Quick tips for photography outside with dogs.

Here are some dog photos outside so here is another quick review for the presumably good weather that is on the way, eventually, hopefully, at some point, in the near future. For starters, I cranked up my shutter speed. Dogs can move fast so a faster shutter speed is called for but if you can’t control your shutter speed – like in the case of phones or point and shoot camera, don’t worry. First check and see if you have a fast movement setting – I know most point and shoots these days have some sort of fast movement setting and even some smartphones do too, but odds are you should still come out with something solid even if your smartphone doesn’t. Just try to stay ahead of your subject and you will get the hang of it.

Next up, focus on the eyes. Those are going to help you stay ahead of the subject but also that’s how we humans connect with other living things (with rare exceptions, of course). The person viewing your photo will unconsciously be looking for and see the eyes first. But as previously stated, the eyes of the dog will give you an indication of where they are going next so you can be ready. It takes practice and depends on the dog but eventually you get the hang of it.

Finally, watch out of ID and personal information. Dog tags can have phone numbers, names, and even addresses. This is great for when a dog gets lost but if that picture you post to social media turns into click gold the person that owns the dog might get unwanted contact if you leave that information out there. When doing this stuff for clients you might want to consider having regular versions for printing and censored versions for posting to social media so everyone on social media isn’t calling them.  What I do is use my processing tools to tone the sharpness and clarity all the way down on that information.

Outdoor tips review

We are at the “some days warm, some days cold” part of the year so here are some outdoor shots I took, and this is a good opportunity to go over some basics. First of all, golden hour, which are the ideal times of the day for most photos to be taken outdoors on a sunny day as the sun looks best on our skin at these times of day. There are two each day – one in the morning and one in the afternoon and you will have to look them up online as they change both in terms of occurrence and in duration depending on the time of the year. The good news is you don’t have to be 100% just know the earlier the day or the later the day the closer to this period you are and the better the light is. The least ideal time is when the sun is directly overhead.

Next up, notice I am using that road again. Roads and sidewalks are great, especially straight ones as they create natural leading lines and give you something for your subject to do – walk up them or walk down them. Better yet, if you have your subject walking away you can have them stop and look over their shoulder. But that’s not all, you can find roads aligned with the sun or parallel and get different lighting effects. There is just so many cool affects you can pull out of roads.

Finally, mood. Sometimes you just have to settle for the mood your subject is in. Or I should say you have to do a cost benefit analysis and determine the mood they are in is just what you are going to go with. Think of it this way – sometimes the choice is you spend 55 minutes of your 60-minute session trying to get a smile from someone who doesn’t want to smile, or you can spend 55 minutes photographing moody looks from someone who is moody – which seems like a better use of time? Besides usually people come around and start smiling when they realize you aren’t there to fight their mood.

#Marylandphotographer #Annearundelphotographer #familyphotographer #photographytips

Another Puppy.

I wanted to do this shot with this English Bulldog puppy in a basket, but she was too big for the basket I had so I went with what I could find – boxes and a sheet. Fortunately, she is pretty calm so setting her higher up wasn’t a big risk as she didn’t really move at all. She just pretty much sat there and looked confused which is all I needed for this session.

You also want to test before you do anything with pets to see if the flash scares them. If it does you might want to rethink how you approach your photo session. If this puppy was scared of the strobes, then I likely would of switched to an outdoor session and certainly would have dropped the height of the setup. As always, when working with animals be patient and nice. They don’t know what you are trying to do and they just want you to be happy. But since they don’t know what you are trying to do they don’t know how to make you happy in this scenario so give them a break and stay calm and nice.

As for the lighting setup, I used two lights. Once again, a strobe overhead but this time with a snoot aimed at the subject. My key light was an octagon softbox just in front of me aimed at the subject. I kept light low and made ample use of black to further reduce light.

More testing.

This is what a test session looks like.  I just wanted to mess around with an octagon softbox directly overhead. I’ve got a great boom stand, but before I really start using this setup, I want to be absolutely sure it works and holds. So, I tested it on myself. The key light was all over the place but that wasn’t my top concern this session.

Once again, you want to experiment with your gear. Even simple experiments like this one. Aside from getting affirmation about the stability of my gear, I also figured out some more stuff about my remote, my strobes, and my processing tools. Did I get paid to do this session? Of course not, no one is paying for pictures of me but the knowledge gained from this session will carry on to every other session including paid sessions.

