When Wife Gives You Lemons…

…you go shoot some photos.  I guess that isn’t as catchy.

Last week, my wife “kicked” me out of the house because she had guests coming over.  She actually didn’t make me leave, but my only other option was watching tv all night in my bedroom, which I really can’t do either.  So, I grabbed two of my cameras and drove out for a few hours during the evening without a clue of where to go or what to shoot.  Thankfully some ideas popped into my head…

First place I went to was this grassy area near 610 and Braeswood.  Sadly, it’s one of the largest patches of greenery in Houston that I know of.  I’m not a big scenery shooter, but I rather like the way this first photo turned out:

This is why medium format rocks my socks off.  A lot easier for photos with subject isolation and precise DOF.  Plus, the viewfinder looks amazing…although the image that appears is backwards.  It still throws me off and makes me dizzy   Details: Zenza Bronica S2, Portra 400VC, and uh…I don’t remember which lens.  If I had to guess, the Nikkor 13.5cm f/3.5 .

Next, I went to a church on Main St., actually turns out to be right across the street from where I play basketball on Saturday mornings.  It was moody and terrifyingly creepy, and I tried to reflect it in a few of these photos.  Coincidentally, it actually started raining and thundering while I was there.  o_O!!

Details: Nikon D700 and fun glass 😉

Honestly though, my favorite photo subjects are people, especially friends.  For me, the most beautiful sceneries, flowers, wildlife, etc. will never beat portraits and/or candids of people captured in a photo which reflects their personality or that moment – a photo that tells you a story of what is happening with them in that moment.  For example, my friends D and C were married this past weekend, and I hope they’ll cherish some of these photos from that day…

Details: D700, fun glass 🙂

By the way, if you’re taking photos at a wedding, never get in the way of the hired professional.  I felt so bad for the hired professional in this wedding…there was one person who walked right in front of the professional’s camera countless times to snap his own shot.  No good!

Honestly, I’m just writing all of this to keep up with a habit so this website won’t become cyberspace driftwood.  Hope you guys enjoyed some of these photos 🙂

If you’re interested, there are more photos from each outing on my Flickr site: http://www.flickr.com/photos/panda81

First “Studio” Photo Shoot!

Being the forgetful dummy I am, tonight I finally got around to send out photos I took of a friend’s baby a few months ago for printing (sorry A and J!).  For the sake of killing time (i.e., waiting for my wife to come to bed), I figure I might as well write a little post about this experience.

This experience was a first for me in many ways: shooting in a controlled “studio” environment, strobing off camera flash, and shooting a baby portrait session.   “Studio” is used incredibly loosely here…we shot these photos in my friends’ garage 😀  At first my wife was very skeptical, and understandably so.  But I’ve learned that garage light can be incredibly great for portrait sessions because of the bright, but soft and indirect, light from the sun.  Wish I took a photo of the setup.

I only used one off camera flash for strobing because I didn’t have enough stands for two, or else I would have added a hairlight.  Strobe was camera right, 45 degrees to offset the outdoor light coming from the left.  Major props to A and J who worked really hard too…they had to hold up reflectors for me the entire time since I don’t have any stands or umbrellas.  Holding something up for an hour and a half straight is much more difficult than we’d normally think.  Background was either a piece of black cloth or white formboard.  Of course, all of this was worth it because of the incredibly cute model I got to shoot 😀

Some more technical jibber jabber for those who are interested: Nikon D700, SB-600 camera right 45 degrees, on board flash commander.  Email me if you want to know about the lenses.

Lastly, here’s the happy family!  This photo was taken by a medium format (6×6) film camera – I believe film was Portra 400NC.  Sorry about the lighting, the sun was especially harsh that day 😦  Not the best example of a good portrait from a technical standpoint, but I like the old-school feel of the photo 🙂  Plus, I like my friends 🙂