A Rare Treat in AZ

Typically the weather in AZ has two descriptions, hot or nice.  And by hot I mean 115 in August.  And by nice I mean 75 on December 18th.  Occasionally we have rain but it never lasts more than a day.  So you can imagine the surprise and delight when we had fog!  Real genuine hard to drive in fog. 

Granted most of the country would curse at this occurrence.  However I have only seen fog about 3 times in the past 12 years I've lived here.  So this was a treat.  Cool pictures were sure to happen.

Of course as luck would have it, my wife had a presentation to do in northern AZ.  She was out the door at 6:30am which left me with kid duty and taxi service.   Grrr, precious picture taking would have to wait.  Not what I wanted to hear.

After rattling the cages of our two monkeys I prepared the fastest breakfast a dad can, milk & cereal.  With breakfast eaten time to get our 3 year old dressed.  This is always a crap shoot as sometimes he goes with the first pick and sometimes not.  Luck was on my side as my first attempt was met with approval.  The 8 year old was dressed and brushing her teeth. 

Last up was preparing lunches.  I could just envision the sun coming out now and burning off the fog as I spread peanut butter.  Grrr.  Loaded for the day we hit the garage and popped the door open.  Sweet! The sun was buried behind a massive layer of clouds so the fog was able to hang around.  I still had a chance for a few good brackets. 

On the way to my daughter's school we drove past a park that was blanketed with fog.  I could see the shot right there in front of me.  A choice had to be made.  Should I stop for a quick shot or two and risk my daughter being late or continue on and pray there would be enough time to get back.  Priorities. I decided to go on and drop her off on time and then drop my son off as well at his school.  This would allow me to shoot in peace assuming there was something still left to shoot.  

  Upon returning I saw that luck was still with me.  The fog had hung around for me.  It wanted to be photographed.  I could feel it.

Until next time...

A Model Shoot

One of the biggest benefits of belonging to a photography group is you always learn something new.  This past SmugMug meeting was no different.  Ken Robert (co-organizer of the Meetup) lead the the mini-workshop on using multiple flashes for lighting a model.





Ken started the session explaining that just because its pitch dark doesn't mean you have to crank the ISO up to 800 or more.  By using the 2nd curtain (or rear curtain) sync you can keep your ISO & shutter speed down and still walk away with properly exposed shots.

A quick sidebar for those unfamiliar with 2nd curtain sync.  When you switch to 2nd curtain sync you are causing the flash to fire at the very end of the exposure (rather than the beginning).  What this does is allow the ambient light to come into your camera first and then your flash will fire to expose your subject.  This way you get your subject exposed with the natural background light as well.  It gives you some depth and detail to the image. Without it turned on, the flash will fire at the beginning of the shot, expose your subject and end the exposure.  What you get then is your typical point and shoot flash shot, background pitch black with the subject lit up like a Christmas tree.  Back to the parking lot.

For the better part of the night, Ken used three speedlites to shoot the model.  These consisted of a key light inside a small softbox, an unmodified flash for rim lighting, and a hand held flash bounced into a reflector for fill light.  Most of these techniques I've used, but it was good to see how someone else implements them as well.

Ken's gear was Nikon based so I was unable to use his light setup.  But I was able to use my Canon speedlite to grab a few decent shots.  Would of been nice to mount my flash on a stand to get better directional light, but given the group size it was not practical. 

You can see a few of Ken's shots here: http://blog.kennethrobertphotography.com/2010/10/20/lighting-it-up/

Until next time...

Children's Action Alliance

I recently had the honor of 2nd shooting the Children's Action Alliance (CAA) with Holly Baumann Ambuehl.  The CAA is a very noble organization dedicated to serving the youth of Arizona.  Find out more about them at http://www.azchildren.org.

 The event was held at the Hyatt Regency in downtown Phoenix.  I got there early to scout the rooms to get a feel for the lighting.  Holly had warned me the lighting was horrible from a photography standpoint.  Very dark with your typical spotlights in the ceiling.  This gives you hot spots at times and pretty much darkness the rest.  White balance is always tricky which is why shooting in RAW is the only way to go.

 First on the shot list was to shoot the silent auction items.  These are various gifts donated by the community as a fund raiser.  I used a 1.4 50mm to handle the low light conditions.  Having fast glass for these shots was absolutely critical.  My Canon 40D maxes out at ISO 1600 and I never like to go over 800 if I can keep from it.  Enter dreams of owning a Canon Mark 2 shooting at ISO 1600 with no issues. Sigh.  Back to reality.

