My Day with the Debutante : Editorial Photography

A couple of weeks ago I spent a rainy Sunday morning with one of my all time favorite Beauty Queens, Stephanie Ziajka. If you follow the pageants, you may recognize her as Miss Tampa Bay. Not only is she beautiful, but she's also smart, very smart, and patient. She's helping me on my web presence and funny little things like key wording. She's quite a blogger also. She writes about fashion, beauty and make up, skin care, and just about anything else that a young Southern woman needs to know. You can view her blog at: http://www.thediaryofadebutante.com/. Check out her blog and drop her a line to let her know that I sent you. 

Senior Photography, Don't pass it by!

I had been driving past this door on an old abandoned house for years. Every time I would pass it, I would say to my wife," I love that door, one day I'm gonna shoot a portrait of someone standing in that doorway". Well this went on for years, I'm not kidding. I just never got around to it or had the right client. Awhile back Hannah wanted me to do her Senior pics and I told her that I had the perfect backdrop. She was game so we headed to that old structure, jumped out of the truck and shot a quick natural light portrait. The whole process took 5 minutes maybe. I love that old door. Maybe I'll use it again in a few years. Here are a few more from Hannah's Senior Portrait session. Senior Portraits are probably my favorite type of photography.

How'd I do That?

 I took this photograph of Cassy Cameron about 90 minutes before Sunset.  It was submitted to, and published by Swimsuit Illustrated Magazine. So what made this image stand out to the editor?  See the sun peeking over the sea oats? Normally, Cassy would be a dark silhouette in this image. I could have exposed the image for a blue sky. My exposure  probably would have been around 1/200 sec. f/16 at ISO 200. I probably would have set my AlienBees B800 at about 1/4 power and it would have looked pretty good. I didn't want it to look pretty good. I wanted it to look DRAMATIC. I wanted the editor to look at it and say "Dang, that looks different." So how did I do it? I set my aperture to f/22 and my shutter speed to 1/250 sec. That made the beautiful afternoon sky go pretty dark. Now I had to pump a lot of power out of my AlienBees B800 flash to expose her properly, but that was OK, I knew it would do it shooting through a Beauty Dish. It wouldn't do it through an umbrella. I digress, but I know this because I set my flash up in my living room one rainy day and metered what it would do from a distance of six feet, shooting through each of my light modifiers. Now I don't have to waste time on location figuring out what my equipment will do. Anyhow, that's how I did it, and the important thing is it made the cut and it got published. If you don't understand all these terms and fractions, that's OK, I didn't at first either. I am completely self taught and I did it by reading, watching tutorials on You Tube and experimenting. Here are a couple more images from that shoot for your viewing pleasure. They made the cut too and were published. The one with her laying on the sand with the bird in the water was taken using the exact same technique. Enjoy!

Sometimes you just shoot for the fun of it!

Lately when I take my camera out, it is for something to do with my business. I am either working, practicing, or experimenting with a new lighting setup. It's easy to forget why I started my journey down the long winding road of photography. I LOVE taking pictures, not just snapping away at everything I see, but taking meaningful pictures with a purpose. My sister Susan and her family came to see me last Summer and I got one of my cameras out of the bag for some pool time. It wasn't one of my Nikon D300S's that I use for work, but a Nikon D40X, still a nice camera. While in the water with my camera about 2 inches from certain death, I had a blast taking pics of my niece and nephew as they played in the pool. Oh yeah, I love the pic I took of Susan spraying her husband Joe with sunscreen. 

Head Shots for an Actress, One Background, Three looks

Actress Evelyn Nardo recently contacted me about shooting some head shots for her. I wanted to give her different looks without having to do a lot of changing my backdrops, so I did all three of these shots on white seamless paper. It's not that hard to do and it's a good trick to have up your sleeve when doing portrait photography. In the above shot, I have my camera shutter speed set to 1/200 sec, and my ISO at 200 (that's pretty much where I start on most jobs), my aperture is set to f/11, white balance is set to Flash. I held my Sekonic L-358 light meter under her chin and fired my main light (one AlienBees B800)while adjusting for a f/11 reading on the meter. I adjusted my background lights (two AlienBees B800's) for a light meter reading of F/16. This caused the background to go almost perfectly white. A little clean up was required in Photoshop.

