photography

They laugh constantly!

  

flame of inspiration, originally uploaded by cecily.

I’m crossing into uncharted territory.

On Saturday, I did a photoshoot for my friend Jaime and her boyfriend Steve. This is the first time I’d shot a couple, and I’d be lying if I said it was easy.

It wasn’t.

I have a lot to learn about working with people and how to make them feel more comfortable. I also have much to learn about using a huge honking seventeen-pound 80-200mm lens (which I used for both photos).

Yet despite my reservations, I couldn’t think of a better way to spend a Saturday afternoon. Laughing with friends, snapping photos, and basking in the glow of two people who are very much in love.

     

old friend, originally uploaded by cecily.

It’s 1 AM, I can’t sleep, so what do I do? I start practicing photography techniques.

It’s a sickness, I tell you.

At any rate, to get this shot, I positioned the bear on top of a CD tower. The background is an old piece of black foam core that I bought from an art supply store for about $3.50. I positioned an off-camera flash — attached to a lamp with my Gorillapod SLR tripod, no less — at a 45-degree angle to the bear, camera right.

I set the D300 to Commander mode, which means the camera would control the output of the off-camera flash wirelessly. I didn’t set a flash mode for the on-camera flash because I didn’t want it to go off and ruin the light; instead, I left that setting blank.  I also set the speedlight up in the camera’s controls, and used iTTL metering. If you’re a Nikon shooter, you’ll know what iTTL means. 

Before I took the shot, I set the camera in program mode, and metered the bear using the camera’s Matrix metering (evaluative for you Canon shooters out there). I made a note of the suggested aperture and shutter speed, and switched the camera to manual mode. Then while in manual mode, I dialed down the shutter speed to 1/15 of a second and took the shot.  This technique is called “dragging the shutter”, and the best time to use it is when you want to keep background detail in your shot. This way, instead of the black foam core looking like a featureless black blob, it actually shows some texture, slight color, and detail. 

I set the flash to fire rear curtain sync because I’d heard you get better detail this way. I tried it with front curtain sync but couldn’t tell the difference in the light, but this shot came out better, so this is the one I ultimately used.

Post-processed with Wynona Robison’s Subtle Cross Processing and New Groove Photoshop Actions.

Now you know as soon as I got my tax refund, I was bound to get my hands on one of these. I’ve attached the prerequisite ISO comparison photos to this post. From left to right, a shot at ISO 200, then a shot at ISO 3200, and finally, the ISO 3200 shot enlarged to 100%:

If I could marry a camera, I’d marry this one.

It’s a little cheesy, but I still laughed:

Uploaded with plasq’s Skitch!

One of the many highlights of my trip to Austin was my photoshoot with Rannie Turingan of Photojunkie.ca. I don’t like being photographed (that’s why I’m usually the one behind the big black camera), but Rannie did an excellent job given the lump of clay he had to work with.

• Inside Higher Ed - Bookshelf and Self - What does your bookshelf say about you? Is it a reflection of who you are, or who you’d like to be?
• Borrowed Time - Architects discuss the future of libraries as public spaces. One critic thinks that libraries as we currently know them, e.g., depositories for printed materials, will disappear by 2019.
• CJR: WaPo Says Wii - Should a paper whose profits slipped 13% in 4Q 2007 really be putting in a game room?
• Electronista: T-Mobile to enter Canadian 700MHz auction? - Stop yanking our chains, T-Mobile (although, if this were to happen, I’d be a happy cell phone customer).
• Ryan Brenizer’s Amazon Blog: Photography tip: Shooting for Photobooks Permalink - Excellent tips for anyone considering putting together and printing a photo book. I gave photo books as presents last Christmas, and I’ll definitely be using these tips for the next book.
• The Austin Chronicle - Screens: Leaping Into SXSW Interactive - It’s almost that time of year! What panels will you hit at SXSW? Equally important, which parties will you attend after the day’s panels are done?

Finally, Blurb has introduced international selling for non-US residents!

If you’re interested in buying a copy of my first (and so far, only) book of photographs, follow the link below:

life in monoch…

By cecily walker

Book Preview

If you think I’ve priced the book too high (or too low), please let me know in the comments or via direct message at twitter

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John Edwards Back Pocket Bumper Sticker, Barnwell, South Carolina, originally uploaded by whileseated.

Michael David Murphy (AKA whileseated on flickr) is rapidly becoming one of my favorite photographers, and his blog 2point8 is rapidly becoming one of my favorite blogs. Murphy has been documenting the Georgia and South Carolina Presidential primaries lately, but when he’s not taking shots that showcase his unique perspective of the process, he’s writing about what makes campaign photography great — and not so great. As an added bonus, Murphy picks out some examples of campaign photography that goes beyond the typical “candidate stands in front of cheering crowd with arms raised” garden variety shots you see almost everywhere. Of the ones he linked to in his post, these are my favorites:

• Damon Winter’s shot of jubilant Obama supporters
• Callie Shell’s photo essay of Barack Obama
• A Doug Mills photo that captures Hillary Clinton’s softer side

Of all the types of photography out there, photojournalism is what appeals to me most. Maybe one of these days I’ll actually listen to that voice in my head that keeps urging me to go for it.