One other point – if you aren’t willing to do it yourself, then you probably shouldn’t get others to do it either. I now know my boom stand will hold, but I would have hated to find out it wouldn’t with someone else sitting under it. Now I feel confident using an overhead octagon softbox should the need arise.

Finally, for this set up, I used an octagon soft box overhead and essentially a white sock over the key light. In addition to testing the overhead setup I wanted to see just how lazy I could be with the key light. This sounds awful but keep in mind that you never know when and what will fail but at some point everything fails. Maybe you stay ahead of the failures or maybe you have to improvise on the spot. That is why I occasionally try out what I consider to be lazy setups.

The eyes set up quite a bit.

No, this isn’t promoting cannibalism, but it is reiterating using what you have and using it in different ways. Using the same pots I used in the previous post, I flipped them proper and put a baby in the big put. I also brought the light up and added a sheet to the table.

Once again, her mom was on set to help get her to the look the proper direction, but it is okay if she didn’t look the right way. One thing I try to do when dealing with babies is obviously have a parent on set, but I also try to be strategic about parent positioning. In one of these photos she is looking directly at her mom – but since I put her mom in a specific shot when she looks at her mom we can still see both eyes.

This is basic photography but it’s worth reminding because it is so important to the human experience – the eyes are our first major point of contact with other humans. So, it stands to reason what you are doing with the eyes in a photograph that has a person will set up quite a bit of the tone and theme of everything else in the picture. When I am photographing a baby, I try to make sure both eyes are in the shot, even if those eyes aren’t looking at the camera.

For this shot, it was one back light with a blue gel. A key light with an octobox and a fill light with a longbox off to the side.

Drumming to fun.

Setting up something different doesn’t have to be a hassle. You can always go with a cliché especially with kids and it tends to work out well, especially if it is fun. In this case, I took some old pots I had and setup a drum set. She didn’t quite understand at first until I showed her what I had in mind and then she started gently. Then I told her no, hit the pots harder and make some noise and suddenly she was all into it.

Granted, I have all sorts of fancy stuff going on here because I wanted a rockstar feel, but this could have just as easily worked with window light and a few pots in the kitchen. It might even give it a different context that you could run with and explore. But the point is, props and a photo session for those props are all over your house, you just have to look for them.

Anyway, for lighting, I have 4 lights involved. One light over head with a snoot aimed down. Two lights to either side of her, one with a red gel and one with a blue gel. Finally, a light a ways off to the front of her with a octagon softbox. I’ve been gravitating towards octogon softboxes as of late as a key light because I like the shape of the catch light it creates in the eyes. This is purely a personal preference and I wager 90% of the people who look at professional photos could care less what shape the catch light is in the eyes. Just wanted to include that tidbit so no one is out there thinking they are stuck with whatever light they have – those are fine too. Embrace them, learn to use them, use them well, and you will go far with what you have.  

Pink Hair

My assistant has pink hair now, so we did a fun photo session with it. This is another example of just how little you need to make a photo session work. I do recommend props for the hands, but if you can’t or if props just wouldn’t fit the session, then make the hands the props. We have her hands doing different things in these photos and they all vib with the overall set. This doesn’t mean her looks are blank – she’s working different emotes for sure but that all falls into place more often after you figure out what the hands are doing.

Think of it this way; we humans are social creatures, even the less social of us are still defined quite a bit by social standards in some way, shape, or form. What we are doing defines a lot for us and our hands are key in that. Put a shovel in someone’s hands and they will have some since in their brain that they are there to dig holes. Put a broom in someone’s hands and they are there to sweep the floor. Our hands lead us more then we realize so by utilizing the hands in your photo session it can be a lot easier to set the expectations for facial emotes.

Anyway, for this setup, nothing too fancy. It was a basic three light setup. One strobe overhead with an octagon softbox as the key light. One strobe of to the side with a long softbox as a fill light. One strobe in back with beauty dish and a pink gel aimed at the backdrop as a back light.

Like father, like daughter.

My subject here is utilizing items that represent her dad. He had a long military career and now he is delving into art. So she’s wearing his military jacket, a military helmet, holding his paint brush and a canvas, and is standing next to a military ammo box full of the rest of his paint brushes. We quietly borrowed a few items around her house for this session. We started off and slowly adjusted the poses until we ended with two looks we liked.

