A simple study of light

I took several photos of some flowers we picked in our backyard yesterday with my iPhone. I just took them for a record so I could possibly work on identifying them with my children. I think they do a good job of demonstrating the effect of light direction.

This first was taken with the camera flash on (coming directly from the iPhone). Notice how it effectively flattens the appearance of the flowers in the water. This might be the look you are after or it might not.
I find it very interesting.

In the next two I simply turned the flash off so that the flowers were lit by the light coming in from the windows to my left. Notice how the flowers appear more dimensional.
But in the first, the large flower is turned away from the light. Notice where your eye is drawn.

In this last one, I turned the large flower to open toward the light.

Family Photos in Abuquerque

I took a few photos for this neat family last Friday evening. They wanted photos of everyone while the grandmother was here visiting. We planned it to be shortly before sunset to use the shade behind their house for a more diffused light and take advantage of the pretty sky in the background for another setting on their back deck area. Everyone was patient and cooperative - quite a feat for any group of children!

In the first shot we used pure natural light, as they were in the shadow cast by the house, on the hill right behind their house. I used aperture priority mode, with an aperture of f/10 so as to keep everyone in focus. I had to overexpose as the sky was bright, with evaluative exposure bias of 2/3 of a stop. This brought my shutter speed to 1/160 of a second. Since I was using a focal length of 50mm, this shutter speed was just ok as long as no one was really moving. In order to get at least this I bumped the ISO to 1250.

In this second shot, I used my studio lights. I used two right next to each other for the main light in order to get enough light on everyone.  I had go to complete manual on my camera for this. I wanted the background to be darker than in the previous photo, so first I set the camera to expose for the background and then adjusted the lights so the family would be properly exposed.
 

Headshots!

I took photos of this family for the sole purpose of creating headshots for each of them. These they can then print in a large quantity for their agent to use in promoting them for acting. They are such sweet  and beautiful kids. The little girl has already been acting, including a part in a recent Hallmark movie. I had my husband alongside to either hold a reflector or diffuser (depending on lighting conditions). All were taken outdoors. Here are a few of my favorites.

Ramblings

If you had me take a photo of you or your family a year ago or even two years ago, you will find I've changed. I am never happy with stagnation. I want to create. I want to do everything better. I'm rarely satisfied with where I am at. And I think I have improved. I hope I continue to improve!

When I couldn't be taking business during the last year, I decided to plow ahead and do what it takes to get certification. This meant doing a thorough review of my work from the previous two years, and picking 20 photos from 20 different photography sessions that could be classified as being good photos. These had to be reviewed by a certification committee and approved. Then I studied the extensive field of photography, mostly via the book "Photography" by London, et al., and also via webinars, and studying of information on various sites.  This is a great book, and I will continue to enjoy it and refer to it in the years to come. It is packed with information and photos to help in explaining everything. After studying, I took the certification exam in July - a 100 question test covering just about every important area in the field of photography. I wasn't sure I'd studied enough, but decided to still go for it at least as a learning experience to help me better prepare for a next time. However, I passed. I am glad, but also want to learn this stuff better! So I'm officially a CPP now - certified professional photographer. One of 6 in the Albuquerque area.

What will this mean? Well, I'm not sure. It proves I've studied the field, and understand the basics of professional photography. It doesn't mean I'm better than everyone out there who hasn't decided to get certified. But I guess it means I've attained a certain level of professionalism. :-)

Meanwhile, I have a desire to create something beautiful, something to cherish, something to enlarge and put on your wall, something to come back to and look at again and again and enjoy as a piece of art. If I can attain this for someone, I have succeeded.

Senior Photo Session - Old Town

I met my first senior of the class of 2012 in Old Town for some senior photos, on Saturday. His mom and girlfriend were helpful assisting me with holding my reflector or off-camera flash as I directed. I had my 4 month old strapped to me in my baby carrier (and she slept most of the time), so it was fun! This great-hearted young man is homeschooled, and in addition works part time and helps care for his younger brothers and sisters. Here are a few of my favorites from our time together.

A couple of more from travel

The stark New Mexico landscape. I am titling the first "waiting for rain". I did my own color changes to get the effect I wanted.

 

 This was simply shot through the car window as we were driving home. The open spaces of New Mexico...

