Kelly and Kensington

I miss my friends. I usually look forward to October and November because things tend to slow down with Wedding Season, however this year I have been absolutely swamped! My friends know they can just count me out for the entire summer, but this year my "summer" busy season is going clear through the end of November. Kelly and Kensi actually had to come see me at a job while I was setting up for a shoot to visit and learn a few tips on setting up a portable studio. Here is one of them that I did to test out the light. I miss hanging out with them!

PHOTO 101: Lighting Basics

What do you see? Look around you... what do you SEE? Okay, now close your eyes. Close them really tight. Squeeeeeze those eyelids shut. Now what do you see? Okay, now open your eyes. What do you see? You see light. Light reflected off of objects. Without light we would see nothing at all. Without light photography would not be possible, nor would it be relevant. Lighting is what often times separates the amateurs from the pros. Because it is a make or break issue many amateurs or dabblers feel like it is an insurmountable mountain. I say, not so. You are a master of light but just don't know it. You have experienced light your entire life. The only issue is that you have taken it for granted. You are okay with the green cast those florescent bulbs cast on your faces. You are okay with the dark circles the sun creates under your friend's eyes at noon. All because your brain filters it out. Tricky, tricky. Our brains are very good at sly deception. Now, however, I would like you to overpower your brain and simply observe. Observe what light looks like. It is said (Urban Legend) that Eskimo's have 400 words for snow (in fact they have 12). There are many more words for light. Here are a few to get you started: for sunlight (daylight) you have dappled, shade, diffused, direct, magic, golden, reflected... for non-daylight you have tungsten, florescent, halogen, neon... Don't forget candle light from fire, or moonlight which is actually sunlight reflected off of the moon. Just look around you and you will know what looks good and what does not. A great rule of thumb when lighting people: the bigger the specular highlight the better the light will be. If all you see is a little spec, or no light reflecting in the eyes at all, you can be pretty certain you do not have good light. Observe, then shoot. Analyze, then shoot again. Become a student of light and you will become a brilliant photographer.

PHOTO 101: Composition (Fill the Frame)

"If your pictures aren't good enough, you aren't close enough." This, a quote from the great war photographer, Robert Capa, is something I say to my students all the time. It rings true with almost every genre of photography with the exception of a few. Generally speaking, this is a great rule of thumb when it comes to photography. FILL THE FRAME!!! Dead space usually does not work unless you are wanting it for effect. Here is an example from one of my assistant who will remain unnamed. The shot as is had nothing interesting in over 80% of the image. When cropped in to create a better image this assistant basically took a 10 megapixel, full frame sensor image down to a 2 megapixel image, hardly big enough for a 4x6 inch print. Useless! Not to mention the time wasted in post production to crop the image. Can negative "dead" space work to your advantage? Of course. As long as there is a reason. In publication we shoot things all the time with dead space to leave room for the designers to overlay it with typography. As an artist I do it for dramatic effect as seen in the above image. If you are trying to get better photos and you are still learning then heed Bob's advice.

Family Day

So, if you have been following my blog, you may notice that I am a professional wedding photographer and a professional Jacob photographer. People pretty much joke about how often I shoot my son and they wonder about the shear number of imagery I have taken of him within the first 9 months of his life. While I have not actually counted how many photos I have taken, I assure you, my 1 terabyte hard drive is almost full. The kid cracks me up because when he smiles he looks like a little chipmunk! Such funny little cheeks and I love love love that he lets me snap away. I swear, he won't recognize me as he gets older unless I have my camera in my face. He might even start calling me Canon rather than Mom! The above is one of my favorites from Sunday at Central Park in Santa Clarita.

Lorenzo and Kellie's Wedding

What a beautiful day on Saturday. Rain... a bride's nightmare... a photographer's dream. Kellie was, however, perfectly happy, super on-time (rare!) and so excited to marry Lorenzo. She was just happy it was not one of those blistering hot October weekends like last weekend. Lorenzo laughed because when we had our site visit a couple weeks ago, I had mentioned that TPC looks great when the sky is stormy. And that is exactly what we got! Everything about the day was beautiful. Here are a few of my favorites. Check back as I will be posting more as I archive the event. To pre-register to see all the event photos click here.

