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In The Water

In my previous post, I showcased some of my favorite sun-related shots from my recent trip to the Caribbean. Today’s post will feature some shots in and around the water, mostly with my Pentax Optio W80 compact point-and-shoot camera. I bought this camera a few years ago after realizing that a proper underwater DSL housing costs more than a DSLR. I just wanted to play around, so a point-and-shoot was perfect for the job. Nowadays, waterproof point-and-shoots are relatively inexpensive and every major manufacturer has something to offer. I highly suggest picking one up – they make capturing moments like these a lot simpler.

The shot of my wife Amy at the top was taken at Stingray City at Grand Cayman. This is my favorite shot of the whole trip because it tells a very concise and complete story of the day, which is simply that we rode out to Stingray City on jet skis and kissed some ‘rays. The shot just above was from Cozumel. After a long day of riding up and down the coast on dune buggys, I was able to rinse off some of the dust and sand in the sea. Here’s a shot my wife took of me while we took a break during the buggy adventure:

Here’s a shot of Amy snorkeling off the coast of Grand Cayman:

This last shot was taken with my D90 on the coast of Haiti. While I’m not technically in the water, I was right at the shoreline trying to capture the sea-spray. I must have looked like a maniac shuffling back and forth trying to avoid getting doused every time the water broke. But, I got a few shots from it that I like:

Check back again soon for some more Caribbean coverage.

Caribbean Sunscapes

I made a pact with myself a year ago to start limiting the photos I post and only show my best work. Of all of the theories and practices about being a good photographer, editing yourself is the most difficult for me. Sometimes I like to tell a story and the story becomes a novel. Sometimes I see so many different things that get me excited and I can’t narrow it down. So, here’s the challenge – how can I share all of the wonderful experiences and sights of my recent trip in one post? The answer is simple – multiple posts! Yeah, I’m good like that…

A note about gear – I left my D800 at home on this trip and brought 2 cameras; My trusty D90 and my Pentax Optio W80 waterproof compact. The shots in this post were shot with the D90 and either my Nikkor 55-300mm zoom or my Tokina 11-16mm ultra-wide zoom. The photo at the top was a sunrise over the Caribbean Sea. The 2nd photo is a sunset under a big storm cloud as we left Grand Cayman Island. The one just below is a sunrise over the coast of Cozumel, Mexico.

Here’s a late afternoon split-tone sunburst shot on the coast of Labadee Haiti, followed by a sunset shot of the mountains.

And I leave you with this shot of a sunset using a graduated glass filter. I decided to experiment and flip it upside down, giving me a scarlet red water with a rainbow of color as it leads to a blue sky.

I’ll be posting more very soon – check back this week.

Stella Nova Fall Campaign

Now that the advertising has run, I wanted to show you some of the work I did for Stella Nova Spa & Salon. The ad above was for the back cover of the Charleston edition of Skirt Magazine. The one below is from The Little Black Book’s back cover. The model is Karson Terrell, who had just won the crown of Miss Folly Beach Teen 2013 the night before. This was her second photo shoot of the day and she was still glowing.

Hair and make-up was done by Stephanie Murray Waltrip, who I met earlier this year at the Change For Change Art Show when I shot her family’s portrait.

I wanted to share with you some of the shots that didn’t get used, because we had so much fun making them and I believe it shows. This photo was the final “perfected” image for the similar shot above used on the Little Black Book. The one they used was actually a test shot, so the lighting wasn’t positioned correctly yet and she wasn’t “posing” – I just had her standing in place to test the lights! My guess is that the art director liked that fact.

In a similar fashion, the photo they chose at the top of this post was not a planned shot – it was just off-the-cuff playing against a wall because the light was great on our way to do this shot:

One of the things they asked for was the color blue, and they wanted something slightly editorial in nature. Stephanie and I thought this would foot the bill:

I think that this shot truly shows off Stephanie’s talent in the hair department:

And Karson’s eyes in this shot are hypnotizing:

When they told me which shots they were going to use, I was a little surprised because neither were what they had asked for! My first reaction was “I’ll never send anything but the absolute best shots to the client ever again” because they used a test shot. Then I realized just how silly that line of thinking is. These shots are for them, not me! If I gave them something they liked, then I did my job. More importantly, the art director did her job of finding an image that demonstrates their brand. By delivering more than what they asked for, we actually did the right thing. As an artist, the things I look for in my images are very different than what someone else might see. In portraiture, my job is to decide that. In commercial photography, my job is to let the client decide.

I shot most of the shoot in portrait because that is what the client asked for. This last shot was an alternate I did for myself because the scene looked too cool not to capture in landscape. I had Karson’s mother holding my light over the side of the roof while I was leaning over the railing to get this:

If you read my blog regularly, you may remember that the portrait version of this shot won an honorable mention at the Coastal Carolina Fair this year 😉 Be sure to check out the rest of the photos from the shoot in this Flickr set.