Travel

We traveled to SE New Mexico to visit family over the weekend. Unfortunately my 2 year old came down with something Saturday evening and she's still fighting it. I did manage to get a few pictures with the beautiful, stark ranch land the area offers in the background. My children put up with my camera with surprising grace. My daughter explained to her great grandmother "my mommy's a photographer; that's why she takes pictures of us". Hopefully, that isn't the only reason! Actually, I want documentation, and when I see an opportunity, I try to take it. I don't often have the luxury of having equipment on hand, reflectors ready, etc, and so I get what is available. I do, however. ask my kids to stop sometimes and "pose" where the light is good. Sometimes they are willing to comply, and other times I have to get what I can get! Here are several. The first three I took in the evening (when it got cooler).

This is more of a silhouette with the bright sky behind him:

I had to take a few with the brick wall of the house. The light was lovely with light reflected off the white wall behind the house. These were taken in the morning in the shade of the house.

 

The light was a bit too bright in the morning with the light reflecting off the white wall! My son couldn't get his eyes open enough looking the direction of the white wall... I still liked the photo I got :-)

Back to the evening, I stopped my kids as they came around the corner playing some imaginative game together. I intentionally worked in the leading lines of the bricks, and placed my kids in the right third of the photo.

I didn't post the photos I took with family members.

My Girls

I am a mom of four, so I do take many photos of my children. Here are several recent ones.

The first are of my littlest one in her daddy's arms. I was playing peekaboo from behind the camera.

And here is her typical contemplative look:

 

And that open mouth that is so common!

Girls at Play

I shared this on my facebook page and am putting it here as well. I used Adobe Lightroom to lay out the web page. This is a collage of photos I took of two of my daughters playing on our cluttered back deck. I love the endless creativity of children.

http://lonelymountainphotography.com/Girls%20at%20Play/

Sun

A couple evenings ago my daughter was wearing a brightly colored outfit and I asked her if she wanted me to take a picture of her. We grabbed a large piece of lace my children were given for play and she was happy to wrap herself up in it. The sun was low in the sky and I saw this as a good opportunity to get backlighting. As my 2 year old is not going to be still for long, and I had no assistance at the moment, I didn't even try to use a reflector to bounce light back onto her from the front, although this would have been nice. She wanted a photo with our dog (he's old and rather deaf). Once I got his attention and told him to sit, I had to move my daughter so she wasn't between the dog and the camera. I intentionally placed myself so I could see the sun coming through the lace, and I captured the moment before either subject moved on. I wanted a fast shutter speed so any movement from either subject wouldn't cause blurring, so my ISO was set at 800 so I could get a shutter speed of 1/800 second with an aperture of 6.3 (I wanted both of them relatively in focus). I also used evaluative metering, increasing the exposure by 2/3rds of a stop.

Below I decided to make use of flare, which is caused by rays of light hitting the lens. Some photographers use flare a lot. It is a stylistic choice. It used to be that it was something most photographers considered a mistake until some started using it intentionally. It is relatively popular now, although you will find photographers who still really do not like it.

In editing I raised the black point to increase the contrast, warmed the color temperature, and desaturated as well as reduced the vibrance until I liked it.

Here is one with even more flare! There is even a large sunspot where the light directly hit my lens.

Reflections

A quick study of lenses and light

I took these two photos recently of my littlest. While I didn't design or plan these photos ahead of time (I simply grabbed my camera and used what lens was on it to snap pictures), they demonstrate a couple of things.

Both are taken in pretty much the same location, though at different times of day and she is turned a different direction in each.

In the first, she is facing the large bank of windows on one side of our living area. Notice how her face is all lit up, the light is mostly touching her right side with shadows next to her nose and on her left side, and there is a nice catch-light in the upper part of each iris. We want these shadows, as they give the face shape. This is close to "Rembrandt" style lighting, with mostly only one side of the face lit and a triangle of light on the other cheek.

Notice, however, that her hair is dark. There is no light coming from behind.

The other thing I want to point out is the lens choice and aperture used here. I am using a 50mm lens ("normal" lens) with an aperture of f/2. The aperture of f/2 provides the shallow depth of field. While she is pretty much the same size (as the second photo) relative to the frame of the photo, notice that her arms and nose actually look a bit larger!

Here is the other photo:

It is actually the same baby! Here I used a 135mm focal length lens, with an aperture of f/4.0. Both photos have nice blurring in the back and fore-ground, due to a shallow depth of field for that lens. But I was physically closer to the baby when I used the 50mm lens, so those parts of the scene closer to me look a little distorted - they look bigger.

