Senior Portraits

Did two Senior portraits today - I've been dying to try the David Hill lighting style so here it is with Mike, a baseball player and an available light portrait of Sarah with the beautiful eyes. I'm planning to use these for an upcoming mailer and would love some feedback.

Thanks,

Fred

Faces in Sedona

I spent 4 days last week in Sedona Arizona, in the high desert red rock country, along with my wife and one of my daughters.
Had a great time doing some site seeing and photography. Here's a few fun pictures to share with all of you.
{ you can click on any of the pictures to enlarge them }

This first picture of the little girl is from a restaurant, she was in the booth next to us, her grandmother called her "Love Bug". She kept looking over at us with those great big eyes making direct eye contact like only a child without any inhibitions will do. The light was streaming in from this window right above the booths, made for a fun picture. After I snapped a few pictures though, she decided she was afraid of the big o'l camera/lens and would hide behind her mother whenever I'd try to take her picture again. I finally put the camera down and promised her I wouldn't take anymore pictures and she was happy with that.


I also took that opportunity to catch a shot of my daughter in that same great light outlining her face and highlighting her hair.


And then there were the 'Tree People'. Outside of Sedona there are a number of wineries (who would've guessed), which we were checking out. At one of them they had put these eyes/nose/mouth figures onto some of the trees in the parking area. Got a real kick out of those, fun idea. Oh yea, the wine is actually pretty good, if you are ever in the area it's worth checking out. The 'Tree People' kinda remided me of the ones in the second Lord of the Rings movie.


Well, that's it for now.

David Gralian
www.davidgralian.com

Manfrotto School of Excellence

Manfrotto is honored to launch the Manfrotto School of Xcellence, with two great webinars from two top mentors: Bill Frakes and Joe McNally. These two great events will have these masters of photography sharing their amazing imaging experiences and techniques with you. Check out the information below and don't miss your chance to attend this Xcellent experience. Register today!

Pics and text copied from manfrottoschoolofexcellence.com

Link: http://www.manfrottoschoolofxcellence.com/

Cheers, Bjarne

The Prez

Shot with D3, at ISO 1600 and available light.

Learned a valuable lesson, never try to engage a Secret Service Agent in a conversation.

Hope every one is well!

Gerd Parkholt

Gerd Parkholt is the Grand Old Lady of the Skagen Folk Music Festival in Denmark. 40 years ago she invited some friends and a couple of folk musicians to her home and the rest is history. Skagen Festival is the oldest existing music festival in Denmark.

Last year Gerd held her 90th birthdayparty and she is still going strong.

The portraits are made for a book by journalist Joergen Pyndt, TV2 Nord. It will be published this summer to celebrate the jubilee. I have made pictures for the festival for 10 years and many of the pics will be in the book.

Gerd has decorated the walls in the hall room with newspaper cuttings and pictures of musicians, friends and family. Friends like Tom Paxton, Donovan, Allan Taylor, Arlo Guthrie, The Dubliners and many more.

In her bathroom friends, musicians and family has made poetry, greetings and jokes on the tile walls.

Enjoy the spring!

Bjarne

I need a new head ...

Just bought a Manfrotto 420B boom stand. Used for a couple of portraits of a friend, Henriette Goethgen, at NOVI Science Park in Aalborg.

Still need a kind of a "ball head" for the boom arm, so I can adjust the softbox. Do anyone know what to buy?

D3, 24-70 mm. f. 2,8 at 44 mm, 1/100 sec., f. 4,5, ISO 200 manuel mode, SB800 + Ezybox + Manfrotto 420B boom arm + SU800.

D3, 24-70 mm. f. 2,8 at 70 mm, 1/100 sec., f. 4,5, ISO 200 manuel mode, SB800 + Ezybox + Manfrotto 420B boom arm + SU800.

MV-22

I was in Jacksonville, NC a couple weeks ago helping a fellow Boeing photographer with a shoot for our annual report. We were on the flight ramp for some night-op shots when this happened. I had just put my 400mm away so I'm a little disappointed that it's not closer but still like the shot. Take care and keep blogging!

Fred

The real world

Fred reminded me just today that we are coming up on our year mark from Joe's class

and it got me thinking about the take away and what I've applied. Last year I photographed about 120 jobs and those were anything from weddings to kids to Ad campaigns. I'm making my living strictly from photography and the grace of God. So what did I get, I think for me it was simply the idea to get my self out of the comfort zone and into a place where I can discover something. Where what has been learned combines with what is instinctual. So yes, I have improvements to make and I realize that I'm no Joe Mcnally but I am a Chris Keels and this year I've come to a point where that means even more. My very best you all and may 2010 be a year of greatness for us all.

I've attached two images from a portrait session I did the one was a direct application of skills I learned from the class and the other from simply enjoying the light I was given.

I'm a (gulp) Wedding Photographer (?!?!?)

Yeah, I know. I said NEVER AGAIN. I said WORST JOB EVER. I said a lot of things.

Well, after being sweet-talked into shooting two weddings for friends last year, I've decided that it's not THAT bad after all. So I'm going to throw up a wedding website and 'test the waters.' I'm not going full-time with this, just a handful a year... but enough to help pay the bills and maybe help me get some better equipment.

Thinking about marketing myself as a 'boutique' wedding photographer but I hate that word. I need to figure out how to explain to potential customers that they're not going to get 'selective color effects' or 'soft focus' with me. I'll just lie and say that my camera doesn't do that. :o)

As always, critique and comments ENCOURAGED. Also encouraged are referrals. HA!

-karen

and this next one is a little 'inappropriate'

Fashion shoot (last two images)

Hey all,

Here are the last two images from my fashion spread for the alumni mag @ the college (see original post below for first four images). Once again, please honestly critique. And thanks so much again for the feedback you've already given. You guys are a great sounding board (or maybe seeing board?)! THANK YOU!

The Sky Is On Fire

The weatherman says that we are going to get rain today here in the Phoenix area, so there are dramatic clouds in the sky this morning which made for a gorgeous sunrise from my front patio/courtyard. It made the horizon and sky look like it was on fire.


(click on the image to enlarge)

We'll see if the day actually brings any real rain, but it certainly started out with some great color.

This is an HDR composite of 3 images (-2ev, 0ev, +2ev) using Photomatix Pro to process the images.

Have a great day,
David Gralian
http://www.davidgralian.com/
david@davidgralian.com

Hey all,

Wanted to share with you my latest project for the alumni magazine (these photos haven't been published yet, so.... shhhh.) We challenged six alumni fashion designers to design a garment based on one of the schools within the college (e.g., the School of Business, the School of the Arts, the School of Humanities, etc), then found student models for each shoot. Attached are the first four shots.

This is the first time I've done fashion. I found it DIFFICULT! I went into this thinking fashion would be a creatively freeing kind of shooting, but actually felt very limited right away. No spontaneous shooting here: instead of that spontaneous moment I always look to capture, I had to meticulously pose each model so the garment was shown in its best light (literally and figuratively). I'm not sure why this surprised me. =0)

Anywho... please honestly critique. Good... bad... what I did well... what I could have improved? I'd appreciate it!

Will post the final two images when they're shot.

Thanks all!

Hope you had a great holiday!

Leslie