Textures and Senior Pictures
This morning I as working on some texture ideas. Last week we did a location for Kira, one of our senior models at Pleasant Valley. I wanted to add some texture to one of her “serious” looks to get a more artistic effect.
texture screens can create a beautiful image
I knew that my senior session would be a good one…
One of the clear signs that a portrait session will be an interesting one is when the client is standing in the waiting area with a sword in his hand! I’ve done a few high school seniors with swords in the past and all of them were really cool! Today we photographed Tarek from Stroudsburg High School. He wears Buddy Holly style Ray Ban glasses which gives him a pretty distinctive look. Let us know what you think.
How to find Great Senior Portraits (part 1) or the “Eyes Have It”…
With all of hullabaloo surrounding senior pictures, it is important to know what makes a good portrait. Most people know a good portrait when they see it, but they often can’s tell you why it is good. So in this series of blog posts I am going to explain what I strive for when creating senior (and other) portraits.
First, it goes without saying all of the technical things have to be in correct. Color has to be perfect. Focus has to be crisp. There should be no obvious flaws.
But there’s more. Look at the eyes in the attached portrait of Carolyn. They are crisp and expressive. The eyes should “pop” and are almost always the focal point of the portrait. That is usually created with great lighting, weather inside or out.
Finally (well for this blog post) is the expression. I like nice smiles and pleasant expressions. That’s not to say that great portraits can’t happen without a smile because they often do. The photographer has to create a rapport with the subject to coax the desired expression. That takes practice.
More about getting great senior portraits in a future post.
The eyes often make or break a great portrait.
Fun in the Rain, Event Photography, Senior Models and more
Blogging again. I like talking about my photos. But I’m not crazy about my blogging software. Otherwise I’d blog a lot more… I have a lot of respect for those that maintain incredible blogs… It is a LOT of work.
That said, here are a few photos from yesterday. I spent about a half hour wandering in my yard with the little camera set in close-up mode. Photographing nature in the rain is almost easier than photographing it on a beautiful sunny day. The light is soft and the colors tend to be richer. I got three favorites, so this will be “Photo Diem Cubed”
This week Dixie and I ventured to West Chester to attend a two day conference on Event and Church Directory Photography. Event photography is and industry term that covers almost any type of photography that happens outside of the studio. It includes pictures of sports leagues, pre-schools, scouts, parties, and about a billion other things. We’ve been doing that stuff for a long time, but it is always nice to pick up tips so that we can do it better
Church directory photography is an area where we are looking to get some experience. I’m sure we can do a better job than the big chains. It’s just a matter of getting into a small to medium church and getting started. If your church hasn’t had a new directory in several years, feel free to contact us!
We also photographed Angela Taldone, a senior model from PV this week. Angela is a great girl and did a great job modeling. We captured her in several outfits. I put a teaser shot up here. We will have more on the senior models in a future post.
That’s all for today… Now let’s see if I can format this blog so that it looks half decent…
Brief week in Review
This week was busy, as usual, at Bender Photography. We started with a senior model session of Kira, Did a lot of work on our Senior Brochure (which looks awesome, BTW), shot a bunch of sports ~~ At Pleasant Valley and at East Stroudsburg Football Club, too.
On the Photo Diem front (that’s the personal project that I’ve been doing since, my favorite image for the week was the one of the dandelion (posted previously). Last evening we did take a ride to Big Pocono State Park where I captured an image of the forsythia in bloom.
One of the better photo diem images is now a poster. Dave Danowitz, better known as Tie Dye Dave had posters made from the image that I created at his store. You can get your copy to decorate your crib at Dave’s Unique Gifts in Tannersville.
Forsythia at Big Pocono
I liked the black and white contrasts in this image
We delivered this poster to Dave this week! Dave is a happy camper!
The Big Bloomin tree
Yesterday I wanted to photograph a blooming tree. There are a lot of them around. I found this one at the historical site in Sciota. It is right across from the Old Mill. It was breezy and I had to take a bunch of exposures to get a sharp one
aahhh… The lowly, lovely dandelion
We are getting into busy times at the studio. We are shooting our senior models and getting our marketing together for the rest of the year. At the end of the day I decided that my Photo Diem exercise would have to occur in my back yard.
I decided to photograph a dandelion. Dandelions are probably the lowliest of flowers. In fact, they were the only ones I was allowed to pick when I was a kid. I wanted to make it look interesting and different. This is the image I got.
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- A different view of the dandelion.
As I mentioned, we are gearing up for senior picture season. We photographed some senior models from Stroudsburg High School the other day. When we photograph high school seniors we like to create images that are interesting and different, too.
It is important to note that high school seniors don’t fall in the same category as dandelions. But like everything, they have sides and facets that are beautiful and interesting. My job is to find those features and record them with a camera.
Lining up our ducks
In the digital photography world you have to reinvent things on a regular basis. Software is continually changing, styles change, cameras change. Really, if you want to get philosophical about it, everything in our world is continually changing.
I take pictures every day. Mostly because I like creating interesting images, but also because I continually need images to practice on.
This image, taken off of route 447 in East Stroudsburg is actually the reflection in the water of the pond. I turned it upside down because it makes it look like a painting.
An image of the reflection, turned upside down.
(Photo) Life is so RAW
In Facebook I’m doing an exercise called Photo Diem. The idea is to take an interesting photo every day and post it in a Facebook Album. Most of my images for this exercise are shot in “camera raw” mode. We use raw all the time at the studio because it allows extensive high quality adjustments. RAW files have to be converted to a usable format (like jpeg) in a RAW converter like “Adobe Camera Raw.” Even though I’ve been using this method for years, I picked up a book on the subject to see if I was missing anything. Happily, I was! So I learned some new tricks, some new shortcuts, and got some new ideas. You can never learn too much. Besides that, the NEW version of ACR and Photoshop will out in 12 days. The learning in the digital age never ends!
This image was enhanced significantly utilizing Adobe Camera Raw
Photoplay
Last night I played with this image that I photographed the day before. Often, particularly in the days of digital photography, the exposure is merely the first step in the process. On this image I worked with some brushes that are buried in the stock photoshop toolbox. It is always nice to learn new things!