by successfulbob | Lumix G9, people photography, photography, photography education
World Record Family Portrait
(almost)
Know thy client.
I was capturing a recurring family portrait of a family that is still growing. Having photographed Josh and his family previously on several occasions I knew that attention spans, especially with the younger children (as almost always with those two and under) would be short. This knowledge led to the decision to do a studio shoot vs. going on location.
Here’s the final family portrait. Framed 20 inches
Basically when photographing families the time you have with them is dependent upon the shortest attention span of a single person. Knowing I’d be working with a ten-month-old and a two-year-old I felt the chances for a long session had short odds. I planned accordingly.
I was correct.
The secret is getting the final image as quickly as possible. One of the advantages of working in our digital world is if you are working on a set with consistent lighting, camera on a tripod and a good memory of who has already given you a good solid expression and body posture you can composite a final image with good emotions and body posture by all.
Josh, his wife and five children had an appointment for ten o’clock on a Saturday morning. The clock struck ten and they are working thier way into the studio, changing a few clothing choices and brushig hair. The usual final prep before the camera work begins.
10:08 AM everyone is preened and ready. First exposure made. Family roughed into position.
10:11 AM 10-month-old, and moments later, two-year-old basically melt down. Session over but I know there’s a solid family image to be had with a bit of post-production work.
Layers Palette with a couple of swapped people
Is this an award-winning family portrait. Probably not in a competition setting, but it is a winner in the family memory and documentation.
Yours in Creative Photography, Bob
by successfulbob | cloud photography, photography, photography creativity, photography gear, photography software
Clouds Illusions – Part Two
A couple of weeks ago I shared some clouds and ideas about photographing them and some thoughts on using them in working on your art images. (see the post here)
Sunset was coming together looking over the clouds from the window seat.
I referred to Judy Collins’ song “Both Sides Now” referring to clouds and said I would share some images inspired by Julianne Kost’s book ‘Window Seat.’ After seeing her book, I thought about my pictures out the porthole of the plane as I traveled around the country on my Panasonic teaching forays. I have quite a collection of photos of clouds from above I thought that they deserved a post of their own. So here you go. Images are from the upper side of Both Sides Now.
Watching a thunderhead form from this angle is quite different.
I enjoy the ‘cloudscape’ with its own set of clouds above.
It turns out that all of the cloud photos in this post were made with the Pansonic Lumix LX100 which I refer to as the ‘professional’s point and shoot camera.’ It has a smaller chip, but the lens is sweet and fast. It’s on a magnesium body, and all the critical controls are available on the outside of the camera just as we had back in the day. That said, it has a ton of features we didn’t have then including eleven frames per second burst captures. If you go into 4K Photo Mode, you can pull 3,400-pixel stills at 24 frames per second. And plenty more.
On the downside, it does not have a superzoom so if you get this for travel photos you’ve got to do some zooming with your feet, but that’s what keeps the size down.
It’s on my list to work with the clouds from above and try to put them in art pieces. I’m hoping I can make it work and give almost a sense of ‘Something is wrong here, but I can’t quite figure it out.’ But that will be a post for another day.
Yours in Creative Photography, Bob
by successfulbob | cloud photography, Lumix LX100
Cloud’s Illusions
I enjoy clouds!
At sunrise. At sunset. In the middle of the day. From below. From above. The constantly changing and rearranging palette of shape, form, and color keep me pointing my camera at the sky. I wonder if the Judy Collins song, a trendy song in my youth, might have something to do with it?
“I’ve looked at clouds from both sides now
From up and down and still somehow
It’s cloud’s illusions I recall
I really don’t know clouds at all.”
Judy Collins
Check out the song at the bottom of this post! Turn it on while you are reading.
Here are a few cloud images from the last couple days.
Look at how many different cloud types are in this section of sky. Out west here in AZ this usually happens when a front is moving in after a dry spell. Just enough wind to change some shape and at different levels of elevation
When a wonderful cloud situation appears, I usually shoot the heck out of it. Horizontal, vertical. Wide-angle and zoom. All give a different look which may work differently for various applications. For example, You don’t typically want to put an image that was photographed with a long focal length into an image that was made with a wide-angle lens. You can’t always put your finger on it, but it just doesn’t ‘feel’ correct.
This image from later in the day
And, of course, what would a sunset be without a silhouette to give it a little interest.
You might ask, “Bob, why do you photograph the clouds?” And, I’m glad you did.
