Re-do

I was going through some archived U2 photos for a donation to the African Well Fund. Needed to dig up the originals for print. No biggie. A couple of them were from the U2 Pittsburgh show, which I took about 1700+ photos. I was going through, and realized I may have missed a couple. So I rushed through in Lightroom, and starred about 25 images I thought I may have missed. (that alone took 15 minutes) Turned out, I had about 10 of them already. Dang... however, for the other 15, I culled out 8 others that I just wasn't happy with the images.

The other 7 I posted on to my Flickr account. The best of those 7 is this, not too shabby.

Partial wedding photo shoot- a review

Two weeks ago, I helped a family friend out by shooting parts of their child’s wedding. 

The first request was to think about shooting the entire wedding. Quickly I decided against that- just too much responsibility and I wasn’t confident enough in my skills to pull off weddings. As a compromise, I was only going to do the reception for “candid” photos. Which was fine by me, I wouldn’t know anyone there, and I could ‘hide’ behind my camera. The music would be playing, I could ignore the detail shots of things like the cake, or such. I just worried about the live music and people’ reactions to it. (i.e. dancing)

Then a week before the wedding they asked my wife and I to come by the house for the preparations for the bride. The traditional makeup, dress, vial, and dad seeing daughter for the first time sorts of shots. Alrighty- works for me. I knew the family, I had done an engagement photo session for them a year ago. However, I didn’t know anyone else. Plus, just about everyone in the family was speaking Spanish- which I don’t even understand. I might as well be paint drying on the walls at points. One other thing I need to figure out, a better personality while shooting. Being commanding, thinking about the shot and technical camera stuff, and personable at the same time.

The prep photos were my best, as the reception hall was a huge light sucking hall. I had two remote strobes with me, but even at half power, was just enough to get the dance floor with some nice light. My favorite 14-40mm f/4 was barely good enough to work. Thank goodness for the f/2.8 on the 70-200 and f/1.8 on the 50mm. Life might have hurt otherwise.  I got some decent action shots, but I did not have the gear for decent super low light people shots on the go.

For the actual wedding, I did not snap a single shot. The family had another person hired for the staged shots, and for a set time for the reception. As far as I could tell, she had only two camera bodies- a Canon 70D (maybe, looked like a X series) and a 6D. The 70D had a kit zoom on it... and the 6D had a 50mm f/1.2 prime. Thats it. (I was jealous of the 6D!) I think she broke out an on camera strobe at one point, but don’t recall it being used.  So I was not too surprised to see some of her samples which were mainly filter happy. (i.e. lots of post processing)

Tell me I am not crazy to think people like this seem to get work because they of the love of filters.

I like black and white images if they are done well. I also know that they are great for hiding problems in color images- mostly low light problems. It can mask some graininess from high ISO settings, or post production of pushing exposures up. So it was not shocking to see many recipetion hall shots from the hired help being converted or over filtered.

Maybe it is a style thing, I like a very much “what I see is what you get” sort of style. I don’t want super altered interpretation of the scene. It is one thing to have bokeh, it is another to apply “wedding filter #3” to half the images to make them stylish.

In the end however, my taste and view of things only matters if the person who wants them is happy. I equate it to the value of something- “the value of something is whatever someone is willing to pay.” In this case, the willing to pay is if they are happy with the results.

I think the family was happy- they want to take us out to dinner as a thank you.

Looking differently

Our household aquired an iPad 1 from a family member. They no longer needed it, and the girls could use it for educational apps. (ok ok ok... a few games too.)

While I was busy setting it up, I had to put some photos on it. Family photos, cool and interesting photos, just a blank canvas for whatever. The girls liked to go through them from time to time to look at what they had done and people they cared about.

I picked one photo for the screen lock- it was not family, but rather sunflowers from Broom's Bloom dairy up in Harford Co. (highly recommended) That image sat on the lock screen for a couple months now. It had been there long enough that I wasn't sure if I had taken it, or if it was a stock photo. (seriously) See image on the right.

One other important aspect that changed my mind was the auto-rotation of the image on the screen. That really through me off and changed my prospective.

With just a small refocus of the image, things took on a much different feel and look.


I went back to the archives and found them in my Lightroom feed. I never published them to Flickr for some reason. Well, I did this morning, and I am glad I did.

Made for a very good thought experiment, and a prospective to review later- live with them... think about them... revisit. 

Amazing

I am not normally driven to post about another set of work, but this article on the BBC about a 13 year old Mongolia girl who uses a golden eagle to hunt.

Just amazing.

Take a little time to check out the images and the story.


I think the combination of amazing photos, compelling subject matter, and a really unknown 'something' makes it a very interesting story and photo session. Well done.

U2 items...

I had some inspiration over the weekend and snapped a couple semi-quick setup photo of some U2 items I had re-found after a two year interruption. (they were put in a box I had forgotten about)

The first item was the very first U2 item I ever received. It was either 1985 or 1986. My sister gave me a copy of U2 Boy on cassette. I was amazed they had the same album on both sides! I played that little tape a bunch.
I broke out my very rarely used home made light box, setup on the floor, and found a couple shots I liked. I was down to two images- one more vertical, one more hortizinal. Both were solid in terms of technical... however, one worked better than the other in terms of spacing.





The other images were taken from a blog post I saw about using glass. Not lenses, but rather a sheet of glass. Oddly, we had a couple pieces of glass left in the house when we moved in. Whatever, never used them for anything. I took it and tried to simulate the style from the post. My piece of glass was just not big enough to make it really work. (After I broke everything down, I found a piece twice as big- dangit)
I had to use two lights to get the front of the disc/case lit properly.... not sure it pulls off the effect I was hoping for- but it is was fun to try.

Here is the end result of the U2- Unforgettable Fire. (signed by Bono)