For setup, I had one light overhead with no mods, I also had an octobox as the key light just off to the front of her and a long box just off to the side to add a little fill light.

The final two photos are once again my stand in. Instead of measuring the subject I just had her stand next to an extra light stand and made it her height. This allowed me to set up the lights to her height and then I got the stuffed bunny stand in on top and just like that the light test dummy is good to go. I started with getting the light over head on the boom stand up and then added the other lights (then I strung the cord overhead and out of sight).  

I suppose this is as good a time as any to mention to keep safety in mind. I can have cords hanging from the ceiling when I am photographing a stuffed animal stand in. However, you want to have those cords organized by the time you have a live subject in front of your camera. It just isn’t safe to have cords all over and it makes you look unprofessional if you do have them out. You don’t want someone tripping on a cord and taking the whole set with them.

Ready for Spring

It’s been cold and miserable, so here is a photo of a little lady ready for spring to start. I coordinated with her mother by finding out the outfit of choice. Then I went with a white backdrop and flashed a strobe with a yellow gel on it giving a yellow background. We lucked out; she was in a very good mood at the time of the photo session so getting a smile was super easy. She was also very animated which always works great.

The last photo is the baby stand in for this photo session (or first or wherever the social media sites put it on – it’s the picture with the bunny). I can’t stress enough how important it is to have your setup ready before your subject is on set. Sometimes it happens, sometimes it doesn’t but the younger your subject the more you need to have things ready to go because the less certain you can be your subject will be in a cooperative mood. Thus, the stand in to test everything. Before this baby was on set everything was thoroughly tested. There was no waiting and just a few seconds for adjustments, just set her down and we start.

It's a three-light setup. The previously mentioned strobed aimed at the backdrop is one. The key light was a strobe with an octagon softbox. The fill light was a long softbox just off to the side of her. I also had her on a table because she’d be too short for even the smallest light tripod to hold the lights up. Obviously with help just off to the side.

Dog with a tie.

Still rather busy, so here is a picture of a dog wearing glasses and a tie plus a few other dog photos (including a very squirrely hound dog that only a lunatic would try putting glasses and a tie on).

Some more quick tips for pets. Do some of the same things you would do for a toddler, just in different areas. For example, do a face check, especially around the eyes as dogs tend to have dried tears there. The bigger or furrier the dog, the more likely there will be dried tears there. A quick wet paper towel wipe can solve that. You can go a step further and deal with any dander in the fur. Either way, look for stuff like that because it can be a real challenge to edit out in processing.

Remember, just because photo processing software exists it still takes time to manually go in and do those edits. If you don’t have to do those edits in the first place, then you save that time to use for something else and avoid a botched photo process edit job.

Finally, and this is the broken record part of all pet related photography posts: pets just want to make you happy. Keep your cool and keep things happy, they don’t know what a camera is or what you are trying to do.

This was a 3-light setup. One light overhead on the ceiling aimed down with a snoot, the key light up front with an octagon softbox, and a light in back with a long softbox. Also, I had a reflector up front on the other side of the dog with the white side reflecting light.

Grayscale

A quick post as I have a lot on my plate right now. When you can’t get a smile, or your subject is just moody that day, don’t be afraid to switch over to grayscale. This amplifies the look and strengthens the overall feel of the photo. Just remember that you are losing your color so don’t set up a colorful background if you know you are just going to grayscale all the photos. That stated, if you are photographing several subjects with one colorful setup and one of your subjects just isn’t into it you can always grayscale it and get a different look.

Dealing with glasses.

Sorry about the break. I was busy photographing a school dress rehearsal and then straight into backstage photos of the performance nights – one of my favorite types of photography especially when you get an amazing performance.

 Anyway, here are some low-key selfies. The aim here isn’t only to tell the world I should probably invest in new and better shirts, but also to talk about glasses. Glasses love to reflect flash. To be clear, sometimes you want that. I love that in low key shots, but sometimes you don’t want it at all. There are two immediate tricks to deal with glass reflections. One is demonstrated here and one I will tell you about and assume you can follow.

The first trick is simple: move the direction of the flash until it is out of the line of sight. At first this will take some adjustment but as time goes on you just get a feel for it. But notice as I adjusted my head for these photos the flash reflection moved around on my glasses. For the final shot there is no reflection. Of course, the obvious response is that only half my head has light on it – simply use a reflector for the other side or put another flash on the other side. The downside to this is that you lose that catch light in the eye (or the light reflection of the flash in your eyes). That brings us to the other solution.

