Family Portrait Session at Cantigny in Wheaton, Illinois
I think portrait sessions outside of the studio result in more interesting pictures. In this series, I took pictures in two/three different locations at Cantigny Park in Wheaton, Illinois. One of my goals during family sessions is to provide for several different perspectives. This provides the family more opportunities to select a picture that they really love and also allows for a more complete representation of this moment in time for our individual legacies. On my blog, I will describe how I took these pictures. Here I will talk about why I like them. Probably my favorite picture from this session is the one below.
I like it because of the sibling's family is clearly defined, there is strong convergent lines that pull the viewer's eye into the picture, the faces are well lighted and everyone has a happy smile. I also like it because it is not a bunch of soldiers lined up or people sitting on a bench.
Below, I will show a few more examples from that session of the individual family units paired with a black & white version of the picture. Personally, I prefer the B&W versions, but that is matter of personal taste.
Engagement Session in Millenium Park
This was from a recent engagement session in and around Millenium Park and the Bean in Chicago. I suppose there must be hundreds of thousands of pictures taken in this location so I think it is difficult to come up with something unique.
For this picture I wanted to capture a couple of different things. First, I wanted to show the couple engaged with each other rather than the camera. Second I wanted to show the Bean and third I wanted images of the city (there are actually two, one looking south and one looking north toward the Prudential building. This image has Chicago written all over it.
To take this picture required a solution to the age old problem of a relatively bright background and the main subject in shadows. I set my camera to ISO 200 and shutter speed 1/250, the best combination for a bright background. I then dialed up my f stop to f11 to achieve a good exposure of the Bean and the buildings. Camera left with a single SB800 strobe, I added light back manually to the subjects to provide a pleasing illumination through chimping (we were working quickly and on the move).
I have lots of people ask about why I use strobe in situations where there is lots of light. The reason is simple: the light is unbalanced or not directed in a fashion that will make a great picture. If you have any doubts about that concept, the picture below was taken without the strobe with identical settings.
Indian (Sikh) Wedding
I had the wonderful opportunity to shoot a Sikh Indian wedding a couple of weeks ago. It was a six day event and there was approximately 36 hours of photography time. As one might suspect, many pictures were taken with lots of post processing. Fortunately, Aperture ran smoothly and I was able to upload over 3000 pictures for my client, all adjusted to make them the best possible image (as I talked about on my blog - 'Meaning of digital files'
It is difficult to select a couple of favorite pictures from such a set, because the story is so rich a single picture hardly does it justice. In time, I will publish a more complete gallery, but for now, just this one. For me, this is truely elegant picture with great colors, pleasing lighting and the richness of their culture manifest.
This photography effort was supported by a wonderful team effort of the following people/companies:
Mark Meravy Photography -- an excellent photographer, great collaborator and friend.
Lauren Lukacek -- L2 Photography -- a photographer in her own right, an excellent assistant and has a growing business in photo booths
Nicole Kuhlman Photography -- another independent photographer and excellent assistant.
Lastly, while not part of the photography team, there were the videographers from OrangeWeddingFilms, ( JJ, Charlie, Jimmy and Mrs Orange). JJ and his team were an unbelievable pleasure to work with.
Well almost lastly, I have to mention that bride and groom (Sonia and Rd) and their families and friends were fantastic to work with.
Pictures for websites and headshots
I have a keen interest in moving my photography business out of the studio and more to locations. There are many reasons for this. To help in this matter, I wanted to upgrade my lighting capabilities. Currently, I have studio lights and Speedlights. The studio lights are large, heavy and require an outlet, but they put out lots of light. The Speedlights are small, light and highly portable (4 AA batteries), but they only put out a modest amount of light. What I wanted was something small, light, highly portable and puts out a lot of light.
