105mm VR Micro f/2.8G @ f/11 ISO 200 1/60th strobist: SB-600 off camera TTL modeThat red flower seems almost bioelectric to me, like it is plugged into electricity somewhere and at night would light up like a flower found on Pandora.  I considered a closer crop of the flower, but wanted to included background elements to show its seeming desire to remain unseen by the passerby despite being so pretty.