Pet Portaits - A few quick tips

I'm certainly not a pro at pet portraits but I've done a few and have a few tips to pass on. ( This is Abby btw, and a 16x20 canvas wrap print of this image was a Christmas gift for a friends mom. ) Ok, first three tips that come to mind....
1. Use Natural Light - Using a flash can startle ( or just annoy ) an animal. I prefer the aesthetic of natural light whenever enough is available. A large window can provide a convenient and beautiful source but lighting can be tricky because you can't just ask the animal to turn 90 degrees.

2. Know your animals - Especially when working with cats this will ensure that your subject is relaxed and comfortable. Dogs are a little more flexible and can be more animated when excited. Taking a dog to a park might make for great pictures but a cat would probably freak out. I know nothing about working with birds or reptiles. Just try to reflect the qualities the owner admires about their pet.

3. Work Quickly - This is not a model you're working with here. As long as the pet is comfortable with you around you're going to get the best shots within the first few minutes. Especially cats will lose interest with you and your clicking box as soon as they realize they can't eat it.

4. ( Bonus ) I generally use a 50mm lens to maintain a sense of proximity to the animal. It does require you to work closer to the pet to achieve a portrait shot size, but you will avoid the 'wildlife' photography compression of spatial relationships that comes with longer focal lengths. I feel it keeps things more personal, and you get a very photographic shallow depth of field as a bonus.

Oh yeah and manually focus because dog noses and cat whiskers can trick your AF off of the eyes.

Book Recommendation: Optics and Focus for Camera Assistants: Art, Science and Zen

Yes, this is the nerdiest book I've ever read. Whats nerdier is that I took notes on the whole thing.

I read this back in film school and it blew my focus skills wide open. I spent months thinking only in terms of depth of field. I cannot tell a lie, I'm a pretty amazing camera assistant and this book helped me get there.

This text is definitely more for filmmakers but a lot of the information is relevant to photographers. I don't know if the title "...& Zen" is a reference to the Robert Pirsig book Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance but Fritz Hershey seems to have a similar utilitarian perspective on his work.

Stuart & Jeff - Feb 14th 2010

I had my first opportunity to shoot a same sex wedding over Valentines weekend and it was a blast.

When I was originally contacted by Stuart I thought to myself, "... a wedding with no bride? This is what I've been waiting for!" and they were truly easy to work with.

Another reason this event was particularly fun was that it was in their beautiful home in Laguna Beach. The ceremony was held on their patio which has an incredible view of Catalina Island.

This was also my first traditional Jewish wedding.
You can see here the chuppa ( the 'c' is silent ) which I thought was an interesting tradition. It requires a person to hold up each of the four corners, and the chuppa holders are usually close family members. I think it makes a nice metaphor for the support of family and friends.

I enjoy these in-home weddings because I find that everyone is more relaxed and there are fewer hangups. Not to mention a beautiful home makes for a nicer backdrop than a hotel conference room. It was a little crowded with their 100 guests but I found ways to work around it.

Silkk the Shocker - how could I forget

I would just like to call attention to the fact that I have worked with rapper Silkk the Shocker. In case you weren't privy to hip hop back in '96, he was kind of a big deal. He is also the brother of rapper Master-P ( which yes, makes him Romeo's uncle ).
I had an unexpected opportunity to work with him back in 2007 for some clothing retailers or something. I just happened upon these pictures again while cleaning up my hard drives.

My product work gets around...

I love it when my product clients update me on the usage of my pictures. Right now I'm represented by StudBar Exercise Equipment on Amazon.com, and Sophia & Sam on Costco.com



At least I'm meeting somebody's standards :)

Dove Apparel - scrubs for days

I spent the last three days working with the good people over at Dove Professional Apparel helping them photograph their new lines of scrubs and medical apparel. They sell sweatshop-free, high quality garments to nursing and medical students across the county. Learn more at their website: www.doveapparel.comHere Souley and Myscha are looking professional in a unisex scrub top (one of about fourty style / color combinations we shot)John models a poly-blend mens polo in navy. I had a crew of four very dedicated models to get through this shoot. Patience and a collaborative spirit were crucial.