The other solution, and one that is often used on TV and in movies, is to take the lenses out of your glasses.  Then you get “glasses,” a catch light in your eyes, and no light reflecting in glasses lenses. The problem here is that if your subject likes frameless lenses then that’s not really an option. But do try it and notice how well it works.

#Marylandphotographer #Annearundelphotographer #photographytips

More Baby Sessions

More two-light work.

This session was a two-light test.  More back light gel testing but also putting context. In this case, we put the baby in a winter outfit and put a blue light in back. Yes, sometimes you can make things that simple. The other light is up front and positioned to not only light the subject but attempt to make a good catch light.

When working with babies, it helps to have a family member nearby. They can pull out reactions that you may not be able to get alone. Remember, you are trying to get a baby to emote while also trying to juggle a camera. The baby is just trying to figure out what is going on. They’ve never seen a photography setup and probably have no concept of what you are doing because everything is new to them.

Also remember two other things. This isn’t too different from a session I did the other day. When working a craft, you need to be exploring techniques, but you also need to be sure you are picking up the techniques you are learning. So, you need to do research and experimentation, but also practice. It doesn’t matter if it leads to some massive, big thing every time, but more about having the awareness and experience of using the techniques you need when the time comes to bring them all together into a more complex project.

Mic Check

We did a mic test for this one. She makes YouTube videos so for this photo session we used her microphone and went with a dramatic 2 light setup. Make no mistake, I’d still consider this a complex setup because it uses a boom stand which allows me to hang a light overhead. Boom stands are not cheap.

For this look I told her to rant about something and she went all in. Doing so got her to give some expressions with attitude. This just gets back to the same things I’ve been drumming on about for a while. Give your subject something to hold and something to do. This will get them to relax and get their body and facial features more in line with what you are trying to do.

Finally, her little sister popped in, so we did some big sister - litter sister shots. Two good tricks for siblings is “looking at each other” and “putting heads together.” Both of these tricks work well in getting a look you might be going for or at least getting into a general ballpark of what you want for these kinds of shots. Once you get to the right ballpark then it’s just a matter of tweaking the setup, but this will all come down to the personalities involved and the time you must dedicate to a session. In this case, a four-year-old isn’t very patient for long so we moved quick.

Another gel test and color theory.

Another gel test. To be honest my strobes and speedlights are a mix of brands as I meander around with my studio lighting purchases. This time I was testing a gel system specifically made for two of my strobes. This means I now have gels for my speed lights and my strobes, which means I can now put different colors everywhere. My subject requested pink, so I set up a green in back to act as a complimentary color. We went with a low-key lighting setup. Just two lights, one back light and one bare strobe with a pink gel.

Understanding color theory isn’t mandatory, but it doesn’t hurt either. Plus, it gives you another way to view and discuss art. This is important because if you can understand what art works for you and you understand why it works for you, you can start going in that direction with the art you create. Or, more likely, if you can figure out what doesn’t work for you and why, you can avoid that. Understanding color theory, even a little bit, helps in that.

That stated, treat it like every other photography “rule”. Green isn’t an exact complimentary color to pink. Lime green would be. The rules and theories are there to give art creation direction, but it should never dictate it – the areas where you turn against the rules and theories are where you imprint yourself and your ideas into your work, which is the most important part of creating art.

Finally, the good thing about low-key lighting with gels is that you can convert it to grayscale and get awesome results. So if for some reason you go too far with your gels, you can always fall back with that.

Another quick post as I am in the middle of processing work.

To start and to be straight forward, this isn’t a cheap setup. This is a 4 light setup with 2 long softboxes with grids (fill lights), an octobox with a grid (key  light), and a back light. The two long softboxes were on either side of her and the octobox was just in front at an angle. The backlight was aimed at the backdrop. The aim here was to test the new longbox I got.

With that out of the way, this is a good reminder to bring in props, which might a light theme this week.  For these photos we used my rabbit assistant that I use to test lighting setups before I bring people in to photograph. She loved the idea of holding the stuffed rabbit, so we rolled with that. The cool thing about props is it makes giving directions easier. Hold it this way or look at it as you hold it. If all else fails, you can just take the prop and show them how to hold it. Trust me, props are the way to go.

