Snowy Night

We're finally starting to get a little bit of snow up here in Chicago.  We went through a historic snow 'drought' of around 340 consecutive days without measurable snow.  They consider 1" or more 'measurable', so we've gotten some dustings here and there, but no real snow.
That all finally broke last week when we got a whopping 1.1" of snow at O'Hare...woot!
Since then, we've gotten a couple other days worth of snow, neither counting as measurable, but it looks pretty while it's falling. 

Yesterday, while sitting at my desk at work, I looked out the window and it was near white-out conditions.  Snow was falling like crazy and they were pretty big flakes.  This comes the day after it was 63 degrees and we got about 3" of rain.  So, while I was sitting at work, I was visualizing a picture I wanted to take...big fluffy flakes gently falling down with my wife standing out in the yard.  Unfortunately as the day went on, the flakes got smaller and the wind got stronger.  Temperatures continued to plunge and the snow was blowing around like crazy.

By the time I got home, the storm was all but over and there were these little, tiny flakes blowing around.  Nonetheless, I still wanted to try to get a snow picture.  I knew I wouldn't have the day light to get the picture I had in mind, but I thought I'd try a different technique I've seen done on-line and have tried once before myself.  I wanted to get a back lit picture - 41/52 "Silhouette" from April 2012 - but I also wanted to try to capture the snow that was still falling.  I've seen pictures of people in the rain with an umbrella, back lit by a strobe and the rain is highlighted, so I wanted to try something like that.

I took my light and camera outside to see if I could even capture the snow, since the flakes were so small, I didn't know if they would even be visible.  I set up a garbage can to act as us and hid the light behind it.  After snapping a few pictures, I thought the light worked well enough to highlight some of the snow, but it really didn't look all that awesome.

I went back inside and though I'd just be done for the night, since the snow wasn't all that great.  But, my wife is a good sport and said that if I wanted to try it, she would come out and we could do it anyway.  So, after a few more minutes of messing around with a second light, I took the gear back outside and set it up again. 

I put the back light in position, then put Paige where I wanted us to stand, then set up my camera.  I took a few test pictures to make sure everything was working correctly, set and locked the focus, then turned the timer on and hopped in the picture myself.  It took two shots with me actually in the picture to get the one we ended up using, so it was a pretty quick shoot.  Including set up time, we were outside for probably a total of 5 minutes.  Easy peasy.

I was pretty disappointed with the pictures when I looked at them on my camera and thought the shoot was going to be a bust.  After I got back inside and zoomed in on the pics, they started looking a little better.  Once I got them pulled onto my computer, they looked a lot better.  The snow was very distinct, albeit small, but it gave it a cool effect. 

I tweaked the image in Lightroom to set the proper black and white points, add a little fill light and really make the snow flakes pop.  Then I pulled it into Photoshop to crop it and take out a few distractions.  Originally, the image was captured in portrait orientation, but after cropping it, I extended the frame left and right and cloned in some of the snow to make it more landscape oriented, rather than portrait.

In the end, I was really happy with the picture.  Are there a few things I would change?  Sure, but I really liked how this first attempt turned out.

Let me know what you think.

T.

Man's Best Friend

It's been a while since I've gotten a good picture of our puppy, so while my wife and son were napping today, I thought I'd try to get one done.  I set up my new backdrop behind the couch and called her up to the seat.  She is typically eager to get on the couch as much as possible, to the point that we've got a blanket over 1/3 of our couch, specifically as her 'spot'.  She loves sitting up there with us.

We've got a large set of windows in our family room and I knew it would work well for a natural light photo.  While it was kind of cloudy outside and not overly bright, I knew the camera I was using (Canon 1D mkIII) would be able to pump up the ISO to keep it properly lit.

I grabbed some treats, to keep her attention and went about trying to grab a shot of her.  I dangled the treat above the lens to keep her looking at the camera and made noises to get her ears perked up...once I saw them perk up, I snapped a couple shots.  This went on for a few minutes until I could see that she was losing interest pretty quickly.  Finally, she just laid her ears back, put her head down and quit responding to treats and whistles.  I got a few images in the 5 minutes the shoot took and this one was by far the best of the group.

