Photo of the Week 2012-12-10

After last weekend's outing to RBG for some extreme close up flower photography, I had an opportunity to go and shoot a band during a studio recording session. The session was in Oshawa and because I arrived later, they had already set up and laid down base tracks for the 4 songs they were recording but I was still able to capture some of the session for the guys.

Here, John lays down a vocal track for Ocean Pearl.

vocals - in the booth

For this shoot there were a number of challenges to getting some decent images in the recording studio setting. Space was limited, ligting was terrible for photogrpahy with incansescent bulbs, warm coloured wood surfaces and very low lighting levels. With the various booths having double glass windows and doors for acoustic, I was shooting through at least two layers of glass for most of the shots and since reflection and glare were part of the ambiance of the location, I just went with it. This image of John in the vocal booth I think illustrates what I'm talking about and IMO the reflections bring a sense of the environment to the image.

DJE 

Photo of the Week 2011-03-07

... almost done.


I had a portrait session with Murphy recently to try work on my studio shooing some more. He was a cooperative subject for quite a while. Lynn helped me by wrangling him onto the backdrop and keeping him interested.

Murphy is quite responsive to my direction as far as sitting and lying down but it's quite different working with a subject that has no interest in being photographed what so ever. I managed to make several decent images and even managed to get the more traditional image below.


... the best by far in my opinion, is the one opening this blog entry, a more candid shot as the session was ending where the expression says it all.

DJE

Portrait of the Photographer

"Why don't you photograph more people?" is something I hear from many of those who follow my photographic journey. Recently a friend from work was the latest to ask if I would consider photographing their wedding. Now I know that there is a lot more to photographing people and there is a lot more to photographing weddings than there is to photographing people. ... but, as I have mentioned here before, I want to advance my photographic skills and do more "people photography".

For me to do this, I really need to learn and become competent with lighting. To that end, I have been adding some lighting gear to what I had already accumulated over the years. With several speedlites, background kit, stands, softboxes, reflectors, beauty dish & grid, remote flash triggers and various other pieces of kit, I have set up a studio area in the basement to facilitate the learning. I feel Strobist will be a close friend for a while and that is a good thing. The strong community around the off camera flash movement will be just what I need to support my efforts ... of course some very good friends, Alan and Grant are very helpful whenever I have questions or need help.

With the "studio" coming into shape, I could not resist some trial shots. The only available victim (model) was "the Photographer". I feel this will be the case for many of my learning sessions, at least in the beginning. One goal ... to have "people" actually request a sitting.

... the result
self portrait 2011-01-26
1/90 s @ f/8
285 @ 1/2
16" beauty dish w/ grid camera left
DJE