Christmas Kisses

A shot I stole while at the office Christmas party.

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PHO5598: Three Quarter Portrait

One of my latest assignments is a small flash assignment – three quarter portrait to be precise. The assignment was to do three quarter portrait in both broad (lit side of the face is towards the camera) and short (shadow side of the face is towards the camera) lighting. As she is in town for a few days, Chris was my lovely model. We did a couple different poses, but the fan series seen below is my personal favourite.

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100 Possibilities: Friendly Easter Pooh

 

 

In which Pooh celebrates Easter with a friend. 
Just realized the other day that I haven’t been posting these on my blog like I thought I had. I am up to #35 or so on Flickr but far behind that here…

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100 Possibilities: Portrait Pooh

Pooh sits for his portrait.

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100 Possibilities: Panasonic Pooh

Most of Pooh's shots to date have been taken with this little Panasonic camera and he wanted to check it out. He did however, have to follow the rule of using Steph's cameras and have the strap around his wrist.

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100 Possibilities: Junkmail Pooh

Pooh sorts through the coupons that came in the junk mail. Nothing good for him though.

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100 Possibilities: Valentine's Day Shots

For Valentine's Day I bought two bags of heart-shaped chocolates, the kind in the red foil, and did a photo shoot (with and without Pooh). I have chosen three of the Pooh shots to be included in my 100 Possibilities Project and have entitled them below. Hopefully you will all agree with me that they are unique enough to all be included in the project. I had many other shots that I determined were too similar to these or other shots of mine and they therefore could not be included, but are viewable in my Valentine's Day set on Flickr (along with the non-Pooh shots I took).

Heart Pooh

Chocolate Pooh

Valentine Pooh

I really enjoyed my impromptu V-day photo shoot. I used my umbrella kit and Dave's piano bench (as well as a black pashmina) for the setup and controlled my SB-600 flash with my on-camera flash. The setup took longer than I thought it would, but once I got going I had a lot of fun.

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Smizing

Another shot from my fifth assignment in the composition and design course at Algonquin College aptly named by Christine Sweeton.

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I ♥ Faces: Family

This is one of the family portraits I took of the Konings and I at Christmas. It didn't come out exactly how I had intended, but it still works.

It also happens to be my entry for this week's I Heart Faces contest entitled We Are Family. Though not the most original portrait setting, it captures the acceptance of myself into the Dave's immediate family which is something that is very important to me.

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Guitar Glee

Another shot from the 'guitar shoot' with Jess.

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Wii Protection

Jess and Jeff playing Wii Boxing during the Christmas celebrations.

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Musical Stretch

Little Olivia loves the piano no matter what house she is in.

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Multiple Musics

Another shot from the shoot I am calling the 'guitar shoot' with Jess.

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Jess' Photo Shoot

Over Christmas Dave's sister, Jess, asked me to take some shots of her playing the guitar for a class assignment she has. Essentially she wanted some shots of her playing, some of her writing some chords/music and some closeup shots of the guitar, etc.My setup was pretty basic, but I was able to use almost all of my new lighting equipment; the Gary Fong diffuser for my on-camera flash, Nikon umbrella kit and SB-600. I took about 500 shots and quickly edited that down to 300 and then later down to 25 or so edited ones (+40 when you include the fact that I converted some into black and white). I am really happy with the outcome of the photo shoot and I will obviously be uploading a select few shots to this blog, but I have uploaded all the edited and signed photos to Flickr, if you would like to view them all now.

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Nikon Umbrella Kit

When I took the Small Flash Workshop at Algonquin College I was introduced to a simple umbrella kit, made by Nikon, that was portable and very useful for off-camera flashes. The Nikon 46" umbrella kit was really awesome and was the main thing from that weekend that really caught my eye (in terms of things I wanted to purchase). I have been mulling it over since then as at $189.99, it wasn't something I wanted to purchase without at least some thought. I was planning on purchasing it before Christmas as a early present to myself, and to help with a semi-assignment I have with some family over the holidays, but hadn't gotten around to it just yet. This past weekend there was a large Nikon sale on at Henry's and the price of this decreased to $169.99. I figured there was no better time than a sale to get the item I wanted.
I brought it home and set it up and am very happy with it thus far. The kit includes a 46" umbrella, a sturdy light stand, a light tight fixture and a carrying case.
The umbrella itself can be converted from the black one shown in the image above (found through Google) to a translucent white one you can shoot through.
The light tight fixture is used to secure both the umbrella and your light (or flash unit) in place. You are able to use equipment with different sized screws (or screw holes) with the different connections that come with the kit.
The carrying case is very nice and looks quite durable. It also has some really convenient pockets inside in which you can store any necessary accessories.
I am finding that with a few quick turns of the knobs, you can secure your equipment in place quite nicely and be ready for shooting.

