Photo: Story and Tips

Shooting just for fun
I’ve written about this in the past about how often I go on just for fun photoshoots and get pictures of the people I’m with (like +Liz Draper who’s a local photographer) I had them model and as you can see in the pictures so did I even.
I’ll have to find that article about how and when I’m totally cool with doing pics for the heck of it.

Flowy Water
We often see the flowing water theme in landscapes but perhaps not enough with portraits.
I’m sure all skill levels will read this but just as a recap: the lower your shutter speed (longer time) the more flowing it looks.
I shot this whole series without a tripod and on the smugmug gallery you can go in and see photo details to see the times if you so desire.

If I remember correctly from 2 seconds all the way to 1/20th of a second.

No Tripod… no problem
I love being creative with how to get low shutter speeds without a tripod. When I travel and I’m in big cities it’s a pain to carry around a tripod all day long just so you can have one at night. So I frequently use all sorts of poles or walls or any of the many, many things you find along the sidewalks… or use the ground. I get some unique pictures because I’m putting the camera in places I might have never considered.

So for a couple of these I was using nearby trees and some of them a ledge that was a bit higher. I think for one or two I was handholding… I’m pretty sure you can tell on one or two of them. (If you see a black “void” around the subject)

Sieze the moment with flash
Even with putting the camera in steady places it’s not perfect because the subject will be moving, but it’s not a reason to not take the pictures.
Flash can help.
There’s some technical reasons going on (which I refrain from getting into at the moment) but just suffice it to say you’ll capture and seize the moment with flash which helps a lot with low shutter speeds.

Testing new stuff
I usually won’t go and play at pictures without trying something new I can use safely here on a for fun shoot before I take it to a paid shoot.

I was testing out two things this time: a battery pack for my speedlight (sb-900) and a flash bender which i was using as a snoot to direct the light straight onto the subject without much bleed onto the surrounding area. It worked well because we had to be sometimes 20ft from the subject standing on the bridge over the river with the flash pointed like a sniper at the subject while I stood from the angle you see here (first picture).

Verdict on the things I tested…
Well it wasn’t a long shoot so I’m not sure how long the battery pack will last but I’ve done 2-3 short shoots with it and it’s still going. And I might consider having a different device for my snoot as the one I was using was a little small for how huge the sb-900 is compared to all the other typical speedlights.

Colors
I love the spotlight look and I also love the colors. Because it was just after sunset the light was a lot cooler and we were able to warm her up a bit with the light so it’s a pretty stark contrast between warm and cold light.

Random models
I had some friends from church doing a picnic of sorts nearby. Of of my friends is into photography and he came and watched a bit so we threw him and his fiancee into a couple pictures.
On the last picture you can see the nice dramatic pose… in clothing that certainly did not match. eh? haha (Like them nice green running shorts for the dramatic dip with dramatic lighting?)

Not too slow
I went to a pretty low shutter speed but liked the look of the river at a somewhat faster speed so you could see just how rough the river was running.

Anyway those are some tips and the story behind the pictures.