Monday Photo Roundup Oct. 8

The annual "National Night Out" activities in Kaufman could use a little boost and involvement from more folks.  Thankfully, the KHS Jazz Ensemble sets up and provides some entertainment and good music.  Also thankfully, they bring lights.

Reminiscing about low light shooting ... back in high school, I was amazed to find Kodak T-max 3200 speed B&W film at Ritz Camera in the mall.  That meant I could occasionally get decent photos at football games.  The film has now been discontinued.

Colby Brown has a nice post showing the effects of retouching a landscape image in LightRoom with a nifty before/after slider...

How about riding across the northern USA with eight iPhones rigged as a giant panoramic camera?  Even more curious, the footage is for a "live stage show."

Understandable...

I wouldn't call it a facelift, but if you have expensive Leica lenses, I guess why not?

Going beyond capturing images...


And a few more NNO photos..

5D and 50mm f1.4 makes for nice short-depth-of-field fun.


Lights, lights everywhere..

Looking for Light

One of my new favorite reads is Stu Maschwitz's Prolost blog. Here he breaks photos into three parts: Fact, Moment and Light. It is an easy to grasp description of what makes good photography good. Better yet, it is really neat to apply this three-layered thought process to shooting, and making better photos.

Go read that post. Then read it again. There is a lot to it, so I will probably refer back to it in several upcoming posts. Today, it is all about light.

Now turn off the flash on your camera. This post is going to be about finding light, not making it.

At the end of the last post, I suggested looking at people with the intent of seeing the light on their faces. From harsh midday sun to candlelight, every situation creates a different feel. Seeing it, and being able to intentionally capture it is a powerful photographic tool.

Most of the time, we are looking for nice, soft, pleasing light that gives enough shadow for depth, but not enough to make harsh lines or deep black shadows on faces. Obviously this means get out of the direct sun... So, I am discovering some of my favorite places to make nice on-the go portraits are..

Beside Windows
Wedding and portrait photographers have always done this, and master painters before them. Indirect light through big windows is often beautiful light. Add to this that the rest of the room (with artificial lights turned off) is usually darker than your subject area, making a nice background.



With different posing, you can do all kinds of things with the shadows as well. Find a willing model and have fun playing with different angles and poses. You will see that it is hard to get a bad photo by a big window.



In the Shade

On bright sunny days, take your subject into the shade. The sky will act like a big, soft light. Once you find some nice shade, you can play with angles to see what works for background or shadows. When there is no good background, just move in close.



In case you are wondering if it was a bright sunny day here... you can see the blue sky with light clouds in her eye reflections. The bright catchlight in her eye is the sun shining on the chimney of my house.



Big Lights Indoors

When there are no big windows around, or when it is dark outside, find a light fixture that has multiple bulbs, like a chandelier. Get your model close to the light, and it will act similar to one big light source.



When there is only bad light?

There is no such thing as bad light. You just have to realize what the light is doing, then get creative. If all you have is harsh light, play with your subjects until you have something you like, and make the most of the conditions.




Harsh shadows can be fun too... if that is what you want. The key is being aware of how the light is shaping your photo, especially your subjects' faces, so that you can make the photo you want.

Ok, now go find light and have fun with it.

Happy Shooting,

don j

Shooting Soccer is Hard!

Thanks to a heads-up from Christina over at the Kaufman Herald I had the fun of shooting both KHS soccer playoff games at Richardson Pearce HS last week. I did not make it out to any of the regular season games, but from what I understand, both teams have played very well in a rigged-up 4A district.

With the girls starting at 6PM, there was plenty of light. OK, so there was so much light that it made for really contrasty shadowy faces for a while. But I will not complain... light is good for shutter speeds, remember?


Kaufman was playing the Highland Park Lady Scots...


Unfortunately, it did not take long to see that the Lady Lions were a bit overmatched in this one. Most of the action was happening on the defensive end of the field, so I headed down there.




There were some nice shadows forming from the bleachers which helped a little with the harsh sun


There wasn't much help for the ugly car background though.
From the side of the field...




One gets by..


With the game winding down and the score 8-0, the Lady Lions held tough for the last four minutes.


It would be easy to make excuses playing against a much larger school with a more experienced team. After all, the HP squad was making substitutions of three or four rested players at a time. And they made sure to park their big black charter bus in plain view. Impressed? Hardly. The Lady Lions took the loss pretty hard, and I got the impression that they will certainly come back with something to prove next year.

Then it was time for the boys to play Richardson Pearce. This was a home game for Pearce, but the Kaufman crowd matched them for volume. Especially with some less-than-favorable officiating. Nice sunset happening back there somewhere...


As you can tell, this is not much of a stadium. I suppose you don't need light to play soccer, but it sure helps for photographers. To make matters more interesting, there were dark and light spots in the field. I just under-exposed and hoped for the best. There was still a lot of motion blur to ruin shots.


Or maybe it is just artistry? Yes, that's it, artistry.

It is hard to decide where to shoot from in soccer. I wish had been closer to this collision.


The Pearce crowd and announcer seemed pretty proud of their goalie...


But at halftime the score was tied at 2. (do they call it halftime in soccer?)

The Lions' goalie got some knee reinforcement


And overall the team was in good spirits.


The second half was a tough battle, but the Lions had no answer for two more Pearce goals.

My timing was way off. It was a lot like shooting basketball in that you always have to be watching and anticipating. It took well into the second game to get close to a header-on-the ball shot, and there were plenty of opportunities.


The closest I got for the Lions was way out of focus.


There was plenty of mid-field action.




Did I mention it was dark?








Soccer will not likely become my favorite sport to shoot anytime soon. It is, however, quite a challenge, which makes it fun.

Prints are available, as always, at http://www.doncjohnson.zenfolio.com/

Happy Shooting,

Don J