Today's shoot with Devin and Macy

Today I photographed two wonderful young ladies just beginning their modeling careers. Our location was a cow pasture that was full of cow patties. We had to watch every step we took. I love this location because there are no distractions, there is plenty of shade, and it is mere feet from my house.
The top shot was taken using natural light. The shade from the Live Oaks provides some wonderful soft light. You just have to be careful that you don't get any little sunburst coming through the leaves and landing on your models face.


The shot to the left was taken using two flashes, one to light the models front, and since Macy has dark hair, one as a rim light to the right side of her. Her pose is showing attitude and I love it.

The shot at the bottom was taken at the edge of the pond the cows use as drinking water. Devin is lit from camera left and I used a 2/3 CTO gel on a hair light camera right. The pond made a great backdrop and really makes her blond hair stand out.

Both of these girls are just beautiful and were a real pleasure to work with. The rest of their pics will be on my facebook page as I process them. Look me up on facebook.

Cliff Hodges

What do I look for in a Portrait

There are several things I want to capture when I shoot a portrait. First, I want to have an interesting background. I hate the canvas backgrounds that you see in everybody's family pic they have hanging in their hallway. Nothing about it is interesting at all. Sometimes it looks like a dirty sheet from some seedy motel. The second thing I think about is, where is the sun? If I can, I like to position my model so I get backlighting in her hair and maybe a rimlight around her body. This adds a 3 dimensional look to your photo by providing separation from your background. Next I want to evenly light her with a flash. I want to make it look like I didn't really use a flash at all. I do want to see the catchlight in her eye from the flash. The eyes are very important to me. I will focus on her eye that is nearest to me. Last but not least, I like to have something in the foreground if at all possible. You really can't do this often with a headshot, but if you are doing 1/2, 3/4, or a full body shot, this should be easier. Oh, I almost forgot, it really helps if you have a stunning model like my friend Emily. She makes it easy to take some good pics. There you have it. Not that difficult if you just plan a tiny bit and use what's around you.

It's all about the eyes!

Always remember when you are taking a portrait of someone, to keep the eyes as sharp as possible. To do this, I always focus on the nearest eye to me. I always try to make sure I get a catchlight (the reflection of whatever light source I am using) in the upper part and off to one side of the pupil. This makes the eyes stand out. Whatever I do in post processing, I never blur the eyes. This photograph was blurred a little in post, but I removed the blur from the eyes. We set up and took this shot in less than five minutes. One SB-800 flash camera right triggered wireless by a SU-800 commander. I get asked often why I don't just use the commander built into my Nikon D-300S. The reason is the SU-800 uses infared light to trigger the flash and the onboard commander on the camera uses a series of really fast pulses from the on-camera flash to trigger the off camera flash. These pulses of light, although they won't show up on your image, will cause your subjects pupils to contract to almost a pinpoint. I like big pupils!

Cuz came to visit

My cousins Christine and Pauline came to visit us today. We did the usual chit chat, catching up on family members, talking about the fun times Pauline and I had when we were growing up. Of course we had to go get some pizza and pie. When we got back to the house I drug out the black background and 3 speedlights. I had been wanting to try a beauty setup with the lights. One softbox high, one low, and a hair light. It took a little while to get my mojo going but we got a couple of nice shots. Here is one of Christine. She is gorgeous don't you think.

Looky what I found!

I was looking through some pics that I took last year. Look what I found! This isn't one of the best pics that I have ever taken, but there is something about it that I like. It may be that the model is not looking at me.( Trust me, I wasn't creeping up on her, I promise.) This is something she did own her own. That is what's cool about working with experienced models, they know what to do and what looks good. It may be the wind blowing through her hair. ( We had a little storm right after this shot.) This is a natural light shot. I love the highlight on her right cheek. Whatever it is, I like it. Don't be shy, comment and let me know what you think of it.

You gotta Move!

Lately I have been feeling a lot like this osprey. If you look at the right side of the pole he is sitting on, you can tell this fellow hasn't moved in awhile. That's the way my photography has been going for the past few months. It has been kinda chugging along, doing a few shoots here and there. I have been doing my normal reading blogs on the internet, trying to further my skill some, but not really jumping in with both feet. I am mostly a self taught photographer, and I think I take some nice photo's now and then, but I am ready to bump it up a notch or two. I have always wanted to go to a workshop, but with the economy like it is, I didn't want to spend the bucks. I have been to a couple of seminars where some semi known photographer shows you a powerpoint and has tables covered with his sponsor's latest gadgets, but never a full blown workshop. Well I did it. I signed up for one Holly Gordon is putting on in Jacksonville. I think it will be a great time, and I think I will learn a lot.

It's not always about the babes!

Today I had the pleasure of photographing an amazing young man that I know from Church. I don't have men contact me too often about getting some pics done and Dan wanted something different from everybody else. Of course I was game, I love a new challenge. We decided on an Indiana Jones kinda shoot. One fedora, a jacket, and a bullwhip later, we are in business. It had been awefully windy all day, but it died down during the shoot and everything went perfect. Man that whip sounded like a rifle going off. Dan asked me if I wanted to try it, but all I could think about was the line from The Christmas Story, "You will shoot your eye out kid".

But I don't have all that cool equipment.......

When I first started shooting with off camera lighting, I used two shoplights that I had purchased from Sears when I was building my house. Since then I have purchased 3 speedlights (one at a time as I could afford them), and no longer use the shop lights. I still don't have any way cool studio lighting, but I do see some in my not so distant future. It is way better to have a limited amount of equipment and know how to use what you have, than to have all this cool stuff and not know how to get the results you need from it. I have always loved to fish and even spent five years of my life as a light tackle fishing guide. I have often noticed that the guy with one of every lure ever made in his tackle box, usually can't catch a fish to save his life. Now the angler with a couple of different lures in his box more than likely knows how to use them, and has a great deal of confidence in them. The same applys to photography. Don't over complicate it with every gadget you see in the popular mags. Get a little equipment and learn to use it right. Build your confidence with results. This shot of Haleigh was accomplished using just two speedlights. One is behind her and has a full CTO (orange) gel on it to make the tree behind her look like fall. The other flash is used without a gel to light her from camera left. Simple setup, not alot of equipment, but great results. At least I think so.

Time to get my butt back in gear!!!!

I hope everyone had a great Christmas. Mine was incredible. I got to spend it with my wife and kids, and my wife's parents. Great times. I had all intentions of doing some shooting over the holidays, but never even came close. It's time to get back to the grindstone. Since I have no new pics to show you, I will post one from earlier in the year and talk a little about how I got it. This is Charis. She is a beautiful young lady that lives pretty close to me. She photographs extremely well and tolerates my experiments with light and angles. I had a sunset shot in mind this day but it was very cloudy, so I made my own sun. I used a speedlight camera right with a full CTO gel on it and used a cloudy white balance on the camera. I purposely set the flash at an angle to get some lens flare. An ungel'd flash was set up camera right to give nice highlights and to not make everything look so orange. Well you see the finished result and I like it. It is one of my favorites that I have taken. Oh yeah, I did find the coolest Cypress tree that I have ever seen last week. I am gonna go back with the Nikon later this week and see what I can do with it. I think it will make an awesome black and white.