Hey Stunners! This weeks’ live show topic is black and white. I just so happened to shoot a few weeks ago when I was at my parent’s house in Connecticut over father’s day weekend. My parents live in the neighborhood my dad grew up in and where much of his family lived. His grandparents used to live on the Niantic river on an acre of land with grape arbors. My mom suggested going down to their old house to ask the current owner if we could photograph the area so that I could give my dad framed photos of it for father’s day. The man who lived there has owned it for 25 years and was happy to show us around and let me take pictures of the property.
These shots wouldn’t really stand alone as great work, many of the shots could use a focal point, but for the project they do what was intended. I chose to make most of them black and white so that they would look timeless and reflect the area as my father remembered it.
There are a number of reasons you’d choose to shoot black and white:
-to bring the focus to shape and texture
-to create a mood
-to eliminate distractions
-if the colors in the photo add nothing to it
This video is applicable to almost all types of photography, but especially b&w:
Here are my shots:
f/7.1, 1/100th, ISO 200
Panorama
f/7.1, 1/320th, ISO 200
f/7.1, 1/80th, ISO 200
Panorama
f/7.1, 1/500th, ISO 200
Panorama
f/6.3, 1/60th, ISO 400
So you can see I didn’t have the best light, it would have been nice to go during the golden hour but time was limited. It also would have been better to go later in the season when the grapes were on the vines, but I’m sure I can try again. I liked the wide panoramas of the river the best. I used Photoshop to remove a few distractions like a lawn chair and some wood planks that took away from the timelessness of the scene.
This project was as much about the action of shooting as the resulting images. It was really powerful to walk on the land that my great grandparents owned and learn more of the history of it (The house used to be a speakeasy! There were underground tunnels for runaway slaves!) I hope I was able to capture any of that for my father.
We had special guest Chris Gampat, The Phoblographer, on our live show this week reviewing your portraits! It was a lot of fun, he was a great addition to the team.
First we find out that he’s an expert in all things film photography, eateries in New York, and camera bags. Also that Chris’ parents were camera bags and he has possibly never met them.
Get our shirts on sale from sdp.io/shirt! (Does not come with Justin)
We also have Stop It coming up this show! A handful of your sent in your worst photos and we get to tear into them.
-your favorite gear for doing on-location portraiture? Chris loves the Zeiss Milvus 35mm f/1.4 with the 6D. For film he uses a Fujifilm JW693 film camera with a rangefinder 90mm f/5 lens and the Mamiya RB67 Pro S. Chelsea likes a 70-200 but also the Sigma 24-105. Tony likes the new a9 and the 70-200.
-how much of the portrait subject’s body do you keep in the shot? Depends on the use and your artistic preference! There’s goo discussion of Chris’ Tindr profile.
-(I don’t listen well) can white clothes for a portrait cause a problem? Yes! You get reflection from the surroundings color casting on the face.
Time for Stop It! Where we get to make fun of your pictures which you volunteered to us for this purpose.
-cool knife
-blurry rabbit
-no focal point church “clutterers”
-sweet hat
-cake
-dead body?
-HDR
-lady and a grow
-“doing a doody in a bud?”
-don’t go in
-Canadian Napoleon?
-birds are not dinosaurs
-spot color death
-sweet Segways, dude
-humping cows
-panorama mistake
-jumping girl
-over-softened
-be careful getting your heel stuck in your underwear
More portraits! I made my husband, Eric, model for me almost a year ago here and then again in some family portraits here. There are certainly some things I’ve improved on in the past year, but some things I can’t seem to get past. I wanted to shoot Eric somewhere other than our backyard, which seems to be the setting for many of my projects. He’s a big, tattooed gentleman, so I wanted a setting that fit his look. There’s a great graffitied underpass on our hiking trail that I’ve shot in before that I thought would work well. It was a bright and humid day, so I thought being in the more muted light under the underpass would be flattering, but what it wound up being was too dark for my camera. My biggest complaint of the Olympus E-M10 is how terrible it is in low light. It made the focusing near-impossible and the images came out pretty noisy.
