Technical Tuesday - Open Shade White Seamless

I'm starting a new section of the blog, I'm calling it technical Tuesday.  I'm doing it for a couple of reasons.

1. I don't feel like I've been divulging enough technical information.
2. I think you guys want more techniques than family photos.
3. It makes it a whole lot easier to have set days where I know exactly what I'm going to blog about.

For my first Technical Tuesday post, I'm going to discuss shooting on a white background in open shade. I like to share ideas that don't take a whole lot of technical knowledge and can be done with minimal equipment.  This is definitely one of those ideas.

The first thing you need to do is acquire a seamless white backdrop or a large piece of white poster board. You will take that seamless/poster board and tape it to a wall on a porch or a wall in open shade.  Open shade is defined as an area that is shaded on a sunny day.  Essentially it removes all shadows from your subject.

Here's a tip for anyone using the "in camera" light meter.  When shooting in manual mode (always recommended) get in close on the white poster board, take your meter reading, and overexpose by one full f/stop.  The reason being, in-camera meters work off of 18% gray.  What that means is the camera always wants to make whites gray.  The same applies to snow.  Ever taken photos of snow and they don't look quite as white as you remember it was?  That's why.

Here's a photo showing the set up from the shoot.

See how simple it is?  So here are some of the photos from this little session with my kids.  The thing that a plain white background allows you to do is completely focus on the emotion and angle of your camera.  Find moments, find perspective, find something to say.

Give it a shot.  Literally.  Let me know if this was beneficial to your photography and please share your photos and your attempts with me.  I'll be glad to answer any technical questions about this post.  And in the mean time check out where I got the idea from, photographer Clay Enos:

Notice how beautiful the catch lights in the eyes are here, Clay is a master.  Enjoy.

Flash Outdoors

A video answering the question, "Why to use flash outdoors and how?"

I Photograph Heads.

I used to make it a habit that everyone I met I photographed a head shot of them...I don't do that anymore. But that's going to change.  I plan on starting it again in the coming weeks and regularly posting head shots for the week.  I always use whatever light is available.  I don't do anything tricky.  Its a great study and a great lesson on how good something can look if you just use whats available.  Sometimes they are lit very flat (without many shadows) and sometimes the available light is amazingly dramatic and almost impossible to recreate.  Here are some of those head shots taken from only a couple of occasions.  Trust me there are more.

Sanctus Real - Las Vegas, NV

Theory of Flight (and company) - Hard Rock Hotel and Casino - Las Vegas, NV

Sanctus Real - Austin, TX

Nick Rose - Austin, TX

Tattoo Artist - Austin, TX

I honestly believe that this exercise helped me hone the one thing I think I am best at; the tight portrait.  It teaches you to find good light, make catch lights in the eyes and draw an honest look from your subject.  Try it, it might fill a hole in your game.

Swings

When I came home yesterday Lincoln, way more than Scout, was so excited to see me.  All Scout wanted was to know if I got her a surprise or not.  I did.  I got her and Lincoln both really cool gifts:

That's just not the kind of greeting I wanted.  What  I wanted is what Link gave me.  Love and joy.  He was so happy just to see me.  He wanted me to play with him.  He wanted to snuggle with me.  He wanted to share whatever he was eating with me.  He was awesome.  So we went out in the back yard to swing.  At first I just put him in the swing:

But he wanted me to swing too.

I taught him how to lean back and look at the sky when you swing.

He thought that was pretty cool.  I love my kids and I'm so glad to be back and be near them.  Even if they only love me for the gifts.

Hard Ground

Well it finally arrived. My sister in law Charity ordered me the book Hard Ground well before Christmas and it just arrived. An it was worth the wait. Beautiful poems written by Tom Waits and portraits of homeless by Michael O'Brien.  This book is stunning.  I've seen used copies selling online for as much as 2,000.00.  Crazy.

I took some photos of the book to share.  If you can possibly find a copy or splurge to get a used one, I recommend it, its gorgeous.

Front cover.  (fresh out of the box)

Back cover.

These two images are mind blowing to me.

I'm home safe and sound from Scottsdale.  A little beat but what a treat to come home to this book.  Thanks Bryson and Charity, I will cherish it.

Vintage Me, Vintage You - Dartmouth Street Boys

I grew up in a pretty large sister city to Houston, TX, called Pasadena, TX.  I grew up on a street named Dartmouth.  I grew up with all of these guys.  I'm 31 and I'm still in contact with every one of them.  Maybe not as often as I'd like but I still call them my friends.  I think that's rare.  We were incredibly close growing up, we had to be.  We've all scattered across America but on  rare occasion we make an effort to get together.  Here is one of those occasions.  It was a few years ago, I'm the one with the long blond hair.

Adrian Moss

Chris Sowers

Shane Moss

Shane again.

And again...

OK stop Shane.

Jesse Bales

Miss you guys.