Author Archives: Jesse

Last weekend I was in Champaign-Urbana IL, visiting. It just so happened that the Urbana Sweet Corn Festival was going on at that time and, with that, a really bitchin’ classic car show.

I saw a lot of very cool cars and got a lot of very cool photos as well as the opportunity for a lot of artistic license and played around with multiple takes on several of the shots. To start this off, here’s a shot of what may be the coolest car I’ve ever seen, a 1935 Auburn Supercharged 851 named “Ruby”.

I can’t put my finger on exactly what it is but this car just spoke to me.

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Rather than try to explain it, here’s Wikipedia’s description of HDR.

“…a set of techniques that allow a greater dynamic range of luminance between the lightest and darkest areas of an image than current standard digital imaging techniques or photographic methods. This wide dynamic range allows HDR images to more accurately represent the range of intensity levels found in real scenes, ranging from direct sunlight to faint starlight.”

Basically, take a bunch of exposures of the exact same scene with different levels OF exposure and layer them. It’s pretty easy to overdo but, when it’s done well, it’s almost impossible to tell. Here are my first attempts at HDR compositing.

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My paternal grandmother turned 90 on August 20. She’s outlived two husbands and all the rest of her siblings. She’s slowing down a little bit but still constantly moving. Kids, grandkids, and great-grandkids came from all over the country to descend on my uncle’s small town of Stowe, VT for a celebration.

While I was there, I took the opportunity to enjoy the Vermont scenery in addition to getting a well deserved 5 day vacation and a long overdue family reunion.

Sunset over Lake Bomoseen.

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Wow, it’s been a while since I’ve stopped by here, hasn’t it?

Right about a month ago, Gen Con 2011 hit Indianapolis and I went as a press rep for IndyMojo.com for the third year. As usual, it’s a great time and provides a window into a culture that everyone knows about but few really understand.

Wizards of the Coast’s Neverwinter booth, live monsters!

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I was asked back at the beginning of May to shoot a wedding for the guitarist in my former band. I did it because I hadn’t seen him in a while and had only met his fiancee once before, plus the whole deal was being held at a place in Broad Ripple called Chef JJ’s Back Yard that had a great reputation. It was a very nice venue and the food was excellent.

Shooting was fun and gave me a chance to try a lot of new things. I’m glad to have been a part of Keith and Minji’s wedding and that I didn’t screw things up too badly.

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As I mentioned last time, I managed to convince a lovely young lady to model for my very first (mostly) serious shoot with an actual live human. I got a chance to use my big reflector and speedlight with umbrella.

She’d also never done anything like this before so, as some of the photos show, she’s a bit uncomfortable but loosened up and I think I got some good shots. As always, I’ve learned a few things I need to work on but I’m pretty happy with this as a first attempt.

Here are some of my favorites.

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Last weekend, I shot my first wedding for some friends. It was pretty interesting and I’m still working through all the photos, getting the good stuff separated and touched up where needed. Aside from a little bit of tweaking, most of the shots turned out just how I liked them and I was graced with some great sunset light since the wedding was outdoors. I’ll put those up sometime eventually.

That’s not what I’m writing about today. Last time I started throwing down with the first step of off-camera lighting, actually taking the damn flash off the camera. Logically, there has to be a next step and a next step after that. As the post’s title would dictate, this is the first next step. I started digging a little deeper into what I could do with what I have. Basically, I have one actual light, a bunch of white foamcore posterboard, a table, a white wall, and a pineapple roughly the size and shape of a human head. What can I do with these? Let’s see!

These images are all straight out of the camera with absolutely zero tweaking. First, I put the client (pineapple) on the edge of the table with the flash standing on the ground between the table and the wall pointing up at the back of the pineapple at an angle of roughly 75 degrees. I put a piece of foamcore behind the flash to keep light from spilling onto the background. What I got was pretty much a rim (separation) light.

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I’ve made a headfirst plunge into David Hobby’s Strobist philosophy of lighting. I’d been reading the blog for, well, a really long time and made a move to get some gear to facilitate that a few weeks ago. About 5 weeks ago, I went to an all day workshop put on by Hobby and Joe McNally about getting maximum benefit from small photographic flashes used off-camera. Part of the benefit of this style is that it’s very portable equipment. Because of that, it’s possible to take high quality light to locations that might have been next to impossible. This philosophy was born from a photojournalistic perspective, the need to shoot editorial photographs in a variety of locations. Being that I have no real focus on what I do, the versatility interests me.

I’ve seen a lot of really amazing shots from people all over the world that have taken to the idea of applying the ideas of small-strobe photography and I decided I want in.

I’ve got some equipment, some book (or Internets, whatever) learnin’, some live demos from guys that know a hell of a lot more than I ever will…it’s time to shoot!

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Not that this thing gets a whole lot of traffic. Just in case anyone’s out there looking, here I go.

The 52-week project had to go on hold, sadly. I still really like the idea but I need to plan things better before taking on something with that kind of scope. Here’s some of what I HAVE been doing.

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