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Shooting with DJ Ellis
On Tuesday I had the chance to assist DJ Ellis of La Bella Vita Photography for Marlene and Charlie's wedding at the Elderberry House. DJ is a talented photographer and incredibly personable. It was great to watch him work and deal with tough lighting situations like the pro that he is while I was in the passenger seat.

I love working with other photographers and seeing how they approach situations differently than I might. When I started with weddings, I was almost always working with different photographer every time. I have learned so much from watching different photographers see.  DJ and I kept talking all day long about how we would shoot a giving situation and rarely we would come up with the same answer. It's so cool to see such personal expression come out in your work!

As you would expect, it was first class wedding at the Elderberry House, but at the same time down to earth and relaxed. It also helped that Marlene and Charlie were up for just about anything. Somehow, I was able to squeeze off the last frame of the day as we caught Marlene and Charlie enjoying a glass of wine all by themselves.

dj_ellis-1.jpg


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Carol Cardinale-Ruiz says: Sunday, June 20, 2010

The hair and make up by Carol @ bellissimo
Marlene & Charlie says: Monday, July 26, 2010

Patrick:
You are sucha telented photographer. You made a great team compliment to DJ -- we kinda thought you were brothers after a while! Thank you for your hand in creating the memories of our most special day!
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116
One light into twenty
June 3, 2010
| For Photographers
Sometimes I dream bigger than my budget allows. Wouldn't it be cool to have a lot of really powerful lights and big silks and softboxes to be able to do anything? Yeah, it would be cool but I really don't need something else to carry around at a wedding. So until that day when I have a crew to carry all of my gear and set it up for me when I want, I'm going to keep on getting the job done with the gear I have. Here's how I shot Sarah and Chase in a '65 Cadillac at their wedding with one light.

I started by selecting a location that had enough elements to build the photo. Because I am working with so much light, I can selectively bring out elements of the frame I want and drop others that I don't need. I liked the trees above with the car below. I went with a long lens to compress everything and not let in too many distracting elements. Double check your frame and make sure it's what you want, once you start this it takes a while. Then it's time to lock the camera down on a tripod and get to work. The idea now is to take many photos, each frame using the flash to light up just part of the scene. Later we will combine the various parts to create the whole.

I decided to shoot this at iso 200 f4 1/200th. This killed the ambient but also gave me some room to work with since I was using just one speedlight. For ease of post production, it's best to have a solid black background, so it is important not to have too much ambient. If you want to include a background, just take a separate frame with a long exposure. You've gotta use manual power on the speedlight here, ETTL just won't work with the light being in the frame (plus the car is too reflective for consistency).

Starting with the car, I put a shoot through umbrella in front of my light and walked around the car lighting up the car. Don't worry too much about getting yourself in the frame, just worry about lighting up the car properly. I worked around the car, lighting up one side or part at a time until I knew I had lit the whole car in pieces. Next, I repeated the process with the trees, but this time with a bare flash. I shot the trees being lit up from different angles making sure to give myself options later.

Finally, I went and got the bride and groom from the dance floor for a few minutes. I posed them in the car, put a tight grid on the flash so as to not re-light the car, and walked around them lighting them up. At the end, I had about twenty or so photos of the car, ten of the trees, and maybe fifteen of the couple. Now it's time for that dreaded thing called Photoshop.

I sorted through the photos and grouped them according to the area, car, couple or trees.  Then place each photo on its own layer in photoshop and set the blending mode to "Lighten". Now with each individual layer in Photoshop, you can turn a layer on or off to turn the light in that particular photo on or off. Experiment and find the best look for what you want. I played a bit to get the right balance of light and dark on the frame. Once you get things looking the way you want, its time for some quick masking in the individual layers to block out anything that you don't want in your final edit (in this case I am in the frame pretty consistently). Thankfully this is pretty quick and easy to do.

So thats it. Pretty simple really, lots of effort but the results are worth the effort. I've done this a handful of times in the past, but this was the first time I did it with a UV filter on. Trust me, do yourself a favor and take off the UV filter (unless you like to spend extra time cleaning up the image). Now that you know how to do it, let's see your shots! Drop a comment with a link to your work to check out.


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derek lapsley says: Thursday, June 3, 2010

i absolutely love light painting this way! the first time i saw it done was by john michael cooper on one of his TTD sessions, very inspiring and i was hooked! Great shot, super clean!! its been on my to-do list to de-construct one of my images like this and you couldnt have explained it any better.

you said drop a link so here's one of mine from an engagement sesh awhile back, different flavor but same 'ol process with one strobe. check the link:

http://www.lapsleyphoto.com/2010/04/08/fresno-engagement-photographer-4/

thanks for sharing! cheers
Patrick says: Saturday, June 5, 2010

Thanks Derek! It's funny, I ran into John Michael Cooper's work after I tried doing a few of these a couple of years ago. To me, this is about the best place to use Photoshop in work. Shooting like this is actually a lot easier than you'd think, just don't move the tripod!

I love that shot you did on your site! Super moody and textured! Of yeah, and the rest of the shoot is amazing as well :)

Patrick
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108
Show it off
I am a photographer and I take a lot of photographs.  Not just when I get paid to do it either, I am always shooting.  Somedays I travel with my tripod and pretend to be a nature photographer.  I also keep a point and shoot with me almost all the time, looking for a scene that catches my eye.  Heck, even my iPhone takes a mean picture.  I know I'm not alone in this, ever where I go people are carrying cameras and using them - but that is not what this is about.