Last Day of Movember 2012

I just wanted to share my final self-portrait for Movember of 2012. I try to do at least one of these a week during the event. Last week’s was a little more special since I made it on top of a rocky cliff 😉

So far, my team has raised over $2,000 during the month, and I think that’s awesome! So thank you for those of you who supported. If you are feeling generous, there’s still some time to donate some money at my MoSpace page.

Hanging Rock State Park

Hanging Rock

Every year, my family picks a spot to spend Thanksgiving and we all come together to eat and enjoy a beautiful and/or fantastic location. This year we ventured to Hanging Rock State Park in North Carolina.

Now, I’ve fashioned myself as a people photographer over the past couple of years, but it’s fun every once in a while to slow down and shoot some scenery.

Lower Cascades Falls

Waking up at 5:30AM to catch the sunrise is not something I usually have to do, but if you want to get a shot like this, you’re going to have to hike up a mountain in the dark:

Hanging Rock

I still managed to take some shots of my family as well. Here’s my wife with her brothers and sister under a waterfall:

Hidden Falls

And here’s my kids at another waterfall. The park has 5 different waterfalls you can hike to.

Window Falls

There’s a reason why this waterfall is called “Window Falls”, as illustrated in the following shot:

Window Falls

Taking portraits with a very slow shutter speed is quite the challenge. It felt akin to old school portraiture where the subject had to hold perfectly still to get the proper exposure. Here, we’re trying to get the falls to look smooth while keeping ourselves sharp. This is a self-portrait with my son:

Upper Cascades Falls

Speaking of self-portraits, here’s one I made while we played with light painting at night:

And here’s a self-portrait I made up on the Hanging Rock:

I leave you with one last shot from underneath the rock. I hope you all had a great Thanksgiving as well!

Hanging Rock

You can check out all of my vacation photos on this set on Flickr.

Country Wedding in the Fall

Congratulations to Bryan & Kara Peck on their wedding! I shot their engagement session in downtown Charleston, and now their wedding out in the country.

The wedding was outside on a perfect fall afternoon. Sunny weather, traditional BBQ, and great people made for a perfect day.

My wishes go out to Bryan & Kara for a long and fruitful marriage. I don’t think it will be long ’till I’m shooting some maternity/baby shots with the way these two lovebirds are going 😉

BarCampCHS 4

This past weekend marked the 4th BarCamp in Charleston, SC. What is BarCamp? It can be described simply as an attendee-driven conference. The attendees pitch, vote on, and present the content of the day. It’s a lot of fun and this was my 3rd year doing it.

Once again, I presented a class that was photography related. This time I tackled my portrait workflow in Photoshop. I had two examples prepared to demonstrate the techniques I currently use when editing photos. The first one was a headshot of one of the pediatricians at Sweetgrass Pediatrics. I showed a basic RAW conversion in Camera RAW, and then opened the photo in Photoshop to demonstrate techniques like blemish removal, teeth whitening, how to optimize the eyes, skin softening, and dodging & burning. I finished with my selective sharpening technique. This is the final retouched image:

Due to the nature of BarCamp, my class got scheduled in the very first time slot of the day, which is cool by me (who doesn’t want to get their session over right away so they can enjoy the rest of the day??). Unfortunately, the day started quite late due to the fact that almost twice as many people showed up this year compared to last year. I only made it halfway through my session before we had to move outside to get the group photo made. I promised the class that I would post the second half of my session as a screencast here on my website, so you’re all in for something a little different.

Before I get to that, I wanted to talk about the group photo. As I was packing up my gear in the classroom, my daughter came rushing in and said “Come on, Dad, everyone’s waiting to get the photo taken!” I grabbed my camera and ran to the balcony to see everyone all grouped together on the ground level. I looked down at the crowd and thought “Oh, crap”. Mid-day, cloudless skies. Sharp shadows from the building, and worse, the trees. Bright yellow warm light dappling big swatches of faces, and cool blue shadowy light on the rest. All inconsistent, and no time to get hundreds of attendees to relocate! Besides, where could I possibly relocate them to anyway? Well, I switched my camera’s bracketing feature on and organized the crowd to fit in the frame and fired away.

This photo is the end result of a lot of finessing in Lightroom, Photoshop, and Color Effex Pro. I’ll save you from all of the gory details, but the dynamic range of my camera truly helped me save this photograph. I was able to use a highly underexposed photo (that still had blown highlights anyway) and create a useable image. HDR didn’t fly because there were too many moving parts. Doesn’t matter – people seem to like the shot regardless of the pixel gymnastics it took to get everyone somewhat evenly exposed.