Once people were seated in the ballroom I staked out a spot in the back with my tripod.  Holly would be shooting all the up close stage shots of the speakers while I shot from the back.  For these shots I was shooting on the long end of a 28-135mm.  This arrangement would allow for a nice one-two punch coverage of the event. The ballroom lighting was typical for an event such as this.  Room at near pitch black with the speaker illuminated.  One way to help with this situation is to use the spot metering function on your camera.  It uses more of the light at the center of the frame to make its calculation for the exposure.  This will give you the speaker properly exposed with the crowd pretty much in the shadows.

These kind of shoots are challenging but are extremely fun as well.  They force you into manual mode and require you think about each shot as the lighting is less than ideal. Makes for a nice change of pace from portraits or landscape shooting.

You can find the entire gallery at Holly's website: http://www.hollybaumannphotography.com/Albums/Through-the-Eyes-of-a-Child/14220800_ZWQZv#1050522566_eLBFM

A big thank you to Holly for letting me tag along.  Until next time...

An Arizona Sunset for my Birthday

It's your birthday, so what do you do?  Go out for a nice dinner?  Cake and ice cream?  Shopping?  Nah.  I do what any AZ photog would do...run to the desert and start shooting pictures.

I arrived at Lost Dutchman Park just slightly before sunset.  I was meeting a fellow photog, Chikku for the evening's shoot.  While waiting for Chikku I snapped off a few setting sun shots.  The golden hour was afoot so the shutter was clicking.  

What I was really hoping for were storms to roll in.  The forecast had a small chance so maybe I could get my lighting shot that I have been wanting all summer long.  That would be a sweet birthday present!

With the sun disappearing and the moon on the rise it was time to prepare for those long exposure shots.  I figured if the storms didn't make it then I had a full moon to shoot.  As luck would have it, the clouds rolled in and blanked the moon.  So I had no moon and no storms.  Mother Nature is stingy with the gift giving.  What she did give me was a decent setting sun.

Thank you Mother.

Setting sun seen from Lost Dutchman Park

Slug Bug

"Slug Bug", my 7 year old yells out.  "I wanted that one" screams my 2 year old.  Yes, my kids have learned the ancient game of seeing a VW bug and crying out "slug bug".  So now the game is a foot every time we get in the truck. What I find amazing (for now) is how they immediately start playing the game once we are underway.  I always seem to forget until the first bug is found.  And then I'm quickly reminded of being behind 0-1.

These silly games keep me young as I join in on the fun.  I even find myself yelling "slug bug" when driving alone.  But more importantly these silly games remind me of how time is passing by with my children.  Before long this game will pass as many others have.  My daughter will hit the teenage years and my wife and I will cease to exist. 

My 2 year old still wrestles with me on the bed.  He loves to do a flying leap and land flat on top of me.  Not too many of these matches left.  Before long he'll be into other things.  Hopefully good old Dad will still be a part of those things like basketball, baseball, and bike riding.  

So the next time you see a bug go ahead and say it, you'll be glad you did.

I Wanna Be a Cowboy

Summer time in Phoenix brings out the camper in all of us.  When the temps hit 110+ we all head for the high country.  And that would be Flagstaff or Payson.  So this past weekend we made it to Flag for a weekend of camping and cooler temperatures.

After checking in, we were told the Southwest Gunfighters would be performing on Saturday.  Having a 3 year old boy guaranteed that we would not miss this one (or would we?).  Saturday morning came and after a late breakfast we made our way to the gunfight. The actors gave a brief history of their troup and an explanation of the firearms they would be using.  Come to find out they use real guns with blanks.  This could be fun. 

Just as the show was starting my son looked up and said, "I have to potty".  Hmm.  Nearest bathroom back up the hill towards the camper or find a tree.  Confident I could make it back in time to see part of the show we opted for the restroom.  Hmm.  Never underestimateate how long a 3 year old can take on the potty.

Just as we got back the gunfighters and townspeople were taking their bows.  So much for the show.  They were handing out bandanas to all the kids so we jumped in line.  One of the cowboys was gracious enough to tie Cole's bandanna on and pose for this picture. 

I love B&W images and pretty much anything from the "wild west" always looks good in monochrome.

Taken with a Canon 40D, 17-40L, and post processed with Adobe Lightroom 3.

Yippie ki-yay!!

You just never know

A few weekends we were camping just outside of Payson AZ.  The area we were at is known as the Mogollon Rim (or just simply The Rim).  It was a weekend of on-off rain that always makes camping trips interesting. Needless to say here in AZ we never complain about getting rain.

On our descent back into Phoenix we drove through some of the thickest fog I've ever seen.  Not wanting to miss the opportunity I pulled off on the side of the road and start popping the shutter.  My wife was not real happy with me as I stood in the middle of a fog covered highway shooting pictures.  I have to agree it wasn't one of my smarter moves, but none the less I was able to get this shot.  I love the angle and the eeriness of this shot.

Until next time...