Number one, I enjoy them and like to review them when the sky is in a more monochromatic mode.
Number two, sometimes my images might need a little help as the day was cloudless and the right sky can add drama and life to an otherwise ordinary photo. Having a large selection of all types of cloud formations at your beck and call makes for believable results. When changing out a sky in a scene one must match the lighting direction and tone of the image, or it will have that, “That sky was replaced.” look.
Number three, I’ve found that adding cloud images to my artwork can add, life, depth, and dimension through using Photoshop’s Blend Modes. When using Blend Modes clouds can add pizazz because they contain lots of changing tones.
Number four, I’m not alone in my love of clouds. For example, on Instagram the hashtag clouds and cloudfreakHave almost Eighty-four MILLION posts.
The images in this post were captured with the Lumix LX100. This is a handy little guy (just a little bigger than pocket size) to have around. Fast glass, wide-angle to medium zoom range and all controls are available on the outside of the camera. Not necessary to go into the menus after initial set-up of the camera.
I’ll revisit clouds from the other side in a few days.
Yous in Creative Photography, Bob
Judy Collins – Both Sides Now
by successfulbob | commercial photography, LumixGH5, people photography, photography, photography gear, photography lighting resources
Go Pet Friendly – Part Two
Here’s a follow-up to the post from the other day about shooting an author’s photo and some support images for a book project. Amy Burkert and her husband Rod are on the road searching and researching pet friendly travel venues and a book is being written about traveling with pets as an addition to the Go Pet Friendly website
One of the images was the whole crew and the thirty-seven foot Winnebago with which they travel the country. Lighting conditions were a bit on the contrastly side with high sun and shade under the awning.
Go Pet Friendly home on the road and the family that lives there.
I used two Paul C Buff White Lightning X-3200 lights to control the contrast of the scene. The main light was fitted with a thirty-six-inch Octabox and the other was used for fill with a thirty by sixty inch foldable softbox camera right. A couple of braketed exposuers were made to get a lighter exposure on the tree that was in shadow to bring back some detail that would have blocked up otherwise.
The lights were powered with Paul C Buff Vagabond Mini battery packs. Portable power comes in very handy on location as it keeps from dealing with cords. It makes it easier to position lights exactly where you would like them to be.
Amy also wanted to show off her ‘children’ Ty and Buster.
Amy and her dog Ty pose for a portrait
Amy, Ty and Buster pose in front of the RV
Images captured with the Lumix GH5 and the Leica 12-60mm G LEICA DG VARIO-ELMARIT PROFESSIONAL f2.8-4.0 lens
Yours in Creative Photography, Bob
by successfulbob | Lumix Lounge, LumixGH5, people photography, photography gear
Photographing Sports and the Lumix GH5
First, let me start this post with the fact that I do not shoot sports on a regular basis. The best photography in any genre, especially fast-moving subjects, comes from practice. Knowing the game and anticipating where the peak action will occur makes a considerable difference in the quality of the images.
On with the post.
With that disclaimer out of the way, I felt that it would be an interesting exercise to photograph a football game under the lights. Karl Mullings (find Karl’s work here), a photographer friend from Flagstaff among others, had been asking me how the GH5 camera would do under the lights with fast-moving action. I only had experience with the camera in low light shooting wildlife so I couldn’t give him a qualified answer. He asked if I would bring the camera and photograph a football game with him.
Off to Flagstaff where there were a couple of surprises in store. Lighting was lower than I thought it would be Due to my inexperience there was a challenge in finding the action. During the first quarter, I found myself missing a lot of shots cutting off the players as they ran out of the frame. I started to get the hang of it a couple of quarters later and here are some results.
Image photographed at ISO 6400 Lumix GH5 with Lumix G Leica DG Vario-Elmarit 100-400mm lens (200-800mm 35mm full-frame equivalent)
I was surprised by the reach and handhold-ability of the camera and lens combination. The five-axis in body stabilization, plus the lens stabilization was pretty amazing in allowing a reasonably slow shutter speed while almost stopping action with no camera blur.
Image photographed at ISO 6400 Lumix GH5 with Lumix G Leica DG Vario-Elmarit 100-400mm lens
Image shot at ISO 6400 Lumix GH5 with Lumix G Leica DG Vario-Elmarit 100-400mm lens
My buddy Karl, hard at work on the sidelines.
Tomorrow we’ll talk about freezing action even more using an ISO of 12,800 and post processing of images.
Yours in creative Photography, Bob
