A Girl and Her Puppy

And now for the scariest thing of all: a toddler with a puppy. Actually, the horror photo for this week needs more time to bake. Check back Wednesday. In the meantime, here’s a puppy photo shoot.

That background wasn’t the intended background. I wanted a red background but since the red backdrop was sitting pretty in a box at some other location, I went with what I had. But nothing ever goes according to plan and part of photography is just rolling with what plays out. This is especially true for 4-year-olds and puppies and even more true when you mix 4 year olds and puppies.

Obviously with a 4-year-old and a puppy, posing was out the window. However, the scenario can still be manipulated. For example, the rocking chair controlled the direction the action would take place in. Putting the puppy in the child’s lap gave two scenarios – a calm puppy resting in a lap or a puppy on the move leaving a lap. In these scenarios, don’t try to control the chaos just try to guide it along in a direction that you can work with.

We followed this all up with a 1-year-old mastiff with the 4-year-old and for some reason it ended up looking like she and her dog were about to drop their next rap album.

This worked out well. I used a 3-light setup. Two strobes: one with a rectangle softbox and a grid aimed at their faces at an angle (key light) and the other with a long softbox and a grid aimed at them directly to their left (fill light). Finally, a third speedlight up at an angle behind them on a boom stand (hairlight).

3 Speedlights Work

Okay, I am trying to do a write up on a wonderful wedding I shot before my surgery, but I keep going too long with it. Apparently, I have a lot to say. Stay tuned as I will figure out how to get it all down to size that works for a business blog / social media post. In the meantime, here is this:

I volunteered my photography services to a school for their theatre productions this year. I’ve mentioned before this is my favorite type of photography because it always pushes me to my creative limits while the performance, special effects, costumes, direction, and tech operations usually inspire my creativity in some form or another for the photo sessions I do. So not only do I get the satisfaction of helping others, I also get creative boost from it and very good photography practice in.

Anyway, tech rehearsal is something I am hoping to start with. For one, well tech crew generally don’t like to be seen, it does give them visual proof that they were in fact there and they are an essential part to a theatre production and deserve the credit. But aside from that, you are thrown into very challenging lighting situations however if you can solve those you can get some interesting photos.

Usually, I do tech rehearsals there are two types of photos taking place:

1) Headshots for the credits board or screen.

2) Tech crew at work photos.

For the photos here, my model and I were testing with a 3 speedlight setup. Tech crew generally must start sooner than performers so getting set up quick and getting their headshots out of the way sooner goes a long way towards helping them. Also, I try to have a variation of poses. School kids working on a production want to be taken seriously, and tech crew is serious work, so I try to approach tech crew photos like I would any professional. Besides, people working always works good and people working with lights or behind a sound board always offers up something unique.

Also, it helps to run through lights since it’s been a little while since I last worked with them.

Toddlers, Cloudy Days, and Flowers.

As always, when working with toddlers, if they aren’t in a smiling mood and all your tricks aren’t working then just go with whatever mood they are in. Besides, toddlers don’t just come in “silly and funny” personality type, they can be moody and they can be serious and other personalities as well – the trick is to not make them cardboard cutouts by forcing a look they just aren’t into at the moment.

Anyway, these photos were taken on a cloudy day and something I will repeat every time I write about cloudy day photography is that the sun acts as a giant softbox and disperses the light evenly. This tends to mute colors and make for great black and white photos, that doesn’t mean you have to write off color photos. Since you know the colors are likely to appear muted, just have your subjects dress in bright solid colors. This will help the eye go straight to the subject you are photographing. If you throw in some leading lines, you can have even more eye direction going on and ensure your subject is the center of attention in your photography work.

Finally, she is holding a flower we found out in the woods – always make sure you look up what plants are out there. Not every flower is safe to touch and some carry toxins that may require handwashing or outright avoidance. You have a phone, look things up. No photograph is worth dying for.

Time to get back to work.

Sorry about that break, I had kidney cancer I had to get sorted out. After getting a kidney removed, it’s all good now and it’s time to get back to work. I plan to make a video talking about that a bit more – just need to find my mic or order a new one.

In the meantime, here we are again at a public park, Fort Smallwood to be exact. I wanted to do a few shots during golden hour on the pier, but it was full of fishermen. Can’t blame them as it was a nice sunny day. As I always say, photography is about being flexible, so we worked around it. The other catch is that half the park, the beach half, is closed for restorations until 2022.

So, we walked around the grassy area and did what we could, which was actually quite a bit. In any given location there is a plenty to work with, you just have to be willing to look around, find it, and be open to it.

Anyway, the great thing about golden hour is that it gives you a lot of options. Just want a background covered with golden light, find some shade with a sunny background. Want a nice glowy haze around your subject? Get that sun in the shot a little. Or you can just have your subject get in the direction of the sun to get a golden glow on them. Just be sure to have them look down or away from the sun a bit to avoid sun squint.

The point is, during golden hour the sun gives you a lot of options to try for, you just have to take the time to understand how the sun’s location will affect how your subject appears. Experimentation is the best way to get a good grasp on this in my opinion.