Product shoots are a mixed bag

Hand puppets for children, seriously.

Kathryn @ Torrey Pines

Ok, so more insights on dance photography.

Lets start with silhouettes ( which are apparently harder to spell than to shoot ). Shooting silhouettes is great, mostly because it's easy. Why fight the sun by trying to light your subject, am I right? No worrying about flash recycle times, maximum sync speeds, or all of those other things I hate about using a speedlite.

So it's as easy as exposing for the sunset and you'll get a shutter speed plenty fast enough ( even at ISO 250 ) to freeze the awesome dance action.

There are obviously a lot of ways to retouch silhouettes, but these in particular I haven't modified very much. I would have liked to get even more contrast in the original exposure to make Kathryn's figure silhouette-out entirely but there is a huge bluff at Torrey Pines that reflects the sun back towards the water.

We worked for awhile with this sheer fabric thing and got a few good shots. The wind was blowing hard enough that we had to cooperate with it. It looks pretty cool but I've seen it photographed better.

Note: I spent a lot of time staring at the sun during this shoot which I do not recommend. When I got tired of it I just started shooting from the hip and hand-held just inches off the sand. The wide lens and low angles help dramatize the landscape and dancer.

Heres an alternative using the sun as key light rather than backlight. As long as you keep your model facing the sunset it works pretty well and there are plenty of opportunities for profiles with dance.

Kathryn teaches ballet and it shows in her dance. Shes so trained and reliable that she can reproduce the same leap for me five times so I can get the timing right. And like a good actor, it's great to be working with a dancer who can both improvise and take direction.

And let me mention how freezing it was... We finally had to give up when Kathryn's feet got so cold she couldn't point her toes anymore. She was a really good sport about the whole thing. You can see in the background that this was not a particularly popular time to be prancing around in the surf.

I probably could have kept more footprints out of the sand also but I'm not a perfectionist.

Jason & Jen's engagement @ Balboa Park

I headed out to Balboa Park this past Sunday to shoot some engagement portraits for Jason and Jen:

Jason planned a surprise vacation from Colorado to pop the question here in San Diego, which he did the night before our shoot. Unfortunately the weather wasn't typical of San Diego ( and they did get out of town before the storm ), but we made the most of the last overcast hours of the day.

Their personalities and smiles helped keep the mood lighthearted and we quickly covered a lot of locations.

I did my best to provide the historical background of the

park... "Who was Balboa? Umm.." and I felt I gave a pretty good tour.

Engagement shoots can be challenging for a variety of reasons but I find striking a balance of candid and conceptual ( cheesy ) shots is the most difficult. Trying to shoot two different styles simultaneously is a tough state of mind to maintain. I'm always just trying to give my clients variety so they're left with options in the editorial process.

Another challenge is to capture the personalities and character of people who you've had very little interaction with. This is a talent I've had success in refining. I can generally have people laughing at themselves ( or me ) within just a few minutes.

At the end of the day it's all about getting people animated and looking like they love each other! ( A lot of engagement photographers are so avant garde these days their subjects don't even appear to like each other. But thats a rant I'll save for later... )

Book Recommendation: The Tao of Photography

I would never recommend a book that I haven't read, and this one I thoroughly enjoyed. The Tao of Photography ( Gross, Shapiro ) is a hybrid of a text and coffee table book including lots of full page images as examples as well as exercises to develop one's photo-chi.

The authors reference the work of several famous photographers but place a lot of emphasis on Henri Cartier Bresson. All the examples and discussion are based on the black and white process, but the concepts can easily be extrapolated to a color format.

Photography is actually a great way to practice mindfulness. It is in all truth an art form based on how to look at things. This book does a good job of convincing the reader to break down guidelines for what makes a 'good' subject, or even a 'good' photograph. There is almost no discussion of the technical aspects of cameras, but instead an emphasis on process and composition.

Being someone who has studied photography up and down, I can say that this book provided a refreshing new way to think. It helps put motivation and sense of purpose back at the forefront of shooting.

Available at Amazon. And you can get it used for under $10.