So I had a few hours at home alone this evening and so I grabbed a tripod, shutter cable and trusty flashlight app in my iPhone 4s. This is a 45 second bulb exposure utilizing 4 different colors of light painted on the petals.
ISO 100 ƒ/22 T 45s at 70mm
Here’s the original saved jpg from the RAW file:
I did a little bit of contrast and sharpening in Aperture:
I then used Nik Software’s Color Effects Pro 3.0 and added a Bleach Bypass filter for the final effect!.
I thought these Tulips were pretty cool!
ISO1000 ƒ/2.8 T 1/60
Post Processing in Aperture and Nik’s Color Effects Pro 3.0
Since i’ve been gluten free for a few years one of things i’ve missed is Sugar Cookies. They just aren’t the same without wheat flour, but these come close and I have no idea what recipe they came from… The mini chocolate chips are an added bonus.
ISO 1000 ƒ/2.8 T 1/60
Animoto.com is my friend and I think it’s worth every penny. In fact I’m such a fan that I have an affiliate account. The video below is one of the reasons. I store my photos over on Smugmug.com(that i’m also a fan/affiliate of), Animoto.com will pull in photos from a Smugmug gallery and then turn your photos into a cool video! Once the video is created Animoto will ship the video back to Smugmug or YouTube, or Facebook, or back to your hard drive so you can burn a disk. Huge fan! Love the fact that they easily play on an iPhone or iPad, which also means they can easily be streamed to an AppleTV connected Flat Screen. Animoto.com is definitely worth a look.
I decided to attempt a candle flame tonight, I’ve never been able to capture one decently so I decided to try again. This is a WICK candle I suppose it’s called that because of the wide wick. I liked the way this turned out.
ISO 1000 ƒ/4 T 1/125
My Wife’s sister recently got married. A few months before the wedding she called me and asked if I would be her “Wedding Photographer”. I enjoy taking pictures and on occasion get a few good ones, but I don’t do weddings. I had photographed one wedding a few years before and decided at that time that wedding photography wasn’t for me. Recently, I have had the privilege to tag along as a second shooter on a few weddings. I enjoyed that because I could sneak around the edges and do my thing. With that in mind I said I would help her out if she hired a professional wedding photographer, (I’ll call them a Wedding Pro for the rest of this article), for the ceremony at City Hall in San Francisco and I would handle all the other locations around the city. She said, “ok that sounds great”!
Fast forward a few months I arrive the night before the wedding and have dinner with the family and started to discuss what was going to happen the next day and I learn, there is no other photographer! It’s me and a few point and shoots. i wasn’t nervous since I was going to do my best and hopefully that would be ok. I started to think about the difference between a regular guy/family member that can take some great shots and a Wedding Pro.
I started to think/get nervous about how un-prepared I was.
I had two lenses, a 70-200 and a 24-70 with one body and a couple camera batteries.
I had one flash unit with some extra batteries that I quickly went and doubled my supply at a nearby drugstore.
I had no idea what the venue was like. How high the ceilings were, what the wall colors were,(in fact they were very yellow), I had no gels for my flash. Of course had I had Gels for my flash I would have no idea how or when to use them.
I didn’t have a list of “have to have” images.
With that in mind I told myself, who cares, just go shoot, and keep checking the histogram!
I’m proud of the images I came up with, but in reflection the real difference between a guy that loves to take photos and a guy or gal that makes a living photographing weddings is experience. Experience teaches preparation. Experience and preparation are worth paying for!
It’s not mandatory to have two camera bodies, but I did miss at least 2 shots I would have loved to have back, had I had quick access to a wide angle lens at a moments notice.
Having had experience to adjust white balance in the camera/flash would have saved considerable time in Post Process. A neutral grey card would have been helpful.
Worrying about what the light from the flash and correct exposure, deters your attention from what you’re actually seeing.
The ceremony was in the rotunda of City Hall. The ceiling was really tall, which meant my flash did nothing coming off of it. And I couldn’t find a wall to bounce off of consistently. So I noticed the way a Wedding Pro had adjusted his flash, bent slightly forward(one click forward) from straight up with the little reflector standing straight up. I borrowed from his experience to help me out. That saved me. I actually chatted with him a bit, nice guy.
In retrospect I think I would have liked carrying 2 bodies, one with a 35mm ƒ1.4 and one with a 135mm ƒ2 or my 70-200 2.8L IS. It also would had been great to have a set of gels for my flash and actually know how to use them. Stopping to think about a shot or two would have been beneficial, I missed the brides flowers a few times just because I didn’t have her fix it.
One thing about wedding photography that often goes unnoticed is the amount of post wedding editing it takes. I took just over 1200 photos, which means selecting and editing the best ones. This is a laborious process. Some images require a few clicks to improve, others might be 15min. This can take hours, but also completely necessary. If I had shot this wedding and dumped the files to a disk without any editing, many of her photos would have looked like the image below:
the second image is after edits in post process. I don’t claim to be professional photo editor, but I think the version on the right is worthy of a few minutes of effort.
After having photographed 2 weddings I have utmost respect for the guys and gals that make a living as a wedding photographer. I’ve gained a bit of experience and will continue to refer friends and family to the real pro’s with experience.
My Daughter has been a bit under the weather the passed few days, but today she wanted me to photograph her butterfly barrette. So here’s J and her butterfly barrette.
ISO 1000 ƒ/3.5 T 1/100
Spent the day in San Francisco, with amazing weather, btw. The shadow of this sign caught my eye. Grenard Terrace is where my Sister and Brother-in-Law live. It’s tucked away on the top of Russian Hill, with fabulous views of the Bay!. As i write this I’m thinking I should have removed the shadow in the lower left hand corner as it does nothing for the image. Maybe tomorrow..
Too tired to post edits… I did clone out some wires at the top right corner and should have cloned out the shadow in the lower left hand corner. I did so a levels adjustment and added some contrast to enhance the blue sky and help the blacks be blacker.
Wedding Day… My wife’s sister got married today, and she was supposed to have hired a photographer for the ceremony and I was going to do backup. I didn’t work out quite like that as there was no other photographer. So I was the guy. I caught this shot after they were married and taking a quick breather at their house before the reception party. I liked the glow and yes that’s the Golden Gate in the background.
ISO 1000 ƒ/5.6 T 1/160
View of valley fog from from 30,000ft.
Taken with an iPhone 4s and edited with Snapseed for iPhone