In the next shot, I turned off the background lights, bumped my aperture up to f/16 and adjusted my main light accordingly. This made the background go very dark giving this portrait a totally different look.

In this last portrait, I changed my white balance to incandescent, Adjusted my ISO to 800, shutter speed to 1/125 sec., and my aperture to F3.2 I turned my main light's flash off and just used the modeling lamp. This made the background go blue, and gives the photograph a soft feel. There you have it, three totally different portrait looks that can be achieved pretty quickly without the hassle of changing that paper. 

My Latest Swimsuit Shoot for Swimsuit Illustrated Magazine!

The first time Ambar and I tried to shoot for Swimsuit Illustrated Magazine, we had some bad weather roll in. We cut our shoot short, say that three times fast, and decided to reschedule sometime in the future.  Well it took a couple of months, but we finally did it. Some of these images were taken with natural light. I did however drag along my trusty AlienBees B800 and a beauty dish. That combo gets more beach time than a lifeguard.  I hope you enjoy the images below.

Senior Portrait Photography, My Top 10 and why I like them so much.

This may be my favorite Senior Portrait that I have ever taken. This image is not what it appears. It looks like Charis is pulling off a perfect glamour pose as the afternoon sun is shining over her left shoulder. Not so. It was actually rainy and cloudy. During a break in the weather, we dashed outside. I set up a Nikon SB800 camera left with no gel. I placed another Nikon Speedlight with a full CTO gel, camera right, slightly behind Charis. This is the result, a perfect sunset.

I love this Senior Portrait because Haleigh included her dog Clyde in her portrait. Her wardrobe matches the theme perfectly. 

One winter, a neighboring farmer planted rye grass in his field. This made for the perfect backdrop for this Senior Portrait. Amanda's blue dress looks great with the green background. The highlights in her hair are from the sun. 

This Senior Portrait of Jacob was taken in my living room. He brought his football uniform along for his session. I shot him on a black background. One flash in front of him and one on each side slightly behind him. My daughters assisted me by standing in chairs and spraying water to make it look like it was drizzling at a stadium. 

Caleb's parents behind him and out of focus show the strong unity of this family. I was glad he included them in his Senior Portrait.

Kate looks like a model in this Senior Portrait. Her connection with the camera is outstanding.

Color is the theme in Jacob's Senior Portrait. He pulls off the perfect pose in this all natural light image.

Here is Jacob again. This was another shot from Jacob's Senior Portrait session. I love the way the clouds and sun make Jacob a silhouette in this image. 

Meghan looks so happy in her Senior Portrait. I used the same field of rye grass at sundown and lit her with Nikon SB800 slightly camera right.

I call this Senior Portrait, the Corona commercial. Kate looks gorgeous standing on the boat dock. The boat house and single palm tree make the perfect background for this Florida themed shot. 

There you have it. My favorite Senior Portrait images from my portfolio. Feel free to comment and let me know if you would like to book a session.   

A New Year's Resolution, a Few Days Late.

Today's the 9th, I never seem to do things the conventional way. My resolution this year is to do more natural light photography. For the past few years I have been relying heavily on my strobes. I really like using them in direct sunlight with the sun at the subjects back. Sometimes I overlook a location that has great natural lighting because of an idea for a shoot I have planned already. The above image was taken with no flash, no reflector, no nothing except a beautiful model and light bouncing off a wall. For the bottom image, I used a reflector only. Stayed tuned for more natural light images. I am shooting Stephanie this Sunday and I plan on using almost all natural light. 

Teaching The Old Dog New Tricks

This is Stephanie. I met her while on a photo shoot for Swimsuit Illustrated Magazine. She is a Miss Florida Contestant and it's not hard to see why. She's smart, friendly, and  beautiful. She's about take on task that may try her patience and turn that smile upside down. She's gonna teach this old dog about blogging and Search Engine Optimization. We have a editorial shoot together Sunday, and when we finish, I'm gonna break out my laptop and she's gonna teach me a thing or two. I hope she still likes me when she's done. I met with my marketing consultant Tuesday and I think she had to be medicated when we were finished.