Here’s a great video from T&C on shooting portraits outdoors:
Now I just need to work on how to teach my model to pose, or not feel horribly uncomfortable in front of the camera. He did great though!
My first handful of shots were in front of the most vibrant area of graffiti, but they all came out unusable because I missed focus on every single one. Then I did a series in front of the lines of the underpass, these were also so noisy, but I got a few that worked well. The last handful I took outside of the underpass but still in the shadow of it that worked better. Here’s what I came up with:
f/5, 1/30th, ISO 1600
f/5, 1/40th, ISO 1600
f/5.3, 1/80th, ISO 320
f/5, 1/200th, ISO 200
The last shot is for sure the best and the most representative of Eric. He looks comfortable, he’s got a natural smile, and the lighting is nice. I did some post processing on all these shots in Lightroom for the crop and exposure. I also messed with the noise and sharpening to try and reduce the noise on his face without losing the detail in his eyes especially.
This week’s live show is on portraits (obviously) and we’ll have special guest Chris Gampat! It’ll be a great show and I look forward to seeing everyone’s submissions.
You guys, we had a real live animal interaction during the show! Chelsea and Tony took their dogs for a walk and wound up bringing home a lost pup who hung out with us for a few hours. Luckily they left his owner a note and he was retrieved once they got home. But it made for a very cute start to the show. Also, I was in the studio this week!
So some of you just tried to send in photos of animals, which is cute, but we needed interactions, folks. Next week we’ll have Chris Gampat, The Phoblographer, in studio looking at your portraits.
-how did Cowboy and Sandi become part of the family? Cowboy was from the humane society, Sandi was from a breeder
-what would you do your first time shooting portraits of someone not in your family? Depends on who they are and what they’re going for!
-what percentage of your pictures will be sharp? Depends on what you shoot. Don’t worry about it either way!
Time to review a portfolio. Van Den Berg photography, lovely port. The full size layout is really nice. “Quaint af.” Maybe pare down a few of your shots, you have plenty of good work. Get rid of all the spot color. Maybe combine your about and contact page.
Chit-chat! You say dumb things we try and figure them out.
-what do you look for in a good composition? A clear subject, leading lines, negative space, separation, balance, contrast.
Chris Gampat is here next week to review portraits, so instead of voting for the topic this week, you can vote on a live show segment if you’re a Patreon supporter.
-what’s your favorite photography book? Check out Gordon Lang’s new book, In Camera. Brian Peterson’s Understanding Exposure.
-how to start in commercial photography? Build your portfolio with what you want to sell, then contact local businesses to offer free or cheap work. Try shooting for and selling to stock.
Oh, hubris. I really thought this subject would be easy. I have animals! I can interact with them! How wrong I was. First, taking pictures of animals is difficult enough. They are generally fast moving, unless you know a sloth. Also, taking pictures of yourself is hard. Selfie+moving animals? Near impossible. I attempted to at least photograph my hand petting said animals, but even that is unwieldy using a DSLR. So then I tried to enlist my daughter, who, apparently, is only a good model when she has to stand very still and be creepy (see here and here and here.)
It has also been in the 90-95F degree range the past few days, so we have all been sluggish. Which resulted in either a very sad looking dog and cat or a very sad-looking child.
I’m going to tell you now, this project was a failure. I missed focus a dozen times, I cropped the dog’s feet, my daughter’s shirt is wrinkled. I captured a few sweet moments, but they are still technically terrible. Here’s a funny video to make up for it:
So as usual I shot in aperture priority, but using a higher aperture to attempt to get Eloise and Hungry both in focus. Somehow that still often resulted in missing focus. I shot outside in natural light which worked fine, but my cramped back yard resulted is some busy backgrounds. I almost never got both of them looking at the camera. Ah well, this is what I wound up with:
f/3.5, 1/80th, ISO 200
f/5.6, 1/80th, ISO 200
f/5.6, 1/80th, ISO 640 (?!)
f/5.6, 1/60th, ISO 500
I don’t know. Looking at them now, I’m quite fond of them, but I just see everything about them that’s wrong. I need to work on manually choosing my settings and probably give back button focus a try.