The solution: Paul C Buff Einstein 640 lights, Vagabond Lithium batteries and Pocketwizard MC2 that allows me to control the lights from my camera. The picture above was taken during a session for a new business, Battleforthebride, using two Einstein 640 lights and one speed light all controlled with Pocketwizard's AC3/MiniTT1. One Einstein was the main light shooting through an umbrella, camera left, one Einstein 640 was used to light the background (low and behind the subject) and the Speedlight was used as a hair light, shot through a softbox.
As I gain more experience with them, I will show more examples and comment on performance. Thus far, I am happy but have only used them on a couple of shoots.
Engagement Sessions: Have fun!
Here a few fun pictures from an engagement session last spring. We started at Oak Street Beach and walked over to Navy Pier. The weather was threatening as we started but settled down some as we went through the shoot. I like to encourage my clients to consider these sessions to be play dates for them. Be relaxed, have fun and be expressive! I try to be the invisible story teller.
The kiss and more
This is another one of my recent favorites. First, it captures the warm and love between the bride and the groom and also a lot about their story. The M&M jars on the left and right were part of the table decorations. The grey and white one had their names and champagne classes on them. The bouquet of flower was an excellent representation of the all the wonderful flowers at the wedding and reception. And then the bottle of champaign and classes with their names on them. For me it brings together so many different aspects of this couples wedding, all into one picture.
The other interesting aspect is the lighting through the window is not blown out, but looks quite natural. This requires the photographer to take time to balance the outside light with the inside light so it appears more like what the human eye will see. The kiss was spontaneous. But the camera settings where planned long before the kiss actually took place.
Model Session
When I work with my clients, I try to provide for variety in the type and character of the pictures. I think of it as providing the client with a digital resource that they can tap into depending on their changing needs over time. It is not always possible to achieve lots of diversity, but it is always a goal. This first picture was taken in the studio,
while the second picture was taken outside just last week. Chilly, but she had a coat and we worked quickly. Most of the lighting in the second picture was natural sunlight coming through a tree, but it created some harshness across her face so I add some strobe to picture left (her right side) to soften the shadowing some. To generate a sense of stature, she was standing on top of a 4-5 foot tall wagon at 200mm to avoid the feeling of shooting upward so much.
These are just two of many great images that are very different in feeling. It was a fun session. The client was the mother and sister of the subject as they purchased a model session for her 16th birthday.
Cute Babies
Here is one of my recent favorites from a studio shoot. It is really hard not to like pictures of cute babies. I show a colored and B&W version of the picture in part to emphasize the very different impression or evoked feelings between them. Getting good pictures of babies requires patience, time and getting down to their level.
While I provided my client with the digital files, I hope that they will do a print of this picture. In my mind the print has a much better chance of surviving long enough so a grandchild or great grandchild of the subject can see what their ancestor looked like when they were a baby.
Groomsmen
Here is another favorite of mine. When I got to the house to shoot the men, they were playing pool volleyball. I had never really considered that concept as a pre-wedding sort of event, but I wanted to try to do something fun with it. After shooting a bunch of pictures of them playing and when they were getting out of the pool, I had them line up on the other side and had them jump into the pool. For me this image is a fun representation of the concept 'Taking the plunge.'
In order to stop the guys in mid-flight, I shot at 1/1000 of a second, f5.6 at an ISO of 1250. While most people think of high ISO capabilities dominately in the context of low light situations, I will commonly use high ISO in the situation where I have an acceptable amount of light, but need a very fast shutter speed.
And this is another picture of the groomsmen, in a bit more formal attire. This is just one of several images, but I like this one because of the top of the volleyball net is visible adding some dimensionality. A fun bunch of guys.
Bridesmaids!
I like this picture for several reasons. The most important reason is the bride/bridesmaids all have great smiles and confident body language. They clearly are having lots of fun and are relaxed. I also like the colors of the dresses and flowers. The staircase is a wonderful posing area with lots of interesting surrounding imagery, the group is formed into a reasonably nice triangle with the bride nicely positioned in the center.