Art Show Season Begins

Tomorrow we begin the outdoor Art Show Season with a one day event in Valley Junction, West Des Moines, Iowa. It is their Spring Art Market. I haven't show in Valley Junction for several years, neither has my wife Robin. One day shows are physically demanding and a single thunderstorm can wipe out the day. But... let's hope the rain is done by then. Rain isn't the only fear. Hail can be a real show-stopper. This was in Edina Minnesota four years ago.

Also high winds, up to 100 MPH in this case, crushed the Omaha Summer Arts Festival three years ago.

But you take your chances. Most of my work revolves around exploring the abstractions created in atmospheric event or in the movement in water. I was in Rome and made this image, while genltly moving the camera, left to right, creating my own abstraction. It's new this year, the newest photo to the collection. I'll only have one with me tomorrow, to see how people like it.

Time flies unless you shoot it down

Last week was a wedding week in the family. My daughter Sarah was married in a brisk outdoor affair at Sand Piper Recreation Area near Polk City, Iowa.

So blogging has been far down on the list. My former brother in law Bill took photos and Charlie the video. I walked my lovely daughter down the aisle and then, later, couldn't help myself. I went to the car, got a camera and found a little moment of joy. After cutting the wedding cake, Sarah fed a bit to her new husband John and then to their first daugther Georgia.

I spend a good deal of time talking about technique on this blog. But the heart of creation is answering the question, "Does this work?" Who cares about the exposure, camera or lens. "Does this work?" Of course it does because it's a little moment.

All we are doing, at the end of the day, is using idioms... sorry, let me rephrase. The bottom line (another idiom) is that we are simply rescuing moments from vanishing into eternity. Amen.

The Heart of the Portable Strobe Shoot

Terra is a budding professional photographer from Ankeny, Iowa. She has a strong eye for portraiture, a winning smile and a great deal of patience. In our Digital Studio Safari class on Saturday, I was demonstrating to Terra and Gail (on the left) and Marnae, the how and why of using portable strobes in an environmental situation, using an infrared remote on my Canon SLR.

Zeroing in on Terra, I demonstrated that sometimes the ambient light of a room isn't intense enough to be able to hand-hold a heavy digital SLR. Also, the light isn't very interesting. Here's the starting point:

So, here is the shaky image depending on some overhead but mostly window light. Not very good. We need to improve the situation.

The lighting gear I'm using are two Canon speedlites and an infrared remote trigger, that fits into the hotshoe of the camera.
But we begin with one strobe in the hotshoe.
The first step, when I'm teaching this approach, is to place the portable speedlite on the Canon camera and give the subject the old blast in the face, lots of light, oh my, this is what Terra would look like to a coal miner. Flash on camera. Yuck.

So first things first, we get that light thrown up into the ceiling by bouncing turning the flash at 90-degrees to the subject. A slight improvement.

 But I know I'm going to use two lights so I take the strobe off the camera and place it to the side. At 45-degrees to subject Terra will look better...

A huge improvement. Now it's time to separate Terra and that sassy blonde hair with the red streak from the background. A second strobe, on the same channel as the infrared remote is placed behind her... like this.

And now it is time to play with the angles and exposures to keep Terra separated from the background, while making sure the light in front is not too direct.

This is only a partial success. The camera is set at ISO200, f5.6 with a shutter speed of 1/200th of a second. At that exposure the we aren't taking advantage of the significant ambient light in the room, mostly daylight streaming in through eight windows. As I try dialing down the shutter speed, Terra gets bored...

But now I'm getting closer. The last exposure was 1/125th of a second at 5.6. I drop down the shutter speed to 1/60th and VIOLA!!! Success.

Click on the photo to see it larger. It's a simple idea but really makes a difference for an environmental portrait.

Safari Fun on a Saturday

Saturday marked the 35th Photo Safari held at Madhaus Studio & Gallery. There are four different types of Safari's:  The Digital Photo, or intro course, The Digital Video Safari, Crop Shop, which is for working in Adobe Elements and PhotoShop and also the very intense, Digital Studio Safari, which is what we held on Saturday, May 7.
Click on image to enlarge.

I am usually the model as we go outside and inside to find wonderful ways to use light to our advantage.

Gail (bottom left) took the photo of me that is above her. I was using the diffuser inside my portable reflector to soften the harsh daylight.

Marne (top middle) made the nice photo of my old face, as I stepped out of the direct sunlight into a nearby alley.

Terra (bottom right) caught a wonderful moment of gallery golden retriever Gordon finishing up giving me a big smooch in the backlight.

It was very gratifying as an instructor to have a group that was so sharp and never behind the curve. We spent a little extra time outdoors, pushing situations in the shade, using a portable reflector and generally finding the sweet spots of indirect light that allow for effective outdoor portraiture.

Try, Try, Trytek

Stacey Trytek has her own contribution to the subject of spring baseball. This from Stacey: "As long as we’re sharing, here is a photo I shot at a Little League game.  Not a great shot but it caught the moment…
The opposing team members were friends, as you can tell by the third baseman’s cheer for the successfully stolen base."

This is a real moment and a priceless one. Great job.
Click on the image to see it full size.

O.K., does anyone have a topper for this one?

You must be willing to sacrifice

Jim Deitchler sends this photo along with the following comment:
"I looked at your latest blog and it reminded me of the pics I shot in Atlanta last year.   Troy Glaus is at first and Andres Thomas is diving back in an attempted pick off."

An O.K. photo, from my standpoint. Just another pick-off attempt with little result. BUT… look closer, there's a much better image here, it just requires something you must do to win in baseball… sacrifice.

Crop tight, lose most of the first baseman and look at the nice dirt bath Thomas gets going back to the bag head first. Nice shot Jim. Probably from the stands. Even better. Click on photo for full effect.

It's spring in Iowa, baseball is upon us

From Power Shots, Episode 2. My how time flies.

Always remember, it's hard to be better than your light. Shooting baseball at high noon on a sunny day means you're going to have a tough time picking out faces under the bill of the ballcap. Shooting in the evening light might be charming, but shooting backlit might have some challenges if you don't have a lens or camera that allows you to shoot into the shadows. 

Given the choice, I'm almost always going to choose backlit for my baseball because it allows for me to use that backlight to provide separation between the subject and the background. Baseball almost requires to you to be shooting through a screen or from a great distance. 

One of the ways I get separation between subject and background is by using an elevated angle (slightly) which uses some of the field as your background.

But I also like making photos that make you look twice. Here is former Iowa Cubs pitcher (now Chicago Cubs closer) Carlos Marmol, delivering a pitch to the plate. I manually focused on an imaginary point between pitcher and hitter and then shot with the 400mm lens at f2.8 (low depth of field, faster shutter) at 200 iso, at 1/8000th of a second. You can read the writing on the ball.