Finally, when working with kids, keep it fun. Things go much more smoothly if the photo session is fun. Don’t get into an argument and learn to redirect. And always accept them as they are because that’s who they are best at being.

#Marylandphotographer #Annearundelphotographer #familyphotographer

More Background Effects

Another setup exploring what my lights can do to my backdrops. This time I have a red light and a blue light hitting that backdrop. The backdrop is black in this shot, but you can’t really tell because of the lights. Admittedly, you need a few things to pull this off. Lights, gels, and a backdrop. For this setup you’d need two lights, two different gels, and two systems to apply those gels because gels don’t just magically float in the air for you.

The lighting setup itself is more of a lowkey set up. That’s why the shadows are heavier and makes the images more moody then anything else. Then the cat waltzed in and that really livened up the session. I highly recommend trying out low-key lighting sessions for practice as they only actually require one light, and they will really help you understand working with shadow and light. Depending on where you have the light you will create shadows on the other side. That’s a rather simple concept but it takes practice to be able to visualize it without putting the light down.

Babies and light trickery.

I did some baby photos the other day and they turned out good, but I hated them. So, I redid them. This it worked out so much better.

There are two things going on here – a baby and light shenanigans. For starters, always talk with the parents when dealing with babies. This is key in coordinating an outfit of what you are going for. For these, I wanted a cool moody look and her mom delivered perfectly. After that, you are at the mercy of the baby. You can do every trick in the book to get that baby to smile but sometimes it just doesn’t pan out so take what you can get.

Now for lighting. This is a four-light set up. The key light is a studio strobe with an octagon softbox and the fill light is strobe with a snoot and grid on it. You can see these lights in her eyes by the way. The other two lights are where the fun is. There is a hair light on her that has an orange-ish gel on it. Then there is a speedlite directly behind her pointed towards that backdrop. The backdrop is black but the speedlite has a red gel on it so that back wall appears to be red.

Oh and yeah you see a hand holding her up. You don’t put a baby on a table and just hope she doesn’t fall off. That’s a recipe for disaster  

You can make your own modifiers.

I wanted to test some harsh lighting and low-key lighting techniques. Harsh lighting can make for dramatic shots or make them more intense. That’s also why people like to use harsh lighting in horror shots, except in those cases the lighting comes from below. And sometimes a 4-year-old sneaks on your set and into your shot without you even knowing it.

For these shots I just wanted to go back to modifying a snoot with two pieces of tape. I still haven’t quite got this technique down. It just seems off. However, it worked out a little better when I put a light in back and did the same to light up some of the background.

The point though is that you can build your own light modifications. In this case I used two pieces of gaffers tape, but I’ve made make shift soft boxes with cutup cloth and other light modifiers with cut cardboard. You just have to figure out what you are trying to do. One thing I like to do before I make a light modifier purchase is try and see if I can make a garbage homemade version to test the technique. If I really like it, I can always buy an actual quality version shortly after. For example, my first snoot was a pringles can that barely stayed on. I liked the effect so much I now have a professional grade snoot that I use often, probably too much.

On using strobes outside and getting permission.

Here are some photos of a senior photo session I did the other week. Before the snow. For these shots I used a dance partner, my strobe with a softbox on it. If you do outdoor photography with a strobe two things I highly suggest:

1)      Make sure it has a portable power source. In this case it has a rechargeable battery pack. I do have a portable battery for my corded studio strobes but that just gets a little too heavy for my tastes. But you work with what you got

2)      Bring a photography sandbag to anchor you light stand or you may find your strobe on the ground because of the wind.

One other thing really quick, a lot of what I did here could be done without a strobe, especially given it was a cloudy day and that meant there was already a giant softbox overhead. I prefer to use a strobe because I am a total control freak with my light, but under no circumstances should you think you need a strobe. It helps but a solid understanding of your camera and how light works could get some similar effects here.

Anyway, another thing you want to consider if you plan to do photography professionally is asking permission. You want to ask permission to shoot on the properties you shoot on if you don’t own them. We shot this senior session at a private school, and I made sure to get permission before doing the session on their property. It’s generally a good idea to get permission to be some place if you don’t already have that permission if you are doing a paid gig. And this includes the park I recommend. Most places will tell you yes, but the easiest way to get a permanent no is to show up and start taking pictures.

And if you get told “no” be polite about it. It’s okay to be disappointed, but you never know who you are burning bridges with if you lose you cool over your disappointment and lambast someone verbally by phone or by email.