Shooting. I think most everyone may have figured out how to achieve good results taking smoke photos before I did, but just in case here’s my setup. The most obvious observation is that you want to maximize contrast — I used a matte black background to aid definition. Next, you have to light your smoke, and this was really the only tricky part. I remotely triggered a flash at left, and had a reflector (tin foil) at right. There are many more complex ways to do this (light boxes, multiple strobes, etc), but this was quick and easy and it let me experiment within about 2 minutes. The thing you want to note is that you need to control flash coverage; I would recommend either a snoot, or to zoom your flash. Here’s another perspective to see the simplicity (*another note, also I think incense might be a bit easier than matches.. but I didn’t have any around the house).

More creative things to do. After you have your shot, you can invert the colors (i.e. black to white, etc), add color, clone, twirl, or do a number of things to make your art. More examples here.

Well, there’s more to be done. Next I think is dry ice, more smoke, some props, and maybe to gel the flash. I had fun, though. =]

My first wedding in Hawaii!! My first wedding in Maui!! Two amazing and beautiful people; about the most caring people you could ever know. Jen and Justin were married in Maui (Maui’ed) in the presence of family and friends on 28-Jun-2008. As usual, I shot many thousands of photos that will take me a little longer to get entirely through. In the meantime… check out the set and watch it develop on my Flickr (more pictures being added daily)!

Congrats you two. Thank you for letting me be a part of your day. A few of the favorites.

It’s been a while since a post… and a busy/ long past couple of months. I have moved across the country from Seattle to Washington D.C. to pursue graduate school. Dramatic changes and much work again, but a fantastic place and a wonderful opportunity. I will dearly miss seeing family and friends, but will keep in touch and plan to relentlessly stay active on my Flickr. Stay tuned, more to follow. =]

Better browsing; turn it on already! If you have been using Safari you already were in the know… but with the recent release of Mozilla Firefox v3 no one has any excuse not to see photos as they were intended to be seen.

Read more about it at Rob Galbraith’s site. He has an excellent description of how to enable.

I am pretty excited about this; there’s a fantastic feature article on my long-time friend and astounding musician, Marcus Eaton, in this month’s [July 2008] edition of Premier Guitar. And… they’ve run nine photos of mine for the article! Here’s a version of the lead image, as well as a screen capture of the article itself. Be sure to check out the article entitled Northwestern Exposure on pgs 56-67. Congrats Marcus, nicely done!

Southern Utah is a strange and beautiful place. Mike and I took a trip down at the end of May (21-28) to the Moab-Arches-Canyonlands area; it was simply fantastic! We hiked, biked, rafted, burned [me, more than him], ate, watched a marathon of Big Bang Theory, enjoyed our luxurious FX35, in general had an amazing time, and of course took [countless] photos along the way. I couldn’t have asked for a cooler travel buddy. There is a plethora of photos on my Flickr (link here), but here are a few teasers.

If you ever have the opportunity, it certainly is worth the visit and is an exceptionally unique area of the country. P.s. rent the high end bikes — they’re worth it!

There’s a story here. My friend Geoff has absolutely fantastic best-you-can-get seats for the Seattle Mariner’s game. He invited me to a game last night and it took me a whole 11 seconds to reply — of course! It was an awesome game, a little slow up front, but the end was exciting and the M’s pulled out for a win. I rarely shoot sports, so it was quite the experience. Also, I’ve moving to the DC/Baltimore area, and I almost had a bit of trouble figuring out who to cheer for (not really). =]

More on my Flickr.

Pictured Above: Canon EOS 1Ds Mark II, Canon EOS 5D + BGE4 (grip), Canon EF 16-35 F/2.8L, Canon EF 24-70 F/2.8L, Canon EF 70-200 F/2.8L IS, Canon EF 50 F/1.2L, Canon EF 1.4x Extender II, Canon 500D (close up lens), Kenko Extension Tubes (12, 20, 36mm), Canon EF 580 EX x 2, Stofen Omnibounce x 2, Gitzo GT2540, RRS BH-40 + LR II, RRS B57L & BGE4-L, RRS L84, B+W 77mm UV Haze 010 MRC x 4, B+W 77mm Kaeseman Circular Polarizer MRC Slim, B+W 72mm UV Haze 010 MRC, Lee .9 GND (3-stop),, Pocket Wizard Plus II x 2, Canon TC-80N3 (timer remote), Sandisk CF (1, 2, 4, 8 GB Extreme 4 & Ultra II) & SD (8 GB Extreme 3) cards, batteries, batteries, cables, umbrellas x 2, light stands x 2, Canon OC-E3 (off camera flash cord), Manfratto monopod, superclamp, lens cleaner, sensor brushes, et al, etc, etc.

Oh man.

Marcus and I had been planning a shoot for quite a while, and things finally came together (he was in town, I was in town, and we both had some time) where we could get out and work on promo photos for their album. The trio had a show at Nectar the other night, and yesterday we took advantage of the absolutely fantastic weather. Here’s a few photos of Marcus, James, and Kevin. Location was in/around Seattle, mostly by REI and then in Georgetown. Thanks go out to assistant / second photographer Shelby White… couldn’t have done the shots without him.

Exif: 1Ds Mark II, EF 24-70, f/6.3-8.0, 1/50-1/100, ISO 400-640, two 580 EXs triggered by PWs, & shot through umbrellas.

Marcus Eaton Trio at Nectar 10 Apr 08. Jim on bass, Kevin on drums. Awesome show, over in Fremont. It was an eclectic line up with Bryan Scary & The Shredding Tears, followed by Marcus, then Kris Orlowski closing out the night.

A few words about low-light

Shooting musicians in clubs presents some of the most challenging conditions for capturing images. Photography is about capturing light, and in these settings there is no (well, very little) light! Your options: slow your shutter speed (more time lets in more light), open the aperture (let light in through a bigger hole), boost the signal (raise your ISO). Each of these three options comes with its own individual caveats. Slowing your shutter speed too much will result in motion blur, either from you moving while hand-holding the camera, or more likely from the musicians fast hands. The quick rule of 1 / focal length (i.e. 1/50 sec or faster for a focal length of 50-mm) helps, but I’d recommend faster if possible to stop motion: say 1/125 sec.

Available apertures will depend on your lens; faster than F/2.8 is helpful for low light. Prime lenses are much better suited (and they’re available down to F/1.2 [F/1.0 to be technically correct and included lenses no longer in production for Canon EOS]). A good bang-for-the-buck lens that would go a long ways in this environment is the EF 50 MM F/1.8 II… better still is the F/1.4 version.

ISO is the equivalent of ASA, or film speed. In digital photography it is a way to boost your sensor’s sensitivity (more signal = appearance or more captured light). The downside to raising the ISO is that gaining any signal simultaneously results in higher background (i.e. noise). Digital cameras these days are getting better, especially DSLRs. Most CMOS based sensors have very little problems getting up to ISO 1000 and even to 1600, some go 3200 and higher. Be carful, you’ll definitely run into a noise wall at those upper limits where you are introducing more background than true signal and you will lose detail.

The above photos were shot in Manual mode at 1/60-1/80, F/2.8-F/3.2, and ISO 3200. In the end, do what works for you. =] Continue Reading »