Chris' 40th Birthday Party in Tampa

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Chris and his son celebrating his 40th birthday upside downI have a great business and personal relationship with the Rivera family.  It started with teaching Carlos some Mac OS X lessons last year.  It continued with some more conversations about Mac hardware.  Then I met the extended Rivera family while photographing a birthday party for Carlos' children.  I donated a portrait package to a charity auction run by Carlos' mother.  Then I got to see everyone again this year at Chris' birthday party, which was again a mix of professional and personal time.

Embracing the family's unique characters for this portrait!I think most children do not naturally sit with upright posture, shoulders turned at a slight angle, eyes looking into a lens, i.e. the ideal portrait setup.  Thankfully Chris and his wife let the boys be themselves and I believe 20 years from now this portrait will be much more valuable to them than if both boys were sitting perfectly still, well behaved, looking into the camera.  Perhaps the photograph can also be used to do some friendly embarrassing of them in front of their future girlfriends?

I ate two pieces of this cake, it was great!There is nothing like a homemade birthday cake, and the Rivera family was kind enough to offer me a piece.  When they saw how quickly I inhaled the first piece, I was offered a second to bring home with me.  Having been western cake deprived for most of the 00s while living in Asia, I have been doing my best to catch up the past year and a half.  

I feel very privileged to be accepted by the Rivera family and to be invited into their homes to share and photograph their family events.  They have a great, warm family atmosphere among them.  I look forward to the next birthday party!

Kiki sandy with bokeh at Honeymoon Island State Park

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Nikon D300 Nikkor AF ED 80-200mm f/2.8D @ f/4 ISO 200 1/1000th

As Kiki gets older, now almost 1.5 years old, I take less photographs of her, even though I wish I had taken even more when she was a small puppy.  I think in my mind I always thought she would shrink back to under 20 pounds, only to expand again to her current 62 pounds.  Apparently, this is not going to happen.  

She loves the beach and loves to swim.  She likes to chase me while I skimboard too.  After coming out of the water she will often do a nosedive right into the sand.  This is of course nonsensical to me and alarming, as I do not want her to scratch or irritate her eyes by driving sand into them.  The only thing that is not concerning about her sand faceplants is the comical covering of sand on her head that results.  She is nonplussed about it.

Nikon D300 Nikkor AF ED 80-200mm f/2.8D @ f/4 ISO 200 1/2500th (all 3 same)I also feel Kiki shakes much more than other dogs.  Many times a day she shakes for no apparent reason inside our sand free home.  Of course at the beach she shakes every other minute.  

What kinds of unusual things does your dog do? 

St Petersburg Downtown Sky View Architecture & Panoramas

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Signature St Petersburg Condo skyscraper - Nikon D300 Tamron 17-50mm f/2.8 @ f/11 ISO 200 5-bracket HDR (handheld)I had been thinking a lot the past few days how long it had been since I went out and just shot for fun, for myself.  Last week photography friend Wade suggested we join NPPF's meetup in downtown St. Petersburg.  I said sure, let's do it.  Then when one NPPF member said we can shoot from the top of the condo building he lives in, equivalent to the 28th floor, I thought wow, can get some new shots of an area I have photographed already almost every which way.  

Downtown St. Petersburg waterfront 6-shot panorama - click to view LARGEI had also been wanting to give Photoshop CS5's great Photomerge action another try, but one cannot just easily create a compelling panorama just anywhere.  However, an open wraparound viewing area twenty-eight stories up is certainly a compelling area.  

Nikon D300 with Tamron XR Di II 17-50mm f/2.8 lens @ f/11 ISO 200 5-bracket HDR (handheld)The rooftop we were on was adjacent to downtown St. Petersburg's newest skyline addition, Signature St. Petersburg, a very aggressive modern condo skyscraper that dominated our southern view, and thus received a lot of lens attention from myself and everyone else in the group.  I taught a DSLR Photography Lesson on architecture back in March using the skyscraper as a subject matter.

South of Downtown St. Petersburg 6-shot panorama - click to view LARGEI like having a high view.  For four years in Tokyo I lived on the 11th floor of a building with views of downtown Shinjuku and the sunset.  I liked being able to step out onto my balcony and survey all the land before me.  There is nothing quite like having a sweeping, bird's eye view.

Nikon D300 with Nikkor AF-S 105mm VR micro f/2.8G lens @ f/16 ISO 200This was the second time in a week of being high up in a condo with a view of downtown St. Petersburg after never being more than a few stories off the ground in a year and a half.  Beholding such a view is starting to feel contagious, although living so high up with a thirsty puppy needing half a dozen bathroom breaks a day would not be so convenient.  

