I met up again with my friend Emilie to do some practice shooting. We didn’t have a plan or agenda, just hanging out, exploring and taking some photos. We passed over a railroad at one point and decided that it would be our location.
We parked nearby and headed to the tracks. As we were walking, Emilie pondered the frequency of trains coming down the tracks. We assumed it only happened about once a millennium, so we picked our way down the track making images and having a good time.
So of course, after a few minutes we heard the warning bells from the railroad crossing begin to clang. A brief period of intense sprinting ensued as we moved all gear and accessories off the track. Needless to say, we kept off the track for the rest of the time.
I shot knowing I wanted to convert the images to black and white later, with moody and dark shadows. These three portraits are my favorite of the photoshoot. Thanks Emilie for the good time.
The area on Southern Congress know as SoCo is shopping district with a wealth of quirky shops and great places to grab a snack. I spent a bit of time exploring the area during some of my free time. Eventually, I got hungry and started looking for a place to grab something to tide me over.
I was attracted to this crepes stand.
I checked out the menu, the sweet side of course.
I stepped up to order.
I rang the bell.
This guy took my order. He recommended strawberries and Nutella.
A few minutes later, this appeared before me. It is, without a doubt, the prettiest thing I have ever seen on a paper plate… and the tastiest.
My sister got married a few weeks back. I was particularly excited about this. Aside from the obvious fact that my sister was getting married (congrats to Ash and Michael), a whole slew of family members were flying to the Houston area for the celebration.
This was good for a number of reasons. For one, I love getting to see my family. It is something that does not happen enough. For another, it means that good food is probably going to be present. But most importantly, family has a hard time saying no.
You see, prior to the wedding, I had concocted the evil plan to set up a mini studio and persuade (force) each family member to spend a few minutes acting goofy in front of the camera. All of the family was scheduled to come over to my parents house the day after wedding for dinner, so I found a space upstairs and built a portrait studio on location.
When I announced to the group that I would be coming around and stealing them away for individual portraits, I could see the fear and unease in their eyes. Every ounce of their being seemed to scream “We weren’t told about this! If I had known…..” But, we are family; and family has a hard time saying no.
So one by one, we headed upstairs. The next step of the plan was to have them look angry, clap their hands and scream. While this did create some memorable family portraits, it more importantly brought their real essence out; you can’t help but be genuine when you just got done screaming at the camera.
So I took everyone’s photograph. I had a good time doing it, and I think most everyone else did too… or at least they lied to my very convincingly. I came away with a slew of good images and since it was impossible to choose just one image for each person, I chose six instead. To see all of the rest of the images, click the link at the bottom of the post.
This is not however, a full set of my family. My sister and my new brother-in-law are absent, for good reason (honeymoon). A few cousins could not get away from work and we all missed them. Others had to head back home early after the wedding. Some family members have passed on and could only be present in spirit; they are sorely missed.
For all you Family reading this, thanks for being my family. Simple as that. Thanks.
Mindy -What talent! What skill! What a motley crew! So much fun — and Josh, you are amazing!
Jody -Josh, dear . . . this IS a treasure trove! Such a great idea that I’m sure we would have dodged if we had even had a hint about your plan. I love every, single one . . . even the oldies! Thanks for all the thoughtful effort you devoted to capturing a lot of happy memories for “the clan.”
A few weeks back, I had the honor (and rocking good time) of photographing the wedding of Tasha and Tyler. The ceremony and reception was at The Wild Onion Ranch, a home-turned-wedding-venue. The South Austin wedding venue was beautiful and was a photographer’s treasure trove with beautiful vegetation and architecture everywhere.
It was easy tell that Tasha and Tyler were meant for one another; there was love, laughter and life throughout the entire celebration. Thanks Tasha and Tyler for being such great and fun people! Here are some of my favorite images from the wedding; be sure to check out the full slide show at the bottom.
I recently met up with my friend and ballerina Laura to fulfill a portrait vision that had been stewing in my head for sometime. The plan was to have a ballerina in an endless golden field, lit by the setting sun. While driving to and fro, I found the perfect field not to far from my home and with Laura’s help and a cooperative weather pattern, my vision could be fulfilled.
Of course, I live in Austin, Texas. To be specific, North Austin. Here, the weather is unpredictable and generally uncooperative. Unfortunately, I tend to think that my positive thinking will have some magical effect on how the weather will actually turn out. Needless to say, the night and morning prior to the scheduled shoot time, the sky opened and released its watery fury down on Austin.
You may have noticed that the images in the post show no signs of a field full of golden grass. Well, the field of golden grass had been turned into a swamp of golden grass. Unwilling to subject ourselves to muddy torture (we had sushi plans for after the shoot), we searched for an alternative shooting environment nearby.
It is something I have gotten used to, these backup locations. Every Austin portrait photographer has or will have experienced the enjoyment of a location falling through and should always be keeping an eye out for last minute scenes for their location photography
We chose the top of a tall parking garage nearby. Its height made it easy to fill the image with the uninterrupted cloudy sky and we were thankfully a good number of feet away from mud. The sun was hidden behind a layer of clouds, so we pulled out the strobe lighting equipment and set it up. Enter the dramatic portrait!