Back to light: In the second photo she is back-lit by the same windows providing light in the first photo, and some light falls on the left side of her face. I had to over-expose the scene in order for her face to be bright enough, and her eyes don't have the nice catch-lights (sparkle). However, since the light is coming from behind, her head does have a nice rim-light, giving a sense of separation from the background, and giving a lightness to her hair.

You might also notice the patch of very bright light on her seat from the little bit of direct sunlight hitting her. This ended up being way over exposed in order to light the baby up, so we see what is called "clipping" - the patch of light is so bright we've lost all detail in that spot. (she is also wearing a large cloth diaper)

I prefer the 135mm lens for this photo, so her features aren't distorted. I also like the back-lighting. If we wanted to combine the best of both we could move her out of the patch of sunlight and use a light or reflector in front and above her slightly to get better lighting.

Montage

A montage I created of my daughter:

Yellow Ribbon Photographers

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www.yellowribbonphotographers.org

Be sure to pass the information about this service to soldiers you know!

Newborn Pictures

Our littlest girl was born mid-April. Did you know that the best time for getting those adorable sleeping newborn photos is when they are under 10 days or two weeks? This when they sleep more and are more movable when sleeping, and also before the acne can set in.

Here are a few photos we took very early on. A beanbag is great for positioning. Here I covered it with a white curtain next to a large window (no direct sunlight) and my husband held a reflector to bounce light back into the shadows. I used an aperture of f/2.2 and speed of 1/640 second, and I set it to over-expose by about 1 1/2 stops. I had to adjust the ISO to 1000 to be able to get these settings.

Here she is on our bed asleep and positioned so the light from the window falls directly on her face (again I don't want direct sunlight). There was also some light from other windows lighting her back. I am using a 50mm lens with an aperture of 2.2. I generally use aperture priority mode so the camera adjusts the speed to get the total exposure needed. I had it set with evaluative metering set to +1 2/3 to over-expose from what the camera would do automatically. I wanted her face lit well and with such a white background the camera would have tried to under expose to average out the brightness of the whole scene. However, the speed it was forced to use to get the exposure how I wanted it was a 60th of a second. Since the baby was so still this was ok, but it is generally slower than I like since it can show blurriness with much movement (not good for small children). I also brightened more in my editing and increased the contrast. ISO was again 1000. I could have raised this to get a faster shutter speed.

I designed this photo in my mind and set it up where I have light coming in several windows of varying amounts. Then my husband quickly positioned her and stood behind her ready to reach for her if she moved. With a dark background you do not want to over-expose as the camera automatically will bring up the exposure on the darks to average out the light on the whole picture. This has a VERY shallow depth of field with an aperture of f/1.2. ISO was still set at 1000 and I could have brought it down here.

I wanted photos of her hand(s). So when I was holding her once I asked my husband to take photos while I positioned her hand so they was lit well from the nearby window. The light wasn't as bright here so we had to increase the ISO to 6400 in order to get a decent exposure. This is possible with my camera (Canon 5D) and the quality stays decent. With a higher ISO you really need to nail the exposure in camera to avoid as much of the inherent graininess as possible. The aperture here is f/4.5 (a little more in focus front and back of the focus point), and speed was 1/125 second. I converted it to black and white in post processing.

Lastly, here is the announcement I created using a template. (I didn't include everything written in it here) It folds into thirds:

A couple more very important things to look for:

Camera angle: the closest thing to the camera will look the largest in the final photo. If you take a photo from below the chin - the chin will look large!Of course it depends on the feeling you want to portray with your picture, but I think the most flattering angle for a portrait is to position the camera at eye level or a little above.

Focus: If you are taking a picture of a person's face, make sure the camera is focused on the eyes! Generally cameras are set to focus on the center of the photograph, but sometimes the camera is set to focus as generally as possible taking into account a number of focal points. You need to set your camera's focal point on one spot. I generally like to use center focus then recompose so everything is in the photo where I want it, but sometimes I set a different focal point so I don't need to move the camera so much.  If you just pick up the camera and take a picture and don't take into account what it is focusing on, generally it will focus on what is in the middle. If you are taking a picture of a face it is easy for the nose to be in the center. So this means your eyes will look duller and the nose will be crystal clear, giving the impression that it is larger than it is!