OK, so here’s the screencast I ~~warned~~ told you about – Hope you enjoy it:

And here’s the final image that I retouched in this video:

Movember 2012

Movember Week #1

This morning I took my razor to my lip and removed my mustache. It’s been with me for almost a year now since I started growing it during last year’s Movember event. So it was with great pride that I shed my stache just to document it’s regrowth for you in the hopes that you might donate a few clams to men’s health organizations through my MoSpace page.

If you have no idea what Movember is, you can read all about it here. The TLDR version is that every November, participants try to raise vital awareness and funds for men’s health issues, specifically prostate and testicular cancer initiatives. The traditional method of doing this is to grow a fresh new mustache during November and let everyone know why you’re doing it.

Last year was such a success that I’m excited to participate again. This year I’ve joined a local Movember group, The Charleston Gentlemen of Leisure.

Please donate whatever you can spare. It’s a rough time for a lot of my friends up north, so I wouldn’t mind if you decided to throw some money to the American Red Cross instead (or both if you can). Another organization that’s directly helping out people in need in NY & NJ is Occupy Sandy Relief. They have a ton of information, including drop off locations and volunteer efforts for places that are currently being overlooked by FEMA and the Red Cross.

I look forward to sharing my weekly self-portraits with you as my upper lip gets fuzzy again. Last year’s family photo was one of my favorite photos of all time:

Happy Halloween 2012

It’s with a somber tone that we celebrate this Halloween, knowing how many kids and families have had their lives thwarted into all kinds of uncertainty due to Hurricane Sandy’s late-season wrath. I’m grateful that our country’s leadership has learned from it’s all-too-recent past mistakes in dealing with homeland disasters. The local and federal governments worked together swiftly and are handling this like we all hope they should. No politics from those involved, just action.

Speaking of action, that ridiculous (albeit awesome) composite at the top of this post was something I put together for my personal Facebook page. These are my family’s costumes this year. I’m Heisenberg – or Walter White from Breaking Bad. My daughter is a unicorn person, and my son is Steve from the popular video game Minecraft. My wife is doing a perfect representation of one of my all-time favorite characters – Dana Scully from the X-Files. I even made her her very own FBI badge using a recent headshot I did for her:

This evening we let the kids carve their pumpkins – they both did theirs with virtually no help from my wife and I. This is a first! I think they did a fantastic job.

And the big reveal of the final lighted pumpkins:

I know Halloween is just a silly holiday with a twisted history, but the day we like to celebrate is one that is full of community spirit, generosity, and most importantly fun. With all that has happened yesterday to the area I grew up in, where my children were born, and where my family and friends still call home, I think a little generosity and fun is just what we all need to remember what’s important to us.

It’s hard to believe that just a little over a week ago, My wife and I were there having a blast with our NY crew, and now they’re all dealing with this mess. Life changes swiftly, and it feels good to have the pictures that tell the stories of the good times. Here we are last Sunday with a bunch of our friends on Long Island at the diner in my home town. I’m glad that they are all safe, but sad for their struggles in the days to come.

Keep safe and save me a Baby Ruth!

2012 Worldwide Photowalk Decisions

Kayaks at Shem Creek

Paddleboardering Under The Bridge

This past weekend was the 5th annual Scott Kelby Worldwide Photowalk all around the globe. We had a couple of groups participating here in Charleston, and I opted to walk with the evening group in Mount Pleasant.

Above are my two favorite shots that I made from the walk. I got a bunch of stuff I thought turned out well for a photowalk, as these walks are more about hanging out with other photographers and helping each other out than making a world-class photograph. I had the pleasure of hanging out with my daughter Mackenzie who was shooting with my Nikon P7000:

Mackenzie scopes out the graffiti under the Shem Creek bridge

She also volunteered to take the group shot, but I wanted her to be in it, so I grabbed my tripod and set the timer on my D800 to take this shot of the walkers:

Backlit sunlight, shade, and incandescent lights? The D800 fared pretty well at dealing with this mixed bag of lighting in the shot!

So anyway, the worst part of these photowalks is deciding which photo to submit as your favorite shot that you took on the walk. I’m torn between the two shots at the top of the post. The kayak shot is definitely more striking and grabs you first, and it has some excellent lighting as it was taken just as the sun was setting. The paddleboat shot is a bit more dynamic in my opinion. The subject is just plain awesome, I love the kid looking up at her dad while he’s paddling. I love the sidelight of the bridge trestle and the pattern that it creates. I love that the subject is framed within it. Ugggh!

While the sunset itself wasn’t spectacular at all (no clouds = boring sunset), I did get a descent photo of it here:

But, I’m not gonna submit that one because it doesn’t speak to me the way the other two do. So which one do you prefer? The Kayaks or the Paddlboarder?

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