Sunday, December 4, 2011

First day in the studio

I got to shoot in the new studio space I share with a friend of mine in Bemidji yesterday. It was nice to finally be in a proper studio, between the two of us we have enough gear and experience to do any assignment that comes our way. I got to shoot with my friend Shena again and we got some great images including the one below.
 for this image I used a 6x4 foot softbox above the camera, a head pumping into a gold reflector on the floor and two head aimed at the background. 
I used a combination of Speedotron and Elincrom lights and a Nikon 16-85 on my D300. Processed in Lightroom.

Saturday, October 29, 2011

Right tools for the job.

This spring I started shooting with the Elinchrom Ranger Quadra system kind of moving away from my smaller Nikon flashes. I have gained more power and access to a larger range of light modifiers my favorite for location work is a 27" square softbox.
The C-Stand is a beast to haul around on location but it makes getting the softbox in position so much easier and the weight makes the whole setup more stable in the breeze, had it been windier or if I were using a larger softbox I would have wanted to sandbag the stand.
This image was shot with a Nikon 50mm 1.4 on my D300 with the above lighting setup and processed in Adobe Lightroom.

Saturday, October 15, 2011

Walking with a camera

I love to just go for a walk with a camera and see what I can come up for images and I have been doing this even more now that I have have gotten my little Nikon P7000 which goes with me just about everywhere. These images were all shot around the downtown Bemidji area. Everything processed in Lightroom.



Saturday, October 8, 2011

Channeling my inner Helmut Newton

Helmut Newton was an amazing fashion photographer and he continued to shoot for Vogue into his 80's. He was one of the shooters I wanted to emulate along with Herb Ritts, Walter Iooss Jr and Mark Seliger. If you don't know any of those names as soon as you are done here you need to Google them.
I thought this would be a great follow up to the pin up type shot I did with Alice yesterday, this is NOT Alice though. 
I shot this with natural light and a borrowed 50mm 1.8 Nikon lens on my D300. Processed in Lightroom.

Friday, October 7, 2011

Alice

Today I got to work with my friend Alice on a photo we had been talking about for a while. But this was not the photo that we were originally planning on shooting, I love how a photo shoot can start one place and end up with the best shot being inspired by the person getting ready for the shot.

Here is a production shot, I don't think I could go back to a time before I had C-Stands they make the work so much easier and their weight made made me feel safe while working in the wind today. If I had been working with a bigger softbox I would have sandbagged everything. 
I shot the top shot with a Nikon D300 and a 50mm 1.4, lit with an Elinchrom Quadra  and a 27" square softbox and a Lastolite trigrip reflector for a beauty light combo. Processed in Lightroom.

Friday, September 9, 2011

Untitled

I shot this one back in June using a 53" Octabank with my Elinchrom Quadra. It produces an amazing quality of light so it took very little processing and what little I did was done in Adobe Lightroom.

Friday, September 2, 2011

Stoney Point climbing

I shot this image when I was in LA for the winter at a place called Stoney Point which is a popular climbing area near where I was staying. I lit this image with an SB-900 held camera left. Shot with a Nikon D300 with a 16-85mm and processed in Lightroom

Thursday, September 1, 2011

Day 7

I shot this when I was in LA over the winter with a Nikon D300 and a 20mm lens. Processed in Lightroom.

Tuesday, August 30, 2011

Day 5

I shot this image when the carnival was in town. When I saw the scene my first thought was some one needed to stop the senseless slaughter of stuffed carnival animal because is some one doesn't speak up for them no one will. I shot it with the P7000 and processed in Lightroom.

Monday, August 29, 2011

Day 4

I just really like the lines with this one. I shot it with my Nikon P7000 and processed in lightroom.

Sunday, August 28, 2011

A simple image for today.

I have tried to shoot this several times with different lenses and lighting situations. This time it was shot with my Nikon P7000 with natural light, processed in Lightroom.

Saturday, August 27, 2011

A cool thing about the P7000

When your working with flash outside one thing that is always hard to deal with is the sync speed of the camera. Typically it is around 1/250 of a second but with most Nikon DSLR's and the Nikon SB flashes you can get up to around 1/4000 of a second. The problem is that you have to practically be on top of your subject with the light to get it to work properly and it really sucks power from the batteries. But with the Nikon P7000 point and shoot camera you can get sync all the way up to 1/2000 of a second as easily as if you were shooting your DSLR at 1/250th and it isn't a power suck like with the DSLR.
The above image was shot at 1/2000 of a second at f2.8 and it was part of a burst of five images. I used a Nikon SB-900 camera left tethered to the camera with an SC-17 cord. Then I processed it in Adobe Lightroom.

Friday, August 26, 2011

About time

You have to love when the weather works in your favor, even though these storm clouds cut the shoot a little short but it added a lot of drama to the photo. For this image I had a quadra head running through a softbox above Caitlin on a C-stand. 

Friday, July 29, 2011

On the edge of the day.

I really like shooting at around the twilight realm, everything takes on a whole new look then during the day. Lights are coming on as the daylight fades so you can get an interesting mix of light. I shot these about two weeks ago when I was out for a friends birthday party.


Everything was shot with my Nikon P7000 and processed in Lightroom.

Thursday, July 28, 2011

Its all about the color

Back in the film days I shot nothing but black and white not that I had anything color images but black and white was something I could process and print myself to save some money. With digital though it's the same price either way so I try to take advantage of good color whenever I can.
 Sidewalk chalk during the 4th of July parade.
I was drawn to how the pole and wires framed the cloud the colors were just a bonus. 
Warm and cool tones always seem to work well together. Paul and Babe during the annual water carnival.
First two images were shot with a Nikon D300 with a 16-85mm and the bottom shot with a Nikon P7000 and everything was processed in Adobe Lightroom.

Tuesday, July 19, 2011

Shooting with Nora

I've been shooting a lot since I've been back from California, closing in on 5,000 images in the last four months. One of the people I have been shooting with is my new friend Nora featured here.


 For this image I used an Elinchrom Quadra with a 27x27" softbox above me and slightly camera left using the sun as a backlight.


For this image I placed the Quadra behind Nora and camera right to act as a back light but then over exposed Nora.


The lighting here was the Quadra with a full cut of CTO on it behind her and camera right to simulate warm afternoon sunlight because it was a dark and rainy day.
All images were shot with a Nikon D300 with a 16-85mm and they were all processed in Adobe Lightroom.

Saturday, June 25, 2011

Portfolio part 2

 From my day at Pikes Place Market in Seattle, WA

 Speed skating race on Lake Bemidji.


 Scenes from "Wait Till Dark"

 Mountain biking in southern California.

 Actor waiting to do his scene in a historical cemetery walk.

 Local musician Brett Cease performing on the streets of Bemidji.

 Bemidji State University women's basketball.

 Guitarist for Eddie Money at Moondance Jam, Walker, MN.

 A drunk getting tossed from the Bemidji State University homecoming dance.

 One of my covers for Northwoods Woman magazine. It was a story on Beverly Everette conductor of the Bemidji Symphony Orchestra.

Performers heading back to their cars from The Night We Light parade in Bemidji. 

Monday, May 23, 2011

My portfolio

While I wait for my new website to be built I need something online to show people more then a couple shots at a time. This is my current portfolio and the thing that ties them all together is that they were all shot with some sort of flash or flash and ambient light combination.