Family Portraits at Vinoy Park St. Petersburg Florida Grandfather & Granddaughter

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Grandfather & Granddaughter in Vinoy Park for a portrait session - Nikon D300 Nikkor 80-200mm @ f/7.1 ISO 200 1/200th Strobist: SB-800 to frame left & SB-600 to frame rightI have been fortunate recently to photograph friends and repeat clients.  Well, this time I had the chance to photograph both, so I was very pleased to receive a phone call asking for a Father's Day present portrait session.  We chose Vinoy Park as our shooting location and it was thankfully a not too warm evening in St. Petersburg, nor too windy as that far out park often is.

Grandfather & Granddaughter are all smiles in Vinoy Park - Nikon D300 Nikkor 80-200mm @ f/10 ISO 200 1/250th Strobist: SB-800 to frame left & SB-600 to frame rightThe 30-minute portrait session went by very quickly.  The star of the show, young Brooke, was all smiles most of the time, as most of my shooting focused on photographing her with her grandfather and fellow classic westerns fan Paul, whom I first met a few years ago at the dog park.

The whole family in Vinoy Park for our portrait session - Nikon D300 Tamron 17-50mm @ f/8 ISO 200 1/250th Strobist: SB-800 to frame left & SB-600 to frame rightThe above shot was actually the first one of the session as I prefer to shoot the group shots first, then move on to ever smaller groups and pairings.  Featured in the background is The Pier, a doomed structure that is supposed to be torn down next year, but I will believe that when it actually happens.  If it is, then it will serve as a nice time stamp for when this photograph was made.

St. Petersburg Florida Real Estate Photography - Kenwood Neighborhood HDR

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St. Petersburg real estate photography - Kenwood neighborhood - kitchen view - Nikon D300 Tamron 17-50mm @ f/8 ISO 200 9-exposure HDR on Induro CT214 tripod with Nikon MC-30 cable releaseOn assignment for Crown Group Realty this morning to photograph a very nice house in the Kenwood neighborhood that had recently been renovated by the owners themselves.  I am always impressed by people's real world skills like home improvement.  They say kitchens sell homes and this kitchen opened up to the dining room and backyard.  I made a 9-exposore HDR image in order to pull out the details in the kitchen (no window) and in the dining room (windows on either side).

A functional living room in St. Petersburg Kenwood neighborhood - Nikon D300 Tamron 17-50mm @ f/8 ISO 200 1.3 secOften when looking at homes, both old and new, it is hard to set them up assuming you want a good viewing angle of your television.  Therefore, I chose to photograph this living room highlighting the great opportunity to setup a home theater due to its layout.  The sofa also faces the front door, which is something else I like in a home.

Well landscaped backyard in Kenwood - Nikon D300 Tamron 17-50mm @ f/11 ISO 200 7-exposure HDRThe backyard was also updated, which I thought made for a nice flow from kitchen, to dining room to backyard.  Even though it is very hot in Florida in the summer, it is still nice to have your own outside space to enjoy.

A fenced in front yard in Kenwood - Nikon D300 Tamron 17-50mm @ f/11 ISO 200 7-exposure HDRI like a picket fence in a front yard.  I feel it adds a nice framing to a home and if you have a dog it creates another safe outdoor area.  If you wish to buy this home or know someone who might be interested in it, please contact Amy at Crown Group Realty.

Photography Tip - It only has to interest you - drumsticks

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These drumsticks & their case interested me - Nikon D80 Nikkor 80-200mm @ f/4 ISO 400 1/200thI first and foremost make photographs that interest me.  This for the most part even applies when I am shooting for a client as I trust they hired me because they liked my past work and know that I will bring that same perspective to their shoot as well.  I made this drumsticks shot while shooting a Brett Eldredge concert for an event client.  This photograph may have no interest to anyone but me, but that does not come into my thinking at all when I made the image.  I was drawn to the satchel the sticks were sticking out of in particular.  It looked very old and worn and thus must have a great story behind it.  I never talked to the drummer about it, but I wanted to make a photograph of it for my own memory and for me to wonder what might be the origin of the satchel, was it his father's before him, or given to him by a drummer he looked up to?  Those questions interest me, even if I can never get an answer to them.

I included this image in the 240+ I delivered to the client.  It may just be a throwaway image, but for me it will be a reminder of that concert and shooting that job.  

Shooting what interests you first and foremost is what one should really only ever do in one's personal shooting.  I cannot imagine doing otherwise really.  When just going out shooting (not for a client) why would you ever shoot anything that does not interest you?  Likewise, shooting something you think will be interesting to others, but is not interesting to yourself, I cannot imagine the point in doing that and I would also imagine the results of those photographs would be very subpar at best.  

If no one else in the world finds the photograph interesting, but you do, then that is still a successful photograph.  That is my thinking.

