Model Portfolio Shoot in downtown St. Petersburg Florida dusk to night with Amy

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Model Portfolio Shoot - Amy in North Straub Park in downtown St. Petersburg Florida - Nikon D300 Nikkor 80-200mm @ f/4 ISO 800 1/50th Strobist: Nikon SB-800 @ 1/4 power in 42" brolly to frame left & Nikon SB-600 @ 1/16 power on ground to frame right 

Amy told me she just started modeling only three months ago, which surprised me a lot because I saw her resume before we scheduled our model portfolio shoot and it was already quite extensive!  We met in North Straub park in downtown St. Petersburg at 7pm for a dusk to night shoot.  For the above shot I broke the rules and had the subject look out of the edge of the frame instead of into the empty space of the frame.

Model Portfolio Shoot - model Amy in a thoughtful pose with bokeh in St. Petersburg Florida - Nikon D300 Nikkor 80-200mm @ f/4.5 ISO 200 1/60th Strobist: SB-800 in 42" brolly above to frame left & SB-600 @ 1/16 power on ground to frame rightFor this shoot I debuted a new piece of gear, a "brolly," which is a reflective umbrella with softbox like ability.  Unfortunately, a windless evening suddenly produced gusts at two different times resulting in two crashes and the brolly getting partially damaged.  I have already ordered another since they cost less than $20.  When the new one arrives I will write a full review of it then, but I definitely like the lighting results.

Model Portfolio Shoot lighting from below - Nikon D300 Nikkor 80-200mm @ f/4 ISO 200 1/125th Strobist: SB-800 @ 1/4 power in brolly to frame left SB-600 @ 1/8 power behind model's footShooting late in the evening makes it easy to produce shots with pure black backgrounds (learn how) that look like they were done in a studio.  A little ambient light did get into this shot, I should have used a bit faster shutter speed, but the bright spots were easily brushed out in Photoshop.

Model Portfolio Shoot lighting from below - Nikon D300 Nikkor 80-200mm @ f/4 ISO 200 1/125th Strobist: SB-800 @ 1/4 power in brolly to frame left SB-600 @ 1/8th power behind model's foot

The above photograph was the shot I had in mind as the main goal of the shoot, though I ended up liking other shots better.  I will continue to experiment with ground level backlighting of subjects.

Model Portfolio Shoot with motion blur - Nikon D300 Tamron 17-50mm @ f/6.3 ISO 800 1/20th Strobist: SB-800 @ 1/4 power in brolly to frame leftThe last shots of the evening were an attempt at motion blur portraits.  The shot was made by setting the focus on the model and then while pressing the shutter flicking the camera to the right creating motion blur in the lights behind the subject while keep the subject herself in focus.

I had a very good time during this shoot.  Amy was very patient and professional to work with and had very good balance on one leg as well!  I look forward to being able to work with her again in the future.

Olympus E-P1 Photography Lesson 1-on-1 in St. Petersburg Florida with Ana

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Ana with her brand new Olympus EP-1 a micro 4/3 style camera during our photography lesson in St. Petersburg FloridaAna contacted me last month about taking a 1-on-1 DSLR Photography Lesson here in St. Petersburg as she would be visiting the area from California in March on business.  She also just did not want to take a 2-hour lesson focusing on shooting, she wanted a 4-hour lesson that would also include digital photography editing and workflow.  We were able to make our cross-continent schedules work out, but there was just the small matter of Ana not actually having a camera at the time!  Fortunately, she received an Olympus E-P1 as a present soon before her trip to Florida.  The E-P1 is a micro four-thirds style SLR camera and my first time with this particular model.  I have only had hands on time with one other micro four-thirds camera and was not impressed with it, especially from an ergonomics and usability standpoint.  However, the E-P1 was fitted with the same dedicated exposure, ISO, WB and focus buttons a proper DSLR body would have and the menu system itself was intuitive to navigate.  The E-P1 still hits the same limits the other micro four-thirds camera did, which was slow auto-focusing and frames per second.  If you can live without using it as an action camera, then I found the build quality to be solid and the camera to be very usable for still subjects.

Ana and I practiced some natural light portrait photography among other things before heading into a local frozen yogurt shop I like to use to teach digital photograph editing lessons in.  Since she uses a Mac as I do, I recommended getting Aperture 3 to be the start of her digital photograph workflow and where she can make many useful edits.  

I look forward to seeing her photos of California when she returns and hopefully she will be able to see a few alligators while she is still in Florida!

Nikon D700 & Nikkor 24-70mm 1-on-1 DSLR Photography Lesson St. Petersburg - Kasia

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Kasia photographing her son during our 2nd 1-on-1 DSLR photography lesson in St. Petersburg with her Nikon D700Since our first 1-on-1 DSLR Photography Lesson last week Kasia has gotten the excellent Nikkor AF-S 24-70mm f/2.8G lens.  For our second lesson she also brought her son who is a cheerful 11-month old fond of taking off his socks and throwing his pacifier (who isn't?).  Now that Kasia has had more time with her Nikon D700 and an actual lens to use on it, we began this lesson with a Q&A session where I had to dispel some amateur photography advice (like she needs a UV filter for her lens, ha!).  She asked about metering modes (stay in matrix) and the number of focus points (stay with a single one) as well as how to fix a photograph where the highlights are blown out.  

