Lighting was one a 580exII into a silver, reflective umbrella, probably around 1/16 or 1/8 power.  Lens was the 24-105mm f/4 wide open at 84mm and 97mm respectively.

These are my two favorites:

Caroline, my sister, came with us to help with hair and make-up and those types of things.

Everything was done with one off-camera flash into a silver reflective umbrella. I chose to go the umbrella-route over the softbox because at 28″ it really doesn’t cover the length full body portraits.

The first two were taken outside on Marconi Drive near City Park. The last two were done inside when we got back. I used a collapsable background on the first, and one of her favorite chairs for the second. All were lit pretty much the same.

It’s true what they say about environmental portraits: 10% photography and 90% moving furniture. This was no different. Care knows.

50mm f/1.4 @ f/3.5, 1/500*, ISO 400

50mm f/1.4 @ f/6.3, 1/200, ISO 400

135mm f/2 @ f/2.8, 1/200, ISO 200

24-105mm f/4 @ f/4, 1/160, ISO 200

*On the 1/500 shutter speed, I used a long E-TTL cable so I could do high-speed sync (which for me is anything above 1/160-200).

TECH STUFF: All natural light (around 6:30 or so in the evening), on a 24-105/5D2

Quick Tip: Shooting a very wide lens can have some strange (read: bad) consequences when shooting people.  But it can also give you a look a tighter telephoto can’t.  For instance, in the case of the first picture, by zooming all the way out to 24mm (about 15mm on a crop/dx sensor), I was able to stand on my tip-toes and shoot down on them, giving the appearance I was much higher than I actually was.  In this case, it had a pleasing, sweeping feel, pulling in the knotted tree roots and lagoon behind them. The rule of thumb is not to get too wide when shooting close and direct on.

Here’s what we got…

TECH STUFF: All shot on 5D2.  I used a 24-105/4, 70-200/2.8, and 50/1.4, almost in that order.  Planned on doing some off-camera lighting, but I forgot to check my batteries before I left (one was dead–saddie face), so we did all natural light from a little after 6pm to around 8pm.

P.S. On the second to last one, I took a chance and dragged the shutter around 1/15 or something. Most of them like this didn’t work.

Every year, we (even Brent) go out to take pictures on their anniversary.  As you can see, the hardest part of all this is keeping a straight face.  I have so much fun it’s not even funny.

wait.

Nevermind, here are my favs:

You can see the pictures from last year here.

TECH STUFF: au natural. Yesterday evening between six and seven. Shot on the 5DII with a 24-105/f4 (spent most of the time around 24mm) @ ISO 400. Location: French Quarter, New Orleans.

In all of these I was trying out my new 28″ soft box, so I was doubly excited: taking pictures + playing with photo new toys.

The first picture below was never meant to be an actual counseling candidate, but it turned out to be one of my favorites.

Here are the final four. That’s not a basketball reference. Really, I’m actually impressed with myself that I even thought to clarify that point.

Never mind.

Some tips… I used clean backgrounds. So many times when you’re shooting inside of a house where real people live, normal decorative things can become cluttered when compressed down to your camera’s 2D point of view. Even the last picture, we chose the bookshelf for the counseling theme but purposely blurred it enough to not be distracting, yet still recognizable.

Subtile props. In all but the green background image, there were props. They’re each used a little differently and for different reasons, but I think they all helped drive home the picture we were going for.

TECH STUFF: 5DII + 70-200 mm (f/2.8, ISO 100-200, 1/15-200), 580exII (1/8 power) inside a Westcott Apollo 28″ softbox, triggered by RadioPopper JrX’s.

P.S. Did you have a favorite?  Which one do you think would make the best profile picture for a counselor?

That last one was me.

Kari is one of Caroline’s best friends. Each year they go to the beach together. This year, on their way, they squeezed in some time to do their senior graduations pictures.

Lots of fun:

TECH stuff. Pretty normal set-up, one umbrella-diffused light plus ambient. Shot between 3:30 and 7:30 pm, 5D, 70-200. Fast and easy.

That’s right, I’m milking two posts out of this one. Later this week.

He’s also a firefighter.

First, I used Gimp. If you’re not familiar, Gimp is to Photoshop what OpenOffice is to Microsoft Office. Pretty much everything Photoshop does, Gimp copies and incorporates. For free. All of it. Okay, there’s not nearly as much third-party suport for Gimp, and I’m sure there’re loads of things that PS is much more equipped to handle, but if you’re on my level (somewhere right below beginner…not kidding!), then Gimp is magical.

And if you’re wondering what the catch is. There’s no catch. Gimp was originally created for Linux that couldn’t run PS, and since about everything on Linux is free, so was Gimp. Eventually they started making it for Mac and PC.

Okay, the rest of this post is going to be split into two section, before and after the photo.

Before.

It’s very important on an image like this that everything lines up and has even light. To line it all up, just use a tripod. But before I began setting up my light, I decided to use an f/8 aperture. This was to keep both Kristins sharp.

Now for the lighting. I just used one flash, bounced into the ceiling via the ole shoe stand. By doing this I converting the ceiling into a huge light source, which provided a bunch of even, soft light on my scene. If i had used a direct light I would have had a bunch of touch-up because the light fall-off on the background would have made it splotchy.

The only other lighting thing I did was to put a 1/4 CTO gel on to warm it up a little. I was completely overpowering the indoor ambient (shooting at f/8), so I didn’t have to worry about matching light temperatures, I just wanted to do as little in post as possible.

After this, I took a few snaps, and I was ready to start merging.

Merging was easy once I figure out how to do it (with the help of a quick call to my brother). If you install Gimp and follow the four instructions below, it should take you about 2 minutes to do this.

1) Open the first image in Gimp (defaults title is “Background”)

2) Open the second image, copy it to the clipboard and “paste as…new layer” (default title is “clipboard”)

3) Add a layer mask “as white (full opacity)” on the clipboard image

4) Select the paintbrush tool on the “clipboard” image and paint over the area where you want the background image to show through.

And that’s it.

Because my exposures were not 100% consistent, I used the smudge tool to blend where my images met (so it didn’t look like a cut-out).

Also, notice in the original images below, the Kristins don’t overlap or touch. That makes the entire merging process very easy.