After a bit of shooting and getting to see a beautiful sunset, we packed away the gear and headed down to the base of the parking garage. Waiting there for us was the wonderful and ever tasty Sushi Zushi. It was a perfect way to finish up the day.
Many thanks to Laura for being patient with my minuscule amount of ballet knowledge and to Steven and Lindsay for your help and support.
I have begun a 365 photo project. The primary goal of this is to create more images and to push my creativity and vision. A secondary site called The JBP 365 Project will host this project; you will find a link in the menu above. Please feel free to stop by and check my progress as I photograph my way from May 19, 2010 to May 18th, 2011.
Note: the photograph of Zilker Park in downtown Austin, TX does not have any relevance to this post. I just happen to like it.
Emilie and I have been wanting to do a photo shoot for a while, but our schedules seem to have a way of deviously scheming behind our backs and making it nearly impossible to find a time to get together. So, throwing our hands up in the air, we reserved the the first Saturday that we both had free; it was over a month away.
We decided to make a party out of it and invited our Austin portrait photographer friends Ming Gong and Raychel Deppe. The plan was to head out to McKinney Falls State Park right out side Austin and to get take photos of Emilie using the waterfalls, trees, rocks and good ole fashioned nature as a backdrop.
Of course, good ole fashioned nature decided to play us a mean card: rain. If memory serves correctly, it rained for two days prior to the scheduled shoot and there was a 60% chance (read: 100% chance) of rain on the day of the shoot.
Not wanting to have a soaked and muddy model, let alone soaked and muddy photographers with soaked and malfunctioning cameras, we took evasive action and found a location that could shelter us from both rain and mud.
Enter the parking garage!
Parking garages are great. If it is raining, they keep the rain off your head and the mud off your feet. If the sun is harsh and contrasty
(and hot), you can stay on the lower levels where the light is softer and you can find great light directionality from the windows all around
you. There are repeating patterns in both light and structure, angled and parallel lines.
It also helps if the parking garage is relatively empty. Cars tend to clutter up the place.
If you are in the market for a nice parking garage as a shooting space, try to find one that backs up to a park or greenbelt. As parking
garages are naturally rather open spaces (no real outer walls) it is much nicer to have a blurry green foresty background than to have a nice
blurry McDonalds sign mucking up the frame. If you are a portrait photographer or people photographer in general, keep a mental list of garages in your neighborhood.
Even though our initial plan was ruined by past, present and future rain, it turns out the rain was a blessing in disguise. The skies were
overcast all morning long, providing nice even soft illumination everywhere. It was dreamy… and it kept the temperature cool.
We started shooting on the roof and headed to lower levels when the rain came splashing down. We quickly realized that the wet concrete offered an opportunity to work with reflections. Rain, my friends, is a boon.
After a lot of photographs and a lot of laughing, we broke camp to head out to Trudy’s, one of Austin’s great Mexican restaurants that serves up a mean Mexican Martini. It was a good day and one soon to be repeated.
I had the chance to meet up with my friend Leah this weekend to do a photoshoot just for fun. One thing that is great about living in Austin is that there are so many great locations to shoot, tons of vingettes that are begging to be backdrops for a portrait.
We started the shoot by meeting at a nearby coffee shop and discussing ideas and visions for the shoot. After suitably caffeinating ourselves, we jumped in the car and headed to low traffic area in the north of Austin near the Domain shopping center.
I was really enjoying the burst of spring that past few weeks, so most of the shots were among trees, long grasses and flowers. I am having a hard time picking my favorites from the portrait session, but here are a few of them that I have edited already.
I first heard of Belgium portrait, commercial and corporate photographer Bert Stephani when searching for lighting tutorials on youTube. I found his lighting tutorial series called “Confessions of a Photographer” to very informative, entertaining and inspiring. Naturally, I bookmarked his page and subscribed to his blog.
Fast forward about a year and a half. Bert Stephani has released a 2.5 hour long DVD on portrait lighting called Motivational Light. You can see the trailer for the DVD below.
About the DVD
In the DVD, you get to follow Bert around through his lighting process as he captures great image after great image. What is very nice about this DVD is that Bert does not limit himself to using only natural light or only speedlights or only big lights. Rather he shows you how to use whatever tools are available to create great images. This may mean using natural light with a reflector, or perhaps a softbox to simulate window light. Whatever the case, Bert keeps a constant (and hilarious) commentary of what influences his lighting choices.
Though the primary focus of Motivational Light is…. well… lighting with motivation and purpose, a mindful and observant photographer can pick up a wealth of information that is inherent to Bert’s process. If you need help with posing, you can watch Bert’s technique as he works with the models and directs them into poses that flatter and complement the model. If you have trouble getting the models or clients to relax and open up to you during a photoshoot or portrait session, you can take a not-so-subtle cue from Bert: be a goofball. I’m not sure that being a goofball will work for every photograph out there, but the lesson I am taking away is that you need to be confident in your approach. If you are going to be a goofball, confidently be a goofball.