Do any of these shots work for you? How would you have done things? I look forward to seeing so many animals on the show this week (and I’ll be there in studio!)
Welp, we had a false start, but we made it! This show was a quick one as Tony and Chelsea had a kickball tournament to go to. This weeks’ topic was “old meets new” which some of you nailed! Some of you phoned it in.
Next week’s topic is “animal interactions” which should be fun. I want to see all your dogs. The week after that, we have Chris Gampat! That’s super exciting. Chelsea picks on him a lot so that’ll be fun.
Support our Patreon, please! You can vote on the live show topic each week and see videos early.
-do you keep your old, bad photos? Yes, depends how bad.
-I don’t know why I sound like I’m in a can
-Chelsea, what’s your skin care regimen? Soap. Caustic acid.
-Justin, are you wearing a Bowie shirt? No.
-do wide-angle lenses always get soft on the edges? Yes. You can shoot to combine into panoramas to fix it.
Time for a portfolio! Jason Richardson. Nice, simple layout. Beautiful work! You have a great eye for light and shape. We want to see your design site!
Time for chit-chat! The part of the show where you say things and we say things back?
-you’re welcome for the laugh
-why are we so dead
-we’re the dark Mr. Rogers
-we should absolutely not teach acting
-Tony for president! Like if you agree! (no likes)
-do you know what helicopter tour service you used in Montana? Nope.
-error on the 5D Mark III? Nope, sorry.
-have the photos submitted to this show gotten better over time? Absolutely. We have to do so much less leveling, adjusting their exposure, and cropping than we used to.
-going from a sling strap on a telephoto lens to a tripod? Tony doesn’t do it, he just handholds.
Hey y’all! This topic is a weird one, you guys are getting real abstract with your subjects. If you want to vote on the live show topic each week, you can become a Patreon donor!
I really didn’t know what to do for this week. The first idea I had was old and new architecture, but I thought that was a bit obvious. I am also lazy, so I decided to shoot something at home. I might have stretched the theme a bit, but bear with me.
I decided to take some shots of my antique engagement ring on my hand, as I also have a tattoo of a diamond on my ring finger. It seemed like a nice contrast of tradition and a more contemporary trend. I also enlisted my husband to hand model for me, holding a pair of his baby shoes. That kind of subverts the subject, as baby shoes would indicate newness and his hands are… not new. But they are, in fact, the same age.
Turns out taking pictures of my own hand is hard, positioning it is weird and not blowing out my skin and ring is pretty difficult. I shot on aperture priority and did some post processing to adjust the exposure. I then used an adjustment brush to bring out the clarity and contrast of the ring and my now-faded finger tattoo. I also broke this rule a bit to keep from losing detail in the ring:
Here’s what I came up with:
f/3.5, 1/80th, ISO 200
f/3.5, 1/80th, ISO 200
f/3.6, 1/320th, ISO 200
f/3.6, 1/640th, ISO 200
So, not the most challenging subjects, but I like them. Particularly the ones of Eric. I find hands very aesthetically pleasing, and his worn hands with the old, tiny shoes are pretty great together. How did you interpret this week’s topic? Did mine meet the criteria for you?
Hey! We had a big get for last night’s live show. We had the winner of Adorama’s Top Photographer, Scott Borrero on the show! He’s a great photographer, a prolific Instagrammer, and Twitter ranter. He was so fun to talk to and gave great constructive criticism for the portraits we reviewed. If you haven’t watched Top Photographer yet, you can see it at sdp.io/top and watch the past episodes and look forward to the next season!
