Self Family Portrait

  This was a self family portrait we did the other day as a Christmas present for grandparents.

The photo was taken in our studio using a 3 light set-up.  The key light was CR positioned 40-45 degrees, with a gridded medium soft-box.  The fill light was CL positioned 45 degrees and low, with a medium soft-box.  The fill light was one stop less than the main light.  The third light, was a gridded strobe used as a 'hair light', CR positioned behind us, being one stop brighter than the key light.

  The camera and lights were all tripped with pocket wizards.  The photo was taken in a low-key style on a black background, with intentions for a black and white portrait.

  When taking 'self-portraits', is always more difficult than having someone else take your portrait.  Here are a few good tips on shooting a self portrait. 

 1) If you do not own pocket wizards or radio transmitters, you can use your self timer that comes on all cameras.

 2) Use a tri-pod, set your camera on a tri-pod in the position that you are going to shoot from, and compose your shot.

 3) Pre-focus on your subjects, then switch your lens to manual focus, so that focus will not change through out.

 4) Last but not least, take LOTS of shots. You are bound to get one or two that are good.

  We hope you find these tips helpful when shooting self-portraits. Any questions or comments are welcomed and appreciated!  *Sincerely; Rob & Leiann

Architectural Photo Shoot

I  recently did a little interior architectural photography for a local custom home builder, Artisan Homes. They needed a couple of shoots of kitchens they have done for an advertising campaign  they have coming up in the new year.

This first kitchen shot is pretty basic, it was lit with only two speed lights.

The first 580Ex was to camera left. I set it on a light stand and used a shoot thru umbrella to soften the light so that I didn't get any harsh shadows.
The second 580EX was on camera right, it to was on a light stand but was bounced into the corner of the ceiling, again in order to minimize any harsh shadows.

The second kitchen was a little more complex, they wanted to have the entire kitchen in the shot but not the eating nook, which made the space to shoot in very tight.

I used 3 lights for this shot, an Elinchrom D-lite 4 with softbox to camera left, then a 580 EX with shoot thru umbrella just off of camera right and then a second 580 EX bounced off the ceiling far camera right.
In order to get the entire kitchen in one shot I had to take 3 separate photos, each over lapping the other and stitch them together in CS5.

I think both kitchens turned out great and the clients where very happy with the final images, which is all the matters.

Both images where taken with a Canon 1DMk3/ 16-35 f2.8 L .

Craig Family Photo Shoot

   Yesterday, we had the Craig family at out studio for a Newborn/Family Portrait session. We had a great time photographing 5 week old Alexis, her big brother Ben and mom and dad Vickie and Jamie. Little Alexis was such an angle, she was awake for the whole shoot and didn't so much as utter a peep, she is every photographers dream client. Her big brother Ben, was also a lot of fun to work with, for a 3 year old I have to say he is very well behaved and has a lot of patients to be in front of the camera for the length of time he was.
We would like to thank Jamie and Vickie for letting us have the honour of photographing their lovely family and we're looking forward to watching and photographing their family grow as the years go by.

Below are a few teaser photos from the shoot we did. We hope you love the photos as much as we loved taking them.

Happy Halloween Everyone....

I hope everyone had a great halloween, I know my kids did. It was a pretty busy night here at the house, took my daughter to Kingsway Mall for Trick or Treating then took her around our neighbourhood. Let's just say she cleaned up in the candy department. So with all of this going on I didn't get to do very much shooting, but we just had to have a few studio shots of our little Snow White.

 And of course a couple of shots of my handy pumpkin carving skills, and I have to say they turned out pretty good. Leiann drew the designs free hand onto the pumpkins which is a lot harder than it looks. It's one thing to draw it out on paper but to draw it on a irregular round surface is another thing. great job honey.

We Want You....

My son Rylan has joined the Air Cadets this year, 533 Sabre Squadron out if St.Albert. He is very excited about being an Air Cadet and as soon as he received his uniform, we had to do a photo shoot. These photos are from that shoot.

A walk in the park.....

In my neighbourhood we have a few man made lakes or ponds. These photos were taken at one of those ponds, which is about a block from my house. When you take your time and look at what nature has to offer it might surprise you, even when your in the middle of a city.

Book review......Photographing People, Portraits,Fashion,Glamor by RotoVision

Well I just finished reading the book Photographing People, Portraits, Fashion, Glamor and have to say it was a very good book on lighting. Now this book isn't a how to book on lighting, it's more of a how do the pros do their lighting. Each page shows a photo, a lighting diagram that shows how the photographer set up the lighting for the shot and a brief write up as to why they set up their lights that way for the shot. The book features may of the top pros in the industry like, Frank Wartenberg, Michael Grecco, Michael Freeman and many many more.
If your in a lighting rut and need some inspiration for new lighting set ups then this is the book for you.

A Child's Gaze....

