Water cascades over the top of the Evergreen Lake Dam, driven by high winds.

Gears to control a spillway or other valve at Evergreen Lake Dam.

Been ordering some new gear, and yesterday my new Olympus Zuiko 50mm f2 lens arrived. I didn’t have much time to play with it yesterday, but I did take a couple of photos. This is not by any means an exhaustive writeup or review, I need to use it more first. Immediate reaction though: WOW. This thing is crazy fast. Can’t wait to try it on my E-30 when it arrives next week. And I especially can’t wait to try it with my EX-25 for some serious macro work. I love this thing already.

And of course, I had to try a candid portrait with it. I need to work on this a little more, but I like it alot.

As seen through the trees at the base.

The inbox and calendar are starting to fill up with Senior Portrait requests. I am local to Lakewood High School, Green Mountain High School, Alameda High School and Bear Valley High School. Yearbook headshot deadlines will be upon you faster than you know it (indeed, I can’t believe school starts in roughly 4 weeks), so get your photoshoot scheduled today. We can do urban or mountain. Favorite locations include Red Rocks and spots along Bear Creek toward Kittredge. Rocky Mountain National Park is an option too, but additional fees would apply for travel time.

I have been around dogs for pretty much all of my life. Except for when I was at college, there has always been a dog in my home. I think the longest gap without a dog in my house has been maybe 6 months. Randall, the Bichon Frise pictured above, is the latest one to live in our home. Technically it belongs to our oldest daughter, but he lives here (as does she) and we all take care of him.

In taking photos of pets, I have seen a lot of similarities to kids. They can be incredibly cooperative, as Randall was above, or Schroeder, an Australian Shepherd we used to have. They can be extremely disinterested like Ozzie, one of our cats, or very excited like Daisy, our neighbor’s Weimaraner. Sometimes they don’t even mind an accidental finger in the eye. And much like kids, we don’t want them to be too far out of character when we get a photo of them. Just like anything else, we want the photo to reflect who they are, because that is what we love.

Rio (our German Shepherd) reminded us a few years ago that pets don’t live forever. I had her for about 8 years (I jokingly say I had her longer than my wife and kids), and she and I were pretty close. It wasn’t until she passed that I realized how few pictures I had of her. Being someone who likes to take pictures of anything and everything, it is a bit embarrassing to admit this. But I have precious few pictures of her, and it bothers me. Since then I have tried to capture more pictures of our animals. Or at least some signature photos that really bring their character to light. I am pretty satisfied with the results so far. The picture of Randall at the top was shot earlier this week, and I think captured him quite well. Possibly the best pet photo I have shot so far. I know my daughter will be happy to have it when Randall’s time comes, and that makes me both proud and happy.

These are our lights this year. I just grabbed my camera, went outside, and started shooting. Wish I had remembered about the Strobist guide to shooting holiday lights from 3 years ago. But I found the link, and you can benefit from it’s great tips. Strobist: How To Photograph Christmas Lights.

I have scored a few product shoots because of my demonstrated ability to take good pictures of glass objects. Truth be told however, there really isn’t a whole lot to it.

First step is to have the proper environment to shoot in. For me that means using my oversized DIY PVC Light Tent. It is big enough that the light is distributed really well within. For added measure, when I was building it and then making the second revision, I made sure that the fabric would cover any of the PVC so it would not show up as a reflection in the objects I was shooting.

Second step is, obviously, lighting it. When shooting in the big tent, I tend to go between two different placements for my lights. I use a pair of 27W, 5500K compact fluorescents in standard 10″ clamp light fixtures I got at Home Depot. Sometimes I will place them slightly ahead of center on either side of the tent. Other times I will put them overhead, either facing directly into the tent or bouncing the light off the rafters overhead (sounds goofy, but it works). I take a couple of shots, see how they look, and then readjust as necessary. Most of the time I can get a good idea of how the lights are working from peeking through the viewfinder and then adjusting.

I generally do one or two shots in auto mode to get some idea of the f-stop and exposure ratio, then start working from there. As you can see from the EXIF for the shot above, it can be fairly fast. But again, that depends on how you light it.

One key I have been working on is how to keep the camera reflection from appearing in the object. I account for this in a couple of ways:
1) The opening in my front curtain is only large enough to let the lens through.
2) I do not use any sort of lens hood.
3) When practical, I elevate above the object and shoot downward at an angle. Straight on shots are the worst for showing the camera lens, and I try to avoid this at all costs.
4) When 4 isn’t practical, I try to get any opaque objects on the surface of the object to be in the forefront.
5) When 3 and 4 don’t work, I just deal with the fact that the reflection is part of the image.

These things must be working, as I continue to get product shot engagements, and several specifically indicate it is because of my work with highly reflective surfaces.

I had an occasion where I needed to light an object from underneath (the glass of beer in the pic above). I wrestled with it for some time, and then came up with what turned out to be a pretty easy solution.

Using a flat fluorescent light fixture I picked up at Home Depot, and a piece of black craft foam, and my large DIY light tent with glass riser, I was able to get the photo above. I cut a hole in the black craft foam that was roughly the same size as the base of the glass. I then put my black backdrop into the light tent, set the fluorescent light on my workbench inside the light tent, and then placed the craft foam on top of that so no light escaped except through the hole I had created. From there I inserted my glass sheet to have a riser (which was conveniently about an inch higher than the surface of the fluorescent light), filled the drinking glass with beer, and turned on the light. This photo did not require any additional lighting other than the fluorescent underneath the product. And by using the pane of glass as a riser, a nice reflection appeared as well.

That’s all there is to it, hope it works for you if you need some illumination from underneath on an object.

My daughter is one of the hardest kids to get a good picture of. At 3 years of age (4 in a couple weeks), she is a non-stop dynamo of energy that never seems to stop. That energy is magnified even more when we are exploring a new (to her) place.

This past weekend she decided she wanted to go see Red Rocks - as in the Red Rocks Park & Amphitheatre, but famous by the U2 video in the 80’s. It is actually a pretty popular hangout among people in Denver, there were a lot of people using it for a workout today (running up and down the stairs and “seats” is a popular workout).

Natalie was in explorer mode today, so she wanted to go all the way down to the bottom and look around. I was able to convince her to pose for me a little bit at the top first though. As she gets older, she is starting to enjoy being in front of the camera. Later in the day she told me I should be taking pictures of her splashing in the puddles left by the rain.

I haven’t shot any families with little kids other than my own, but my advice would be to be patient, follow the little ones around, and shoot a lot of pics to get the keepers. It’s kind of like shooting sports. They are that unpredictable and fast paced.