Tampa Bay with Clouds 6000px Panorama

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Click to view 6000px version -- 10-frame panorama of Tampa Bay with morning cloud coverLast year a friend requested some photographs of clouds.  I never felt I got the exact shot she imagined so in the back of my mind to this day resides that cloud photograph request.  Well this morning out to the east over Tampa Bay was a whole front of large puffy clouds.  I steadied myself on the upper railing on the roof of The Pier in downtown St. Petersburg and using the gridlines (I would never buy a DSLR that does not have this feature) in my Nikon D300 I lined by hand a 10-frame panorama.  Of course it would have been best to use a tripod, but I did not have one with me and since I could clearly see the horizon and thus line it up with the lower-third gridline in my viewfinder, I do not think I could have done much better.

I put the 10 photographs into a folder on my desktop, called up the automated PhotoMerge function in Photoshop CS5 and let the app and my Core i7 cpu do the rest.  Once stitched together I did a little further editing and then resized it to a more manageable version.  The original file is over 14,000 pixels wide!

This Tampa Bay panorama is available for commercial license and fine art print, inquire today!

DSLR Photography Lesson with Natasha at The Pier St. Petersburg

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Natasha photographing airplanes taking off from The Pier during our 4th of 4 DSLR Photography LessonsIt had been over two months since Natasha took her third of four DSLR Photography Lessons.  I was pleased to learn though that she had been practicing and had not forgotten anything as we took our fourth lesson this morning out at The Pier.  Our mission for the day was to photograph pelicans in flight.  Thankfully, four pelicans were regular diving for food right at the edge of a lower dock area of The Pier that even provided Natasha and I a bit of shade.  The poor minnows were getting attacked from above by the pelicans and from below by larger fish.  I wonder how they deal with that kind of stress?  

Since the pelicans were mostly flying in a compact area, it was even more challenging to track them due to the limited flight distances between perch and prey.  I advised Natasha to hold the view finder just below her eye and use the barrel of the lens as a sight for tracking the birds and once in range you can then put your eye into the view finder and the bird should already be well framed making it possible to track the bird's flight path from within the view finder.  

I have enjoyed my lessons with Natasha, but as she is moving from the area I will only be able to see her future photography progression from online sources.  Good luck Natasha!

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    Best Sunset Beach Wedding Photography St. Petersburg Clearwater Florida

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    Jason now serves the SW Florida area with the best beach wedding photography!

     

    • Sorry, Jason no longer serves the St Petersburg and Tampa Bay areas

     

       

     

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    BEST FLORIDA SUNSET BEACH WEDDING PHOTOGRAPHY

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    Digital Photograph Editing Lesson with Sarina - the power of cropping

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    Photo by Sarina used with permission; cropping by Jason

    For our second DSLR Photography Lesson, Sarina and I once again split the lesson time between (first) shooting and then editing.  She had the chance to photograph a dancer (see photo above) since we last met so for the shooting portion of the lesson I gave her feedback and demonstrated more ideal settings she could have used for those shots.  

    Then in the editing digital photos half of the lesson I really emphasized how cropping can make a tremendous difference on the overall impact of a photograph.  Plus, cropping is the easiest edit to do on a digital photograph.  Therefore, a photography tip for you is to start your editing process by cropping.  That is what I do.  Many times I do frame the shot in the field exactly how I want, but sometimes once viewing the image on my 24" monitor at home I see the potential for an even better composition.  Or, I decide I want the focus of the image to be on something other than what I originally intended.  

    There seems to be hesitation in new photographers to crop off the top of someone's head.  Do not be afraid, it will not hurt them and it will often help your image!  If you are an experienced photographer now, go back and look at your early work.  I bet you will see a progression of always trying to include the entire body or upper half of a person in a portrait to not being afraid to make radical crops that remove large sections of the subject's head.

    Cropping in closer creates a stronger connection between viewer and photograph.  In the above example which one of the two feels more personal?  For me, it is the tightly cropped image.

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    Holiday Inn Harbourside Indian Rocks Beach Florida Wedding

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    Holiday Inn Harbourside Indian Rocks Beach Wedding Portrait - SETUP: f/11 ISO 200 1/250th STROBIST: SB-800 @ 1/2 power to frame right & SB-600 @ 1/2 power to frame left

    People often ask me, "how do you get your photography jobs?"  Usually I stumble around with various answers, but from now on I will definitively say that first and foremost bookings are from referrals or the result of in-person networking.  Through joining NPPF (now FCCP), a Meetup.com photography group, I got to know the organizer Jeff Donald.  Marc (pictured above with bride Eileen) is a member of FCCP and was seeking a wedding photographer with short notice.  Jeff referred him to me, I was still available, so voila, a wedding booking!

    For the above photo we all braved the mid-day Florida heat to make for me what was my favorite shot of the day.  It is always worth it to make the extra effort to get a particular shot.  While the couple had their wedding lunch I went to scout locations and found this to be the most natural and scenic one on the grounds of the Holiday Inn Harbourside in Indian Rocks Beach.  Even though it was around 1pm and the shot had to be done in direct sunlight, my 2-strobe technique managed to produce surprisingly satisfying portrait results.