DSLR Photography Lesson with Deb & her new 430EX II Speedlite

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Deb wielding her substantial Canon 70-200mm f/2.8L IS lens - photo: Nikon D300 Tamron 17-50mm f/2.8 @ f/11 ISO 200 1/320th Strobist: Nikon SB-600 Speedlight held off camera triggered by commander mode

Once again my week started off with a fun DSLR Photography Lesson with Deb (lesson #1) in downtown St. Petersburg.  In the past week she got some new photography gear in the form of a Canon 430EX II Speedlite, which I suggested to her during our first lesson as the best piece of gear to get next, as speedlights are extremely useful.  She even got a bounce cap too, also very useful.  

We started out shooting in the shade of one of the downtown condo towers to escape the heat and also because shade is better for making portraits.  The first flash shots we took were practicing bouncing the flash off of available walls.  Ideally there would be a nice, smooth white wall everywhere you happened to decide to make a portrait, however, one often has to make due with much less.  Still, in a few quick test shots I was able to demonstrate to Deb that even bouncing the light from her 430EX II off a rough, dark creme wall was better than pointing the light straight at me.  She was able to do this because the 430EX II has a swivel head allowing her to point the light of the flash in a different direction than her lens.  On camera flash does not allow one to do this.  Hence, an external flash, even used on camera, has a great advantage over the built-in pop-up flash.

Sometimes there are not any walls around so we even practiced for that before finishing with making a portrait in direct sunlight, perhaps the least ideal situation.  However, using my tried and true settings (see photo description) serviceable broad daylight portraits are possible, when necessary.

Next lesson we will be getting the flash off of Deb's 7D and out on its own for off camera flash to produce even better portrait results.  Deb is learning fast!

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    • Natural Light Portrait in the Golden Hour

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    Nikon D300 with Nikkor AF ED 80-200mm f/2.8 lens @ f/4 ISO 200 1/1600th natural lightI am a huge believer and practitioner of off camera flash.  However, it is very freeing to be able to photograph without worry of a strobe firing, using the right power, diffusing the flash properly, etc.  Florida has mostly very, very harsh and strong sunlight, but it has golden hours just like every where else too.  

    I made this portrait using the nice soft light of about 30 minutes before sunset on this Treasure Island beach.  Note though that I still had the subject mostly face the setting sun as well as my back to the sun.  I chose an aperture that allowed me to both use the lowest ISO on my camera and also produce a shallow DoF in order to separate my subject from the background.  

    Depending on location and sky conditions, the golden hour for shooting can start from about 90-minutes before sunset and continue on a few minutes after it sets.  Of course there is another golden hour each day for early risers, about 30 minutes before sunrise.

    DSLR Photography Lesson with Cindy & her Canon T1i

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    Cindy holding her Canon T1i properly with the left palm under the lens

    Cindy recently joined the DSLR world and having already booked a trip to Alaska for 2011 wants to get a head start on being able to make some great shots of the vistas and wildlife in the land of the midnight sun.  So she brought her Canon T1i to downtown St. Petersburg for our first DSLR Photography Lesson to learn how to make shots with bokeh on purpose, how to photograph moving objects and basically learn which settings need to be changed when switching to a different shooting style or subject matter.  

    Cindy photographs a great egret during our DSLR photography lesson in Vinoy ParkI feel that the Canon T1i makes changing settings easier than on the Canon 7D (twice the price) because it has single, dedicated buttons for ISO, WB and focus mode (though sporadically laid out).  As I suggest to all students, I told Cindy to become obsessed with checking settings as much as possible.  Sure enough, some how one time her white balance got changed back to AWB rather than daylight.  

    Cindy says she lives near the area of St. Petersburg called the "jungle" so I look forward to seeing her shots from there and also to our next lesson. 

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    • DSLR Photography Lesson with Deb & her Canon 7D

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    Deb learned which lenses to use on her Canon 7D depending on the subject she is photographingDeb mentioned before our DSLR Photography Lesson in downtown St. Petersburg that she had a 70-200mm lens, she did not mention though it was the Canon 70-200mm f/2.8 IS L lens!  She also mentioned that she did not really use it that much, not realizing the power of that lens.  I immediately began to sing its praises and how it was the best piece of photography kit in her bag.  

    red shouldered hawk with preyFirst though I showed her how to navigate all the controls on her Canon 7D, which Canon does not necessarily make that easy to do since it pairs often changed settings to a single button.  Soon though I had Deb constantly checking and confirming her aperture, ISO, WB and focal mode/points (the order I set & check things in) as we walked around making different kinds of shots (shallow DoF, moving subject, etc).  We even had the chance to photograph a red-shouldered hawk eating prey in a tree.  Deb lives on 3-acres of land and said many birds can be found on her property so I hope she takes out her 70-200mm and 7D each day to practice shooting and start documenting all the wildlife she gets to call neighbors.

    Deb works for Ambassador Limo whose clientele overlaps with mine so we talked some about combining our professional services to provide an even stronger product for clients.  I look forward to this very much and also to our next DSLR photography lesson once her external flash arrives! 

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