Making my First Impression!

As I pen this blog entry, I am submitting my first photos to Swimsuit Illustrated Magazine. Devin and I had one day last week that we could shoot. It rained the whole week. To make a long story short, we had a couple hour break in the weather and we made the best of it. All of the shots have stormy looking clouds in the background. Not your norm for swimsuit magazines I imagine, but that's what we had to work with. Devin was an excellent model, and my wife Melinda really helped with all the equipment and worked hard at trying to keep it dry. This shot was not submitted to the magazine, it's one of those fun shots. If you want to see the whole shoot, check out Swimsuit Illustrated this summer, I hope you see my work in there a lot!

I Know Now That I am Truly a Wimp.

My wife and I went to the Rocketman Triathlon this morning so I could get some practice in on action shots. I was amazed at the amount of athletes there. All shapes and sizes, from all over the world. We were walking along the seawall and I saw a young woman missing her leg. She had a Wounded Warrior wetsuit on. I wanted to photograph her badly, but I didn't. I don't know why, it would have been the shot of the morning. Maybe I didn't want to bother her. Maybe I was afraid. I was completely in awe of this young woman. I imagine she lost her leg in combat.....for me,and my family, and for you and yours. Her leg was gone, all the way up to her hip. She gave that up for us. So here she is, getting ready to jump into the Indian River and swim, get out of the water, jump on a bicycle ride, and then run. I make excuses to get out of walking to the end of the road everyday. So anyhow I was a chicken and didn't photograph her, or even thank her for her service. I feel so bad about that.

An hour or so later, I saw this guy come up out of the water. No arms, swimming in a race with no arms. I quickly scurried over to where I could catch him on the bike part of the race and snapped this. I came away from the event with two new heros, and now I know I am truly a wimp.

Let's Go Flash Somebody!

Or this entry could be called, "Know What Your Flash Can Do!" How well do you know your equipment? If you tell somebody that's writing you a check at the end of the day what you can do, you better be able to do it. How powerful is your flash? How much do you lose with different modifiers? Well today I found out exactly what I can do with my Alien Bees AB800. I set up my flash in a dark room, I marked off five feet and stood there with my light meter. I can usually get my flash to within five feet of my subject. If not I just need to remember the Inverse Square Law. (more on that some other day) At full power my AB800 puts out f.32 at five feet with no modifier on it. With a shoot through umbrella, f.16 and with my Paul C. Buff beauty dish, f.22 with or without the sock diffuser on it. Well f.22 is my magic number. In the above shot, I set my exposure to f.18 with a shutter speed of 1/200 of a second to expose the sky the way I wanted it to look. Then I set my flash to get proper exposure on the model. That's asking a lot from a flash. It takes a lot of power for the model not to be a dark blob. Just look at that sun...it's BRIGHT! A speedlight won't do it. I know that I can get f.22 out of my flash with the dish on it as long as it's within 5 feet of the model so f.18 was no problem.

A Diversified Portfolio

My outlook on photography is a lot like investing. You have to have a diversified portfolio. I recently became a photographer for a swimsuit magazine, and as much as I would like to think that I am gonna be jet setting all over the world taking pics of the planet's hottest women on the most beautiful beaches. It's just not gonna happen that way. The magazine is published quarterly, I am gonna have 6 pics in each issue if I am lucky........man they are gonna have to pay me some serious bucks per image for me to live off that. So here is where the diversification comes into play. My main gig with photography is stock. I take images that companies buy through my agency to use for advertising. That's what this image of Heather is for. I also do senior pics, family portraits, and I will do a wedding here and there throughout the year. I am currently working on a couple of articles for a garden magazine. It takes a lot of little income streams to make a living with a camera, at least it does where I live with the economy like it is.  So you see, my life as a photographer is not that glamorous, heck it's not really glamorous at all, but I love what I do and I feel complete when I have a camera in my hand. On my next post, we are gonna get real technical, and boring, but I think new photographers will benefit from it. So, stay tuned.

New Gig!

This is Krista, a model and friend. No you can not have her number.

Life throws you some funny curves sometimes. Last week I joined the Swimsuit Illustrated Magazine team as a photographer. I will be covering the state of Florida, trying to help up and coming models get some exposure. I will also be featuring swimsuits from Florida based designers. This works out great for me in more ways than one. Of course it's not gonna be like a day in the salt mine, photographing some of the most beautiful young women in Florida, but I can really use the exposure too. Swimsuit Magazine is a global publication that's published quarterly. My work is gonna be seen by hundreds of thousands of people instead of maybe a few hundred or so by just working local stuff here in Brevard County. I've been published before, but never anything like this. So I'm on my way to get some more sunscreen and maybe a new pair of flip flops on my way to the office, uh, I mean beach. Oh yeah, I really am gonna try real hard to blog more regularly. I promise.

The Barter System



    I just recently jumped into the world of stock photography. At this point in my career, my budget for hiring models is around thirty two cents. I don't have to tell you what kind of model you can hire for that kind of cash.
    I need all kinds of models, not just ones that are 5'11" and weigh 115lbs, but all kinds of people. So the problem is how do I get someone to take time from there busy schedule and pose for pictures that they have no need for.  Here is where the barter system comes into play. I offer to take photos of whatever people want if they will pose for whatever I want and it's been working very well. All it cost me is a little time, and they get some images that they probably would have never hired someone to take.
    We have a family friend, Becky, who is very attractive and could be used for all types of stock images. She wanted some shots shooting her M4. A little trading and we both get what we want. She probably would pose for me with no compensation, but I wouldn't feel right about that. So we spent an hour in my cow pasture to get the shots she wants and now she is going to be a nurse for me. As a bonus, I plan on submitting the above image to a few magazines.  Oh by the way, I am looking for a chef!

Beauty is where you find it.

    I haven't been shooting a lot lately. The big layoffs here really hurt my senior photography business, and I work quite a bit of overtime at my "real job". Luckily I met Heather. She is a gorgeous young lady that will help me out anytime I need a little practice. The first time that I photographed her, she was really nervous. I tried to make her feel at ease with my witty humor.....but I don't think that helped. The next time we shot, it was for real. I used her to get some medical images that I wanted for my stock portfolio. She pulled her hair back in a ponytail, put on a scrub top and she was a  nurse. She did really good. She looked so convincing, I think she should apply to Nursing School.
   Yesterday, we just shot for the fun of it. I wanted to get her some images just for her. Some that she would like and that she could share with her family. She has the most beautiful smile and the whitest teeth that I have ever seen. Hey maybe I should shoot her for a toothpaste add.....