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Small Flash Workshop

I took the Small Flash Workshop offered by Algonquin College in early November and was really impressed with it. It was a weekend course, 9-4 both days, in which I learned so much. The instructor, Ray Pilon, was absolutely amazing. He was definitely passionate about photography but also realistic in what could be achieved nowadays in terms of a career in the field. He was able to communicate and pass on information and knowledge pertaining to photography, flash units and lighting specifically, in a way that was understandable and seemed to stick.
The class size, though abnormal, was very small. There were only three other students in the course. We were told that normally the class size is somewhere from 10-16, so still very manageable and definitely still room and time for some one-on-one learning with the instructor.
As there were so few people in the workshop, we were able to get quite far off-topic and still manage to be ahead of schedule by the end of the first day. I was the only person in the workshop using a Nikon camera, which turned out to be to my advantage as the instructor was a Nikon user and allowed me to use all of his expensive (and very pretty) equipment including his high-end flash units and flash remotes.
We learned everything about our off-camera flash units from how to turn them on and what the different buttons on the rear of the units did to how to bounce them off the ceiling and control them remotely. I learned how to control my SB-600 flash unit with the instructors SB-800 and SB-900, and learned that my SB-600 cannot control anything above itself. At this moment I was certain I was going to buy a SB-800 very soon to be able to do remote flash photographs. That is until the instructor showed me how to control my SB-600 with my on-camera flash. It was incredibly awesome and filled me with delight. That night I went home and showed Dave all the neat things I had learned, the biggest one being how to remotely control my flash.
We did multiple assignment while we were in the workshop including portraiture using a technique called "dragging the shutter" (where you set your shutter speed to match the ambient lighting rather than your sync speed) and portraiture using a simple umbrella kit. We also learned how to fill flash effectively.
We also learned about flash accessories like Gary Fongs and regular diffusers and the advantages, and disadvantages, of different kinds.
All in all, this was the best course (workshop or full length course) I have taken at Algonquin yet and I HIGHLY recommend it to anyone who owns a off-camera flash for their dSLR and wants to be able to take full advantage of it. It is more of an intermediate course, as though it does start off with the basics, it moves into more advance techniques in a matter of minutes on the first day. I felt the hands-on portion of the class, and the amount of it, was very useful and the theory parts of it were very applicable and not as dry as one would expect. Like I said before, the instructor's passion for photography is evident and really makes the learning experience that much better. I am sure I have missed some key moments of the course in this brief synopsis of it, as even in writing this post I have gotten re-excited for flash photography and want to go use all my equipment and the techniques learnt in the course.
If you would like to see some of the techniques in action, I was able to use them the very next day in my Portrait assignment for my Composition and Design course - in which I received my highest grade of this course. See these posts here and here for images taken during that assignment which use some of the techniques like dragging the shutter, fill flash and remote off-camera flash usage.

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Assignment #5 - Additional Shots

Closeup shot done in the studio.

Wide (full) shot taken under fluorescent lighting using ambient light and my flash.

Semi-medium shot taken in the studio.

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Assignment #5 - Submission

Above is a closeup shot taken under studio lighting. I think this may be my favourite shot from the whole session, but that is hard to say as there are a lot of really good ones.

Wide (full) shot in one of the many Mac computer labs in Algonquin college. A lot of students used this class (so I am told), but I think Chris and I got some pretty original shots from here. I used my flash as a fill flash to lighten up Chris and get some interesting lighting.

Medium shot taken using my flash and ambient lighting.

Another closeup done in the studio using the reflector as a prop instead of a tool.

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Target in Sight

This was Dave's simpler costume of the Halloween season. He whipped it up a few hours before the party as him more complex, and main costume was not ready in time. Essentially it is his Boba Fett helmet and gun from many years ago and his suit - he was a Professional (Killer).

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Assignment #5 - The Assignment

Assignment #5 is yet another portrait assignment. We have to shoot 4 photos of the "Student Photographer of the Year" (whoever our model is) using three styles: wide/full (where the subject's full body is in frame), medium (where their waist up is in frame) and closeup (where only their head is in frame).
We spent the first hour of the class going through examples, which is when I learned the different terms, and listened to pointers from the instructor. He suggested we go vertical (portrait) and get really close, partially cutting off the very top of the head or bottom of the chin. These were not great pointers to me as I have to force myself to take some horizontal (landscape) shots every once in a while and also to get further from the subject to have some options when it comes to choosing my submission.
Chris came to the class with me and was my model all night. I was extremely lucky to have her and realized this most when we were in the studio doing some headshots. The other students were having their model pose with photo equipment and getting close, using telephoto lenses and whatnot - it looks like they will have good photos. But Chris was amazing - easily the best model in the class (and I think a bunch of the other students knew it as some watched us with great interest). She posed with equipment, giving me ideas as well as great images. She took direction when given and then went with it even further, making my ideas even better. She had her own ideas, as she knows photography and lighting and what works. It was wonderful. We used a few available light locations that other students did and I can guarantee they don't have the shots I have simply because of my model.
I was also able to use some of the (flash) lighting techniques I learned this past weekend in the absolutely amazing Small Flash Workshop I took (post to come in due time). I bounced light off ceiling and walls, I used my flash in remote mode and commanded it through my on-camera flash, I altered the exposure level of both flashes to decrease the harsh feeling they can give. I was really pleased with the results and how I was able to use something I had learned so quickly. I have almost 600 shots to go through now and the vast majority of them are really good. There are some where my flash didn't go off as I was out-running both my flash and the studio lights sometimes (knowingly) and there are others were I caught Chris in a not so flattering facial expression (eyes closed, mouth in the middle of a word, etc) but like I said, most of them are really great. I stayed up late last night working on them and got rid of about 100 quite easily. I marked another 20 or 30 as my preferred shots for the assignment and will work on them more tonight when I have fresh eyes and more time.
I had the greatest time shooting this assignment and it has given me some really great results so far. I intend on using these photos for not only this assignment, but also the portfolio at the end as a replacement of one other studio assignment I wasn't nearly as happy with. Thanks again Chris.

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