After that we headed over to South Straub Park to practice how to compose by either setting the focus and recomposing or by framing the shot then just moving the focus point onto the desired subject.  We found some shade and I had Kasia practice her portrait technique on me first to get the ergonomics of moving focus points down before attempting to make portraits of her more active son.  

I will see Kasia right again tomorrow afternoon where we will continue to build on her DSLR photography skills.

St. Petersburg Downtown Waterfront Skyline at Twilight

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St. Petersburg Florida waterfront at Twilight, this image available for fine art print & commercial license - Nikon D300 Tamron 17-50mm @ f/8 ISO 200 10 sec tripod mounted with cable releaseThe waterfront of St. Petersburg, Florida is home to the third largest continuous waterfront park in North America (behind Vancouver and Chicago).  This is why at the very edge where the city meets Tampa Bay as viewed from the water the first thing you will see are trees.  This long park system is my favorite part of the entire city.  

I made this photograph from a secret-ish spot on The Pier allowing for a low near water-level viewpoint of the St. Petersburg skyline.  The ten second exposure allowed for some motion blur on the surface of the water and for pulling out the last remaining light in the twilight sky. 

What does love equal? free brick wall texture

What does love equal for you? Click to download full resolution textureWhile walking around downtown St. Petersburg with camera and tripod in tow, I came across the above chalk drawing on the side of a brick wall of a church.  I stopped and paused as it really caught my attention.  To me it meant, "what does love equal to you?"  I was glad to have the proper photo gear with me to make the best high resolution texture of the drawing I could.  You can download the same full res texture here.

Beloved puppy Kiki used with brick wall heart textureI used some Photoshop skills to create the above composite image using the brick wall chalk heart texture.  What would you put in front of the equal sign?

There was more, a + sign! Click to download the full resolution textureThen I realized the artist had not just drawn an equal sign and a heart, there was a + sign also so that two things could be put together to show what creates love.  Due to wall space constraints the space before and after the + sign were not equal so I photographed them the best I could.

Might Jason + a Porsche 911 = love?Using the same Photoshop skills I made a quick mockup of what yours truly might add with to create love!  Anyone who knows me knows my love for proper sports cars, and nothing is better than a Porsche 911!

Put a link in the comments below to the composite images you create with the brick wall chalk heart textures. 

St. Petersburg Commercial Photography Shoot Lumber Liquidators exterior

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St. Petersburg Commercial Exterior Photography - Nikon D300 Tamron 17-50mm @ f/11 ISO 200 5-exposure HDRAs a full-time professional photographer, I have to always have my photography gear ready (batteries charged, gear stowed in bags, etc.) in case the phone rings out of the blue with a time-sensitive job.  Such was the case this afternoon when I was alerted to a possible commercial exterior job that needed to be done right away.  After a quick e-mail inquiry I was called by the client and given the requirements for the type of photos they wanted.  They were looking for exterior shots of a Lumber Liquidators store featuring the store's signs especially and also showing the retail store in context to its surroundings.

Commercial shot showing retail space in context to surroundings - Nikon D300 Tamron 17-50mm @ f/11 ISO 200 5-exposure HDRThat was a simple enough assignment, and the client said it only needed to be so, but I still went ahead and made mostly HDR images of the retail space exterior as they yielded much better results in the harsh afternoon Florida sun.  The store was in a nondescript strip mall on 22nd Ave N, but I used the surrounding trees to try and frame the building and show the space in its best context.

Commercial storefront photography St. Petersburg Florida - Nikon D300 Tamron 17-50mm @ f/11 ISO 200 5-exposure HDR

This may seem like rather non-glamorous photography work, but I actually find these kind of "assignment" jobs to be fascinating in their own way.  I like being given a required shot to get out on location by a client.  It somehow makes me feel like an old newspaper photographer, out on assignment!

Canon 60D 1-on-1 DSLR Photography Lesson in St. Petersburg Florida with Parag 2

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Parag with his Canon 60D & Canon 50mm f/1.8 lens in downtown St. Petersburg for our 2nd photography lessonFor our second of four 1-on-1 DSLR Photography Lessons I met Parag once again in downtown St. Petersburg this time focusing on using his Canon 50mm f/1.8 lens on his Canon 60D DSLR.  I often teach photography lessons based on just using a 50mm lens as besides being the cheapest lens one can buy, it is also one of the most fun to use because it can easily create bokeh, is good in low light, can be used for portraits and is small and light physically.

We spent most of our time in the interior of downtown St. Petersburg looking for abstract patterns to photograph, as well as motorcycles and lights for bokeh.  In between we stopped to practice making natural light portraits using the 50mm lens.  I stressed to Parag that when using large apertures like f/2.8 and even f/2 that it is important not to set the focus on the eyes and recompose, but rather first frame the shot as you like then move the focus point in the frame to fall upon the subject's eyes.  It is an extra step to take in making a shot, but an important one in order to insure maximum sharpness of the portrait subject's eyes.  

I had another very good time talking with Parag on subjects beyond photography too.  I discovered we both share a great enthusiasm for the E46 M3!  Hopefully he will get one soon so we can photograph it in one of our two remaining lessons!