He talks about some behind-the-scene info on the show, like that in the first episode they only had 30 minutes to both shoot and edit! Here’s his tips on getting Instagram followers (which, like it or not, is part of the business):
be consistent
put in time, quality over quantity
enjoy it
Engaging on social media can get you work, bottom line. Adapting to the time is important and it’s a way to market yourself for free.
So we don’t get into a ton of your photos this week, that’s just how it is when we have a guest, but there’s a lot to learn from the information given in this show. Don’t worry, we’ll do portraits again (we seem to every few months.)
We get into your shots here. We hardly give any picks this show, I would just watch through to hear Scott’s critiques, they’re really specific and helpful.
someone submitted a photo of Chelsea and Scott didn’t realize it was her
Over to me for some viewer questions for Scott, and some weird stuff happens with my head:
Were things tense between contestants on the show?
What’s your workflow from camera to Instagram?
Next we review a portfolio, Deveney Photography. Scott, Chelsea and Tony all have different ideas about pricing pages. Good “About Me” page, try and put all your sections on the main page, use a different leading image, there are better in your portfolio.
We take a few minutes to look through Scott’s Instagram (@scottborrero) to see how you get 372,000 followers! He bought a point and shoot to take video and to shoot casually.
how did you get your first business client? Going door to door with business cards!
We finish out the show with your worst photo submissions! We asked people to stump us and send in pictures you thought we could not say anything nice about.
“Oh a bone wreath, Scott, I’m gonna let you take the lead on this one!”
“a mother and father bringing another generation into the world”
“I think what’s nice is they keep their grass at a really good height?”
“the birth of a serial killer”
“I hate to see like, an entire nose, I only like to see a small fraction of a nose”
Tony is really good at this.
“This kid came from those freaky shadows and now he’s a monster”
“He’s a badger that just turned into a man”
possibly a prison tattoo
And that’s our show! What a blast. Go watch Top Photographer to see the competition and Scott’s win.
Tune in next week to submit your best photos of 2017! Happy holidays to you all, have a great week until we see you.
Guys! This was a fun one. I paid my daughter, Eloise, in candy to come out with me and take some photos, because kids are creepy as heck. Styling, setting, and mood are very important for setting a spooky scene. I put her in a vintage dress and hair bow and put brown eye shadow around her eyes and on her cheek bones to make her look emaciated. I also put cover-up on her lips to make her look paler. She wound up looking quite ghostly.
I had a place in mind to shoot, a condemned church in our neighborhood that would fit the old-timey vibe of her costume. We went out around sunset so that it would be a bit darker out to suit the mood. I would have shot later, but I don’t have an external flash and my camera isn’t the best in low light situations. You’ll see that the images came out pretty noisy, luckily it didn’t much matter with the mood of the images.
The one thing I regret is not putting her in different shoes. The shoes she wore are really modern and I had intended on having her take them off, but then didn’t want her standing in sticks with her bare feet. The styling is so important though! Something modern looking in a photo that is meant to look antique will take the viewer out of it. Pay attention to detail! Eloise is not great at smiling for the camera, so she was kind of perfect for this shoot. There are so many old buildings in the area that served for great settings. Here’s what I came up with:
I positioned her with the date of the building to add context. I also used a radial filter to blur the area around her for mood. I converted all the images to black and white and pulled down the reds and oranges to lighten her skin. The dress wound up far brighter than the rest of the scene, so I pulled down the highlights.
I loved the little chair sitting by the building, along with the slope of the ground. I positioned Eloise coming towards the camera and nearest the right of the frame to have her uncomfortably entering the viewers space.
I wanted a shot of her in front of the Danger sign, although it messes up the timelessness of the scene a bit, the signs are obviously current. But look at that vacant stare!
This is probably my favorite. The leading lines up to her, the darkness in the trees behind and her creepy stance.