Is This DVD For Me?
Cost
The main question that everyone is asking is if the DVD is worth the cost. At $170, it definitely can put a dent in your wallet. You could end up buying some new gear or taking your special someone out to a very nice dinner (I’m sure we all have some points to make up). I look at this DVD as an educational investment. When I think of how many situations Bert discusses and how many times I will watch and rewatch certain segments as a refresher, it is clear that the benefit (especially over time) will greatly outweigh the initial cost. To me, it is a no brainer; this DVD will help me learn more than I could without it.
There are some that would rather attend an all day workshop than to buy an instructional video. I can see where they are coming from, but to me the video trumps workshops every time. The only real advantage that workshops have over video is the ability to pick the instructor’s brain in real time.
With an instructional video, you can learn at your own pace. If you need a minute to sit and ponder over the inverse square law, you just have to push the pause button; you can easily take a break if you need to. I know from personal experience that my eyes glaze over eventually, no matter how interested I am in the subject matter. I can’t tell you how frustrating it is to be at a workshop and not being able to focus because my brain is full.
A video can be obtained anywhere in the world; to attend a workshop you have to hope that one is hosted in your proximity, or that you can afford the time/money to travel.
Most importantly, there is no way that a workshop can cram in as much information or as many lighting situations and locations as does Bert’s DVD. It isn’t physically possible.
Is it worth the cost? Yes, it is.
Level of Instruction
Motivational Light is geared towards the photographer who already knows how to use their camera and understands the relationship between all of the camera settings. He does not discuss the shutter speed, aperture, ISO interdependencies that are required when trying to balance ambient light with strobe light. That being said he does offer a brief run down on five of the basic fundamentals of lighting, though he leaves all the math aside.
Content
When you download the DVD, there are 17 videos zipped together. Here is a brief rundown of each video/chapter’s topic and content.
Chapter 1 – Intro
Bert’s Perspective on Lighting
Chapter 2 – The Professor
IMLE – Institute for Motivational Light Education
Not a How-To Video, it is a Why-To Video
5 Basic Properties of Light
Chapter 3 – Technique
Shelter-Technique
Chapter 4 – Window Light
Using windows
Using softboxes
Chapter 5 – Hard Light
Speedlights and hardlight
Lighting background
Chapter 6 – Back Light
Using sun and strobe for backlight
Reflector Fill
Mimicking Natural Light
Creating a “summer/sunny feel”
Chapter 7 – Patterns
Using lighting patterns in background
Complementing subject lighting to patterns
Chapter 8 – Artificial Ambient Light
Mixing ambient and strobe
Creating an artificial car
Chapter 9 – Catch Lights
Creating custom catch lights
Chapter 10 – Playing with Light
Long shutterspeeds and light trails
Chapter 11 – Underexposed Backgrounds
Dramatic Portraits
Chapter 12 – Creating a mood with Light
Same setting
3 different setups
3 different moods
Chapter 13 – Practice 1 – Personal Work
Need to practice
Bert shoots some friends in a number of lighting setups
Chapter 14 – Practice 2 – Posing
Practice Deliberately
Chapter 15 – Practice 3 – Wedding Shoot
Experience is necessary in real situations,limited time, poor/stressful situations
Chapter 16 – Outro
Credits
Chapter 17 – Bonus Post Processing
Other Considerations
If you are the fence about purchasing Motivational Light, please take these considerations into account; in this video, you will see (among others), Bert singing, Bert dancing, Bert trying to be Mary Poppins, Bert making out with his LumoPro speedlight, Bert on a toilet, Bert having a photography induced seizure and Bert patting his butt in the camera’s face. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.
Summary
This is a great set of videos that I highly recommend. If you just don’t have the cash for it, stick to Bert’s YouTube channel and also check out the Squeeze the LIME Project. If you can afford it, I guarantee you will come away having learned quite a bit.
To buy Motivational Light, head over to the DVD’s store front. If you want to ask me any questions about the DVD, please drop me a line in the comments.
andy-interesting review of an interesting subject. i’m only familiar enough with photography tools to know that there’s a lot i don’t know, but i didn’t realize that you could use each tool so many different ways. based on your review, it seems like this video would be interesting even to a casual photographer (that’s me!) looking to get more mileage out of what little gear he may have.
thanks for the post. i would have missed the tutorial otherwise, and i’ll keep my eye on that blog now.
I am not usually a guy that goes for a traditional cake for my birthday. I would much prefer a nice cookie cake with a hint of icing. My palate tends to prefer a cake that is more dense and chewy. However, I can’t help but want this cake for my birthday party (not that I have had one in a long long time). I’m just wondering if they used the same camera to photograph the cake.
The camera is a Canon 5D Mark II dSLR with a Canon EF 50mm f/1.4 lens. That is a tasty setup… unless you shoot Nikon, in which case you would probably go for the ice cream anyway.
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