Here is a natural light portrait of my son Kai. The diffused natural light was coming in from our living room windows and was side lighting Kai. The soft side light really brings out his eyes and wraps around his face opening up the shadows on the right side.

A Childs Gaze

Camera: 5DMk2

Lens: 85 f/1.2

Aperture: f/1.2

Shutter Speed: 1/160

Day 3 of 365 Project

Well today was a cold dreary day, so I decided to head down to the local man made lake here in out neighbourhood and see if there were any geese around. So I packed up my Canon 1DMk3, my 70-200  f/2.8 with the 2 x extender and my trusty tripod and head down to the lake. Well there wasn't very much happening at the lake, the place was barren, just a couple of geese at the far side of the lake and a seagull feeding jut off the shore line.
Well the geese where to far away for a good shot, even with the 70-200 f/2.8 racked out to 400 f/5.6 with the 2x extender so I focused on the feed seagull that was slowly swimming towards me. My shot of the day  shows the seagull diving for lunch and it also show what a fast shutter speed can do for an action shot.

Camera - 1DMk3
Lens - 70-200 f/2.8 IS w/ 2x Extender
Focal Length - 400mm
Aperture - f/5.6
Shutter Speed - 1/800s
ISO - 800

Photo 2 of 365

Evening, todays photo is a studio shot I did for my daughters 6th birthday party. The theme of the party was Barbie Fashion Fantasy.... so we just had to do a fashion shoot with the girls. This photo is from that shoot.

Camera : Canon 5Dmk2

Lens: 85 f/1.2

Focal length: 85mm

Shutter Speed: 1/160s

Aperture: 5.6

ISO: 100

Lighting: Key- Cl- Profoto 600r w/ med soft box w/ 40* grid
                Fill - Cr - Profoto 600r w/ 22" beauty dish
           Kicker - Cl & Cr -2 Elenchrom D-lite 4 w/ 8" reflector w/ 20* grids
  Background - Cl & Cr - 2 Ef 580exII w/ white bounce umbrellas

This shot was taken with 6 different lights, each light adding to the over all essence of the shot. Here are a couple of behind the seen  shots so you can see how the lighting was set up.

So is shot shows the key light ,Med soft box with the grid, the kicker light with grid and the 580exII in the umbrella for the background. As you can see my studio is in my garage so I don't have a lot of room to work with and I really have to control were the light is going, that is why I use grids when ever possible. If I can't use a grid to control light spillage, like in the case of the bounce umbrellas, I set up a flat or bookend to control where the light goes. The big white piece of foam core  is a flat and I'm using it to block the background light from spilling onto my subject.

Here is the same set up, just showing it from the fill side of the shot. The 22" beauty dish was used as a fill light, the 8"gridded reflector is the kicker and last another 580exII in a bounce umbrella for the background that has a flat in front of it to block the light spillage .

I hope you like the shot, if you have any questions or comments, please feel free to leave them.
Have a great night.

Photo Number 1 of 365 Project

Well here is the very first photo for my new 365 project. It was my son, Rylan's 15th birthday yesterday so tonight he is having a few friends over to celebrate. They're all downstairs in the theatre room rocking it out on RockBand so I couldn't resist getting a few shots of them.
This first 365 photo is a shot of my son rocking out on the Rockband drum set.

The shot was taken with a Canon 5Dmk2 and the 85 f/1.2.
Lighting - 100% ambiant
Focal Length - 85 mm
ISO - 6400
Shutter Speed - 1/500
Aperture - f/1.2

Now, I'm not much of a tilt shot kinda guy but i think the tilt on this shot does work well with the composition of the shot.

 Happy 15th Birthday Rylan, I Love you.

New 365 Project

Hi there, so I have realy been neglecting my blah and me photography this summer. It's been busy as he'll around the home front, with the kids out of school and trying to finish renovation my basement I just haven't had the time do very much shooting. Well that's going to stop tonight, from this night on I will post a new daily photograph along with a little write on how I took the shot. I welcome all cirques, comments and criticisms, please post anything that comes to mind when you view the photos.

Edmonton Fast Track Photography Meet

Hi everyone, well I finally made it to an Edmonton Fast track meeting. For those of you that don't know about the Edmonton Fast Track organization they are a group of Edmonton photographers that are basing their meetings on Dane Sander's book and business philosophy " Fast Track Photographer ".

This months meeting was supposed to be a pot-luck dinner at Hawrelak Park with a model shoot but mother nature put a stop to that with non stop rain. We ended up meeting at Starbucks and then went out to do the model shoot in an old car parkaid downtown. The shoot was a great time and I have to thank our models, Sara and Chris, for being great sports and pretty much doing all that we ask of them. You guys are the best Sara and Chris.

These are the photos from that shoot, I hope you like them.

Once again a special thanks to our models Chris and Sara, you guys rock.