    Eileen and her new wedding ring - SETUP: f/5.6 ISO 800 1/60th SB-800 @ 1/4 power hotshoe mounted using Nikkor 105mm VR f/2.8G macro lensHaving significant wedding photography experience is key in knowing what shots work, and especially for establishing what I think of as "go-to" shots like the one above.  I first came up with the idea for this shot at Bianca's wedding in summer 2010 (see similar image).  

    First Wedding Dance at Holiday Inn Harbourside Indian Rocks Beach - SETUP: f/5.6 ISO 800 1/10th SB-800 @ 1/4 power hotshoe mounted using dragging shutter technique with zoomWhen making the type of "dragging the shutter" type shots like the one above, it is of course good to have lights in the background to enhance the effect of the technique.  The more lights the better, but if you can only include one or two it will still make a big difference.  Marc & Eileen had two kettle drum (?) players at their reception and they mostly played island themed songs which suited the harbor front location well.

    Indian Rocks Beach Wedding Photography - SETUP: f/11 ISO 200 1/250th STROBIST: SB-800 @ 1/2 power to frame right & SB-600 @ 1/2 power to frame leftThe "under the veil" shot is another one of my go-to shots (see last photo here), but of course it is used by many wedding photographers.  We were all very hot by this point (me visibly so!), but I wanted to make sure to get this shot before we returned indoors as I hope in twenty years Marc & Eileen will think to themselves, I am really glad we made the effort for that veil shot as they look at a print of it on their wall.

    Florida Brown Pelican Fly Hunt Sleep at The Pier St. Petersburg

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    FLY -- Brown Pelican in flight St. Petersburg Florida -- EXIF: f/5.6 ISO 200 1/1250thRegular readers will know that I enjoy and often photograph brown pelicans.  They are not a rare bird around this part of Florida at all.  In fact, it would be rare to go to any coastal area of St. Petersburg and not see one.  However, I find myself continually drawn to photographing them despite my usual instinct being to not photograph things that are commonly photographed.  Plus, I have a bit of unfinished business as I still want to photograph a pelican in flight hovering just over the surface of the water as they are apt to do.  Catching one in flight like above requires seeing the bird approach from distance, tracking it as it swoops in, then of course have sufficient shutter speed to freeze it in mid-air.  Maybe some luck is required too?

    HUNT - brown pelican looking for lunch at The Pier St. Petersburg Florida -- EXIF: f/5.6 ISO 200 1/1600thI used my Nikkor AF-S 105mm VR micro f/2.8G lens for all these shots.  It is not a very long lens but The Pier provides a very close vantage point for photographing pelicans as they fly, hunt and sleep.  To photograph these three different female brown pelicans I observed and studied their behavior.  Of course the sleeping one was not a challenge, but the flying one took a sharp eye to find and photograph and I needed to follow the hunting pelican from pier top to pier top until I could catch her while still standing at the ready.

    SLEEP -- brown pelican catching a little shut eye at The Pier in St. Petersburg Florida -- EXIF: f/5.6 ISO 200 1/800thAs these photographs illustrate, brown pelicans do not all exhibit the same behavior at the same time of day.  Some flew, some hunted and many slept.  One day, I will photograph one of you skimming over the water's surface!  Until then, expect more pelican photographs of another nature.

    These brown pelican photographs are available for commercial license and fine art print, inquire today!

    DSLR Photography Lesson with Chris & his Nikon D300 in St. Petersburg

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    Chris concentrating on getting a shot in downtown St. Petersburg during our 3rd DSLR Photography LessonIt was an extra hot morning for my third DSLR Photography Lesson with Chris in downtown St. Petersburg.  The past two mornings had been almost pleasant, but not so today, even with an early-ish 9:30am start.  After I met Chris and had the usual pre-shooting chat we hopped on the trolley to The Pier to practice photographing moving subjects, i.e. pelicans.  Early on the pelicans were very obliging by flying right in front of us, however, catching them in frame is another story.  I showed Chris my method of holding the view finder just below my eye and using the length of the lens to track the bird in flight with, all the while holding the shutter half-way in continuous focus mode until the bird comes into range.  Then it's a matter of putting your eye in the view finder and being quick on getting the bird properly framed before it soars by.  In case you were wondering, this is not an easy skill to master and takes lots of practice and a very fast focusing DSLR / lens combo.  

    Ovation Luxury Waterfront Condominium - downtown St. Petersburg commercial photographyAfter nearly melting out at The Pier we headed to the shade of downtown for a little architecture photography and random street photography as well.  The Ovation Luxury Waterfront Condominium building can be seen above, or at least just the top of it.  I had on my Nikkor AF-S 105mm VR micro f/2.8G lens on so no wide shooting for me, but I like to get close-up detail shots of architecture anyway.  Chris was in a similar situation using his 70-200mm lens.  After seeing his first shot I suggested that he use a titled axis for a more visually interesting shot of the top of the building rather than just framing it straight up as one can see with the naked eye.  I always try and have the point of the building or subject point into a corner of the frame.  

    Next up Chris and I will return to our laptops for an editing lesson before he does some traveling and puts to use all we have practiced over our eight hours of lessons.

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