I've often wondered what everyone does with all of these photographs.  It seems like with the inexpensive price of digital photography, cameras are everywhere and the cost to take a single photograph is practically nothing.  When we used to shoot film, every exposure had a cost.  Things have changed, now everyone is a photographer (many with great equipment) and is able to afford to take lots of photographs.  But as the cost of a single photograph has diminished, its value has as well.  What is everyone doing with all of these photographs?  Does anyone make prints anymore?  Is Facebook the final resting place for our shared moments?

Last weekend, as I was preparing to have guests visit, I was cleaning out the guest bedroom and found a stack of brand new frames that I had purchased at least six months ago (some older than that) intending to put pictures in them and display throughout our house.  I bought them on sale, planning on taking some new photographs of our family to put in the frames.  But life moved on and that never happened.  The frames sat untouched, between the guest bed an it the nightstand for months.

So I immediately went to my computer, selected photos that Katie and I had taken over the past year or so and made prints right then.  From there it was straight into the frame and hanging on the wall on fresh nails.  I didn't wait to ask Katie if she liked the pictures I had chosen or not (she loved them), I just did it.  And to be sure, some of them are not technically the best photographs taken, but it didn't matter - this is my house not an art gallery.

For the past few days, as I walk down the hallway I have to stop and stare at the pictures that now hang there and the memories that they bring up.  Was that wall really bare just a few days ago?  What was I thinking...?

I strongly encourage you to right now, and I mean right now, print a photograph of yours and hang it up (I'm talking to you professional photographer).  They take on a new life that way, the life that they were supposed to live.

sophie-1.jpg

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103
Gear matters?
April 14, 2010
| For Photographers
A few months ago I had three consultations in a row where my clients asked what gear I used.  As I answered each couple, in my mind I couldn't help but wonder where this was coming from.  Was the Knot telling everyone to make sure their photographers use brand new cameras this month?  Each of these couples had throughly looked through my work and seen wedding after wedding that I had shot and knew the quality of images I produce.  Does the camera gear I use really matter?

As a consumerist, it is all to easy to get excited about the latest product offerings.  As a photographer, it's even easier to get sucked into the advertising hype.  Surely I need that new Canon 1D IV to get the next shot, right?  Or if I only had that fancy new tilt shift lens then I would make the big bucks.  Somehow this amazing new piece of gear will erase all of my past difficulties.  Sadly I am not immune to this line of thinking.

I am reminded and my first ventures with Canon's 50L 1.2 lens a few years ago.  I had the chance to purchase the lens used for a good deal and couldn't pass it up.  I thought that just by attaching the lens to my camera, my camera would automatically create mind-blowing imagery.  It didn't.  It did however, produce a lot of out of focus shots.  Actually I produced a lot of out of focus shots.  The truth is, I just didn't know how to properly use the tool in my hands.

The lens sat in my camera bag for quite a while, untouched at most shoots.  Occasionally I would revisit the lens and I ended creating some very cool photographs with it, but when I did it had little to do with the lens.  It was the result of my vision coming out in the photograph.  So I sold the "professional" 50mm and downgraded to the "consumer" 50mm.   Two years later and I do not have a single regret.

To be sure, I have lots of high end equipment and use it on a regular basis.  But the equipment I use is a set of tools and nothing more.  My cameras do not automatically create photographs on their own.  It's all about using the tools for expression.  No longer do I have the false illusion that high end equipment creates high end results.

The majority of gear in my bag was purchased used.  Some of it is not of the "professional" line (whatever that is).  One of my favorite tools is a twenty year old lens that still gets my creative juices flowing.  What is in my camera bag is the collection of tools that lets me express myself

So does the gear we as photographers use really matter?  Does using an expensive lens or camera body somehow impart value on the imagery that would not otherwise be there?  I tend to think not.  Even when I look at other photographers' amazing work, I am more inclined to as "How did they do that?" rather than "What gear did they use to do that?"  To me all of this gear is just a set of tools to express my artistic vision.  Vision is where the real investment needs to be.

Leave me a comment to let me know what you think!

Oh and all of these photos were taken with my "non-professional" lens collection.


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Harland says: Friday, April 23, 2010

let's hear it for the 'non-professional' lenses ... or those lenses that were once professional in their heyday.

Good composition, nice balance between light/shadow and simply capturing an intimate or special moment will win out over corner-sharpness and micro-contrast anyday of the week.

But boy, if only I had that ....

cheers, great work and I like the blog layout too.
Patrick says: Saturday, April 24, 2010

Thanks Harland for the good word. I actually brought out my point and shoot for a few shots at today's wedding just to play around, and I love the results. And just because a lens is old is no reason to think it still won't work. One reason I still love my older lenses is that they are not coated in the way new lenses are. I can really play around with lens flare in ways that just aren't possible today.
John says: Monday, April 26, 2010

I agree. I have the resources to buy all "L" lenses and I can truthfully say, they didn't make me a better photographer. When I hit it right on, they do produce some amazingly sharp images. I, too have the 50 1.2L, I'm still learning on that one. I have seen excellent images with the consumer grade lenses - you still need to know how to use them!
Patrick says: Monday, April 26, 2010

You're right on the money John. Gear is great and opens up new possibilities, but you have to understand the gear first. When I first started shooting I kept looking for the "magic" lens that would take perfect photos. Now, I have been shooting the same gear for years and I know what each lens will produce without even looking through the viewfinder (or digital screen) and I am better for it. I have an understanding of how to best use each tool, it's limitations, and how to overcome those limitations.

Whenever I get asked by new photographers what lens they should use, my response is always the same; the one you have. Once you master that lens inside and out, then you can get a new one.
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