In post processing, I put a couple of textures on the background that I found on-line.  I wanted to at least give it a little bit of interest, but not make it dominate the picture.  I lowered the opacity of the layers down to 15-25% each and blurred them to keep them looking like background, rather than a separate layer.  I was pretty pleased with the way the layers came out, but wished I could make them slightly blurrier without making them weird.

I really like the tones and colors of the image.  I like the combination of the different textures of the couch, dog and background and how the image is just slightly darker overall with the emphasis on the puppy.  It is a very casual pose for her, but I think that she still looks pretty cool.

Let me know what you think.

T.

Daily Shots

I think that a lot of the time that I think about taking pictures, of my son, wife, friends, dog, whatever, I always think of them as 'staged' or 'posed' shots.  Even if some of them come off fairly candid or off the cuff, I always try to plan them out and have my subjects act like they are candid shots.
I rarely take my camera and try to capture truly candid shots, of my son playing, of my wife sitting around or of the puppy just laying on the couch.  I'm always trying to think of a way to pose them to get better light, to use flashes to try to manipulate or shape the light more...I never really just shoot.

I'm trying to make it a goal of mine to try to get more candid shots.  It's not going to be long before my son grows up and doesn't want me shooting pictures of him.  I want to take advantage of the times that I have to capture a completely inquisitive mind playing with his toys or creating scenes in his head and acting them out on the furniture.  I want to try to capture those precious moments where he is in his own little world playing and having fun.  It's not very often that we get to really catch those moments, so I want to try to get as many as I can.

For these, I'm just going to rely on whatever lighting is available...be it natural light or the lights in our house and really focus on catching those moments that make my heart melt.  I'm not going to try to pose him to get better shots, or move things around to de-clutter the scene...I just want him to be himself, and try to catch/preserve as many memories as possible.

He is growing up so fast now.  I know it is cliche, but it really does seem like it was just a few months ago that we brought him home from the hospital.  Now, he's running around, climbing on everything possible, driving cars down his slide and trying to ride the dog.  Before I know it, these moments too will be gone and my little guy is going to be all grown up.

Let me know what you think.

T.

New background

For Christmas this year my wife and in-laws bought me a background stand and a couple roles of background paper, among many other generous things.  I had yet to take the wrapping off of the background paper and was getting antsy to set it up and use it.  Last night, before putting our little boy down to bed, I decided to set up the stands, open the paper and try a quick photo shoot. 

So, even though our son was in his PJs, drinking his nightly bottle, I thought I could throw his pea coat and scarf on him and no one would know the difference.  So, I set up my small soft box, adjusted the light and camera to how I wanted it, put his coat and scarf on and got to work.

Unfortunately, as he was winding down for the night, he was not quite in the mood to cooperate with a photo shoot.  He is getting increasingly curious about everything, and a brand new role of paper hanging from a pole was just something new to check out.  He wanted to play with the paper, hitting it, pulling at it, almost tearing it a few times and wanted to do anything other than stand still and look at me.  We tried giving him his bottle, standing him up really quickly, yelling, cheering, whatever we could do to get his attention, but he just wanted to play with the paper.  My wife would hold him, making sure he was standing in the middle of the roll, then let go and jump out of the scene really quickly and I would try to snap off a few pictures before we completely lost him.  This happened a few times until he finally gave up, sat down and tore my paper.  Luckily, the background paper roll is 36' long, so I've got plenty of paper to spare.

I took about 25 shots, but really only got 5 shots of him even remotely looking at the camera.  The entire shoot only took about 5 minutes and he was out of his jacket and finishing off his bottle before bed.
This is the only shot that turned out pretty well.  He's half turning, looking at the camera, looking like he's going to say something.

From all of the playing that he did with the paper and the hard lighting I used, you could really see all of the crinkles in the paper that he caused.  So, in Photoshop, I took out the crinkles then added a slight pattern over the background to give it just a bit more interest.  I think it helps make a flat, somewhat boring background pop a little more.  Hopefully the pattern is muted enough that it isn't too distracting.

Either way, I was pretty happy with the way that it turned out, even though we couldn't really get him to cooperate or pay attention.  Lesson learned...don't try a photo shoot within 20 minutes of bed time...it's not going to go well!

Let me know what you think.

T.