This past weekend I had the pleasure of photographing my new cousins (by marriage).  From oldest to youngest, their names are Kade, Andrew, and Ashley Caroline.  I was up to the challenge of dealing with short attention spans, crying, non-interest, and uncertainty.  Overall I didn’t have much of a problem at all with any of those things.  Andrew, the youngest of the two boys did like to take the football and throw it in the bird bath.  He found this quite amusing.

Anyway,  I’ve just started going through the pictures and have posted a few of the whole photo shoot.  If you are interested in viewing some more awesome baby photography.  Check out this baby photo shoot.

FLEETWOOD’S MEDIA GOALS

Fleetwood is working toward starting their own media team for the church and investing time and resources into training their members (those who are interested) in a few key areas of media.  I see this as having numerous benefits for the church, mainly for its image, its surrounding community, and the members (as I’ll explain below).

1.  IMAGE – By increasing skills in media (design, photography, video, audio, etc.), you equip your members with the tools needed to communicate what needs to be said much more clearly and effectively.  Instead of having hundreds of low quality snapshots taken of church picnics and lock ins, you have now invested in and equipped your members into capturing photographic moments more effectively.  Members begin to think of ways to communicate through media instead of just snapping pictures at random.  The end result – a better and clearer image of the church.

2.  SURROUNDING COMMUNITY – As the image and values of the church are communicated more effectively and with much higher quality, the community benefits as well.  Those who pass by, receive a newsletter, happen upon the website, visit the church are all effected by media in some way.  Strategically implemented, media can have huge effects in communicating the message of the church effectively.

3.  CHURCH MEMBERS – Lastly, members reap the benefit of improved media as well.  It is such a huge part of what the church does from the presentation of the gospel, to interaction during times of worship.

The workshop on Monday consisted of a good mix of adults and high school students all eager to learn how to use their cameras more effectively.  The main topic discussed was COMPOSITION.  A brief intro to “off camera flash” was demonstrated to tickle the interest of curious photographers.

Below are a few pics that were taken.  The first was taken with NO FLASH.  The second was taken with ON CAMERA FLASH and the the rest were taken using OFF CAMERA FLASH.

Taken with NO FLASH. You can see how bland it is…

Taken with ON CAMERA FLASH

Taken with OFF CAMERA FLASH

Taken using OFF CAMERA FLASH with addition of orange gel background flash

Taken using OFF CAMERA FLASH

I am also teaching a workshop Thursday evening at the Tuscaloosa Vineyard – 6PM. Come out to learn more about your Digital SLR camera, composition, and an intro to off camera flash!

THE PLAN

After reading a blog post about this guy who shot a model in a beautiful forest on a buffalo with a really nice haze filled habitat, I was inspired to try a variation of this.  In order to accomplish this I knew I needed to eliminate the buffalo section and add a twist of my own (sad to say that my budget limited me from shipping a buffalo overnight to Tuscaloosa).  I would accomplish the mist by using a fog machine.  The woods would be handled by visiting the running trails of the local Bowers Park (of course named after my great great grandfather).

THE PLAN’S PLAN

My twist was to add a drastic contrast in color to the otherwise bland woods with the model wearing a red dress  (actually Rachel’s idea).  I wanted to keep the mist element so I asked my friend Michael Gordon if I could borrow his fog machine.  The fog machine fell through the night before so I had to act quick and come up with an alternative.  With a recommendation to try dry ice for this effect, I was pointed toward Publix.  I came away with a modest amount of dry ice.  I needed to store it for the night so of course I put it in my freezer, because that’s what you do with ice.

I awoke the next morning, pulled the dry ice out of the freezer, only to see warnings on the bag to ‘not place the dry ice in areas such as a freezer’.  Since I could not change the fact that this had already happened, I loaded the bag up along with my gear and headed toward Bowers Park hopeful that the mist could still be created.

THE SHOOT (5:30 AM)

The shoot went as expected except for the part where the dry ice failed to perform its function.  Disappointed that the mist element would be missing I proceeded to not waste any more time weeping and went to work with what was available.  Rachel, who graciously agreed to model for this shoot, was very easy to work with.

Porfirio, who is pictured below in one of the production shots, was a life saver.  I called him the night before asking him to help as an assistant (I really should be assisting him).  He has 20+ years of experience and has basically fathered me through the basics of photography.  For that I am very thankful.  You can check out his great work at f8productionsonline.com.

THE PICTURES

The shoot went very well and some great pictures were made, which will be posted at a later time.  For now, I have included a few production shots for your viewing pleasure.  You can see the basic set up that I used.

At the time, I only had two receivers for my wireless flash setup, so for most of the shoot I used 1  strobe shot through an umbrella.  Some thoughts on improvement would be to use various snoots and gridspots and splash accents of light on the subject and to practice controlling the light a little further.

A few things that I think contributed to the failure of the dry ice were:

1. Not enough of it.  I bought 10 pounds but probably needed 50.
2. The fact that I froze it.
3. The wooded area was super huge.  It seems it would take a constant stream of mist pouring out to achieve the effect that I was going for.

Have any of you experimented with fog/mist before in an outside area?  If so, what were your experiences with it?

View photos at SmugMug

If you live in Tuscaloosa and are interested in learning  beginner techniques on how to use your SLR camera such as composition and an intro to off camera flash then check out my Workshop post for more details.

I’m very excited about the upcoming workshop this upcoming week.  It will be held at the Vineyard in Tuscaloosa, AL.   You can visit the church website for contact or directions to the church. Tuscaloosa Vineyard

I’m including a video that I put together that explains a little more about the workshop.  Give it a watch as it will provide a better idea as to what this workshop is about.

Only $15.  Comment or contact me to let me know you are coming.

Here is a taste of what is on the menu:

Thursday evening:

6:00 – More Control – You have so much more control over your camera than what you probably are using.  We will cover 3 settings that will give you perfect control over every picture.  Aperture, Shutter Speed, ISO Never let the camera choose for you again!

6:45 – Composition – Stop taking pictures without thinking about how they are framed.  Start using a few simple tricks to make your pictures more interesting.  No more centered mugshots (unless that is what you prefer)!

7:15 - Off Camera Flash – This will by far be my favorite part.  I’m going to teach the basics of what I have been learning about off-camera flash.  For more info on this subject, visit Strobist.com.

7:45 – Hands On Practice -  We will be using participants in the workshop to practice and demonstrate some of the techniques that we have been learning.  It’s going to be a blast.

More info to come…(location, exact times, registration, etc.) Times and Topics are subject to change…

If you are interested in attending, leave a comment below.  Very low key, low pressure environment.  Come and experiment with photography.

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Here are some photographs from the shoot:

Ezekiel Baby Photo Shoot Tuscaloosa, AL

Ezekiel - Baby Photo Shoot

Ezekiel Chilling on the Couch

You can view the entire shoot by going here.

The cafe manager, Jonathan Stephens, agreed to be my model so I setup the fairly mobile rig in a matter of minutes and snagged a few shots.  This is basically a 2 light setup.  One flash to camera right and one flash to light up the background, which was a piece of textured/stained glass that I chose to light with my blue gelled flash at 1/4 power.  The keylight was fired at 1/8 power, f/7.1, 1/160 sec, 70mm, at ISO 400mm.

I would love to hear any comments/critique on the photo as this is only my second attempt at off camera flash photography.  There was really no creative direction for this shot except to practice proper exposure and experiment a little.

What do you think?

View photos at SmugMug

Here are a few others that I snagged as well:

View photos at SmugMug