Vivid brown pelican with purple pelican bokeh St. Petersburg

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Brown pelican with friends at The Pier - Nikon D300 Nikkor AF ED 80-200mm f/2.8D lens @ f/5.6 ISO 200 1/1250thIf you do not have any pelican photographs in your portfolio, you can head to The Pier in downtown St. Petersburg at almost anytime of day and have the opportunity to make one of a number of types of brown pelican images.  The male brown pelican was resting on the deck along with a few friends waiting for a tourist to mount the feeding platform and toss out a few free snacks.

Photographing pelicans at The Pier is also a chance to get very close to a very large bird.  They are used to having people around so you can find yourself being able to get close enough to them for it to start to kind of feel weird.  The pelicans will look you in the eye kind of saying, "what?!"

Use Negative Space when composing photography tip

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Composing with negative space - Nikon D300 Tamron 17-50mm @ f/11 ISO 200 1/400th

 I often tell my DSLR photography students to "fill the frame" when composing shots.  I also recently wrote about how not including the entire motorcycle makes for an image with more impact.  That said, another composition technique follows just the opposite of those and calls for using negative space in the frame to be part of the photograph.  

In the above image instead of filling the frame with the palm tree, or using a rule of thirds type of composition, the palm tree is composed as to look small and isolated allowing the negative space itself to be the main subject of the photograph.  Filling the frame with negative space gives the impression of great expansion, or rather, no end once the eye reaches the edge of the frame.  The viewer's eye continues on past the edges filled in by their own imagination of what goes beyond.  

Post a link to your example of negative space composition in the comments below.

Vinoy Park Pet Portrait with Beth and Logan dog St. Petersburg

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Beth & Logan in Vinoy Park for their human & pet portrait session - Nikon D300 Nikkor 80-200mm @ f/7.1 ISO 200 1/100th Strobist: SB-800 @ 1/2 power to frame right SB-600 @ 1/4 power to frame leftOn a blustery evening I met long-time dog park friend Beth and her Australian shepherd Logan for a dog and human candid portrait session.  As I have written about before, it is much different when working with a client you already know, in fact I would go so far as to say it is nearly totally different.  We started out with The Pier and Tampa Bay as the background. 

Candid pet portrait with Beth & Logan dog - Nikon D300 Nikkor 80-200mm @ f/7.1 ISO 200 1/60th Strobist: SB-800 @ 1/2 power to frame left SB-600 @ 1/4 power behind benchNext we went over to the bench with the best view in all of downtown St. Petersburg.  From it you can see the entire downtown skyline with a fantastic sunset view on most evenings.  Logan, however, was much more interested in passing inline skaters than the view!

Candid smiling pet portrait with Beth & Logan dog - Nikon D300 Nikkor 80-200mm @ f/7.1 ISO 200 1/60th Strobist: SB-800 @ 1/2 power to frame left SB-600 @ 1/4 power behind benchIt was way, way too windy to use any light modifiers besides a couple of diffuser caps on my speedlights.  For this shot I placed one on a lightstand to frame left and the other on a tripod directly behind the bench.  I used my trusty Nikkor AF ED 80-200mm f/2.8D lens for all these shots.  The wind though did have one benefit, that being keeping temperatures very tolerable and actually rather comfortable, even for me shooting and scurrying about setting up the shots.  

Beth & Logan all smiles in Vinoy Park - Nikon D300 Nikkor 80-200mm @ f/5.6 ISO 200 1/100th Strobist: SB-800 @ 1/2 power to frame right SB-600 @ 1/4 power to frame leftIt was a lot of fun to make these photographs for Beth and Logan.  By nature a portrait session including a dog has to be candid so for me it was just a matter of getting my lights where I wanted them and letting Beth enjoy spending time with Logan and pushing the shutter.

Ford GT supercar in black Tampa Car Photography

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Making the most of an opportunity to photograph a rare Ford GT in Tampa, FloridaWhile on location in Tampa for RM Auctions to photograph a 1974 Jaguar E Type (photos cannot be published until July), at the end of that shoot I had an opportunity to take a few shots of a Ford GT also on site.  This supercar could not be moved and was just parked along side a building with about a third of the car in shade, the other two-thirds in direct afternoon Florida sunlight.  I knew to get any kind of detail and exposure worth having I would need to make it an HDR shot, and I went all the way to the max of 9 exposures that my Nikon D300 does automatically in bracketing mode.  I was for the most part pleased with the results of the HDR process (which does nothing for the reflections in the paint, unfortunately), but still did not like the foreground nor the background.  To get the foreground like the above I Quick Selected it in Photoshop CS5 and burned and underexposed it, also cloning out a few stray pieces of debris.  I repeated that process for the background and just painted it completely white.

In the above sequence you can see the difference HDR makes and then how cleaning up the foreground and eliminating the background puts the focus on the car itself.  Now about the reflections in the car, there is nothing I can do about those.  Small reflections can be cleaned up, but entire body panels cannot.  Still, I am happy with the results and glad to have the chance to photograph a Ford GT, a car made famous recently by Jeremy Clarkson of Top Gear who purchased one himself.