Jake: Another Friday Before the Storm

As most of you know, I tend to do nothing the day before a wedding. A sort of gearing up for the storm ahead if you will. It is actually supposed to rain tomorrow, and I kind of hope it will: great skies and beautiful photographic ops when it rains. I am sure my bride, Kelly is not too thrilled. Well, today, being my "do a little of nothing" day, I decided to take a few snaps of my little man, Jake. We went to the backyard again today as he has been so curious about everything and there is so much to see back there.

Bikichky Family

Shooting kids, let alone a two year old, has its challenges. With little Jordan, there was no reasoning, pleading, or bribing. He was running the show, and rightfully so. The best thing to do is just run with it (or him as was in this case.) Even though I was using studio lighting I was able to adjust on the fly by turning the head of the strobe to where he moved. In these cases it helps to know exposure and distance calculations. He is quite a beautiful child and I am glad I was able to "catch" him in a few shots.

PHOTO 101: Composition

What makes good composition? You could open any art book and find elements of design and principles of art. You would see such catch words as line, shape, rhythm, emphasis, perspective, proportion, movement, direction, value, color, size, texture, space, unity, harmony, variety, balance, contrast, repetition, line (oh wait, I said that one.) There are so many, it is hard to keep track of them all let alone get them all in one shot! So don't worry. If you can remember a few of them and try to work towards understanding them your imagery will start to look better. Your goal is to make these things intuitive so when you are shooting it becomes second nature. This comes with practice and paying attention. There are also some basic techniques to help your composition. The rule of thirds is the most common, but there is also such techniques as base weighting, simplification, the rule of odds, shallow depth of field, and vignetting. The above is a little "cheat sheet" to help you get started on understanding some of the ideas behind getting good composition. You may also go to my Google page and download the Class 5 notes from my Photo 150 class I teach at College of the Canyons (or any of the other notes that look interesting.)

PHOTO 101: Camera (Manual Operation)

If all else fails, put it in full auto mode and just shoot. I hear this from a lot of pros out there and it is frightening. Here is the issue: when you do not exercise a muscle it becomes weak. If you use crutches you will never be able to run. I think you get it. For those of you who know how to fully manipulate your camera by telling it what to do and not the other way around, my advice is to do just that. For those of you who do not understand manual operation... the only way you will get better at it (or even start to understand it) is to put your camera in "M" mode and start shooting. See what your camera does. Try to get a good exposure by checking your histograms (NOT YOUR LCD IMAGE!) Once you have a good exposure mess with the aperture and shutter speed to see what they do. Here are some starting points for you newbies:
Aperture (f-stop) = how big the hole is that lets light in
Controls Depth of Field (DoF)
The bigger the hole, the smaller the f number(f/5.6, f/4.0, f/2.8), the shallower the depth of field (less in focus from foreground to background from point of focus). The smaller the hole, the bigger the number (f/16, f/22) the more will be in focus from foreground to background from the point of focus. The below shot was taken at f/1.4



Shutter Speed = how long the shutter is open to let light in
Controls Motion
The longer the shutter is open (1/60, 1/30, 1/15), the more motion blur you will get. Conversely, the faster it is the more you will be able to stop motion (1/125, 1/250, 1/500) The below was shot at 1/3 sec. with a flash exposure to stop some of the motion. This is called Tungsten Blur. (More on that later.)


Here is a simple guide to industry standard full stops of exposure for both Aperture and Shutter Speed. Each number represents a "stop" of light exposure. A "stop" means doubling the amount. For example, f/4.0 lets in twice as much light as f/5.6 and a 250th of a second (1/250) lets in half as much light as a 125th (1/125).