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.
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.
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:
I still managed to take some shots of my family as well. Here’s my wife with her brothers and sister under a waterfall:
And here’s my kids at another waterfall. The park has 5 different waterfalls you can hike to.
There’s a reason why this waterfall is called “Window Falls”, as illustrated in the following shot:
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:
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!
You can check out all of my vacation photos on this set on Flickr.
I drove up to Charlotte, NC on Monday night and found myself in a Howard Johnson’s just outside of town. Sometime after 3:00 AM after watching 3 consecutive episodes of Breaking Bad on my iPad, I finally got to bed. I haven’t suffered from insomnia since I was a teenager, and boy was I unable to sleep. I knew I shouldn’t have taken a B12 supplement after dinner, but I didn’t want to get noddy during my drive after a long day of work. I can’t imagine having to suffer like that on a regular basis – its an absolute nightmare to me. Even more frightening was my alarm that went off seemingly instantly after I finally closed my eyes.
If you have ever seen the opening scene to Office Space, that was how my 20 minute drive that lasted almost an hour was as I headed to Charlotte’s convention center from my hotel. Regardless, I made it to the seminar in good time and got a great seat right up front behind the projector. The day long class, which was created by Scott Kelby, was being taught by none other than RC Conception.
RC did a fantastic job, teaching not only the material that Scott had put together, but also elaborating on it with his own insights and tricks. He’s an extremely approachable guy and it’s no wonder he is beloved by the photography community. He’s got a great sense of humor that never makes him look smarmy – he comes off as a guy you’d like to hang out with, which makes a day-long class on a piece of software much more manageable.
The photo at the top of the post is one I snapped of the classroom seconds before the start – RC is in the back of the class standing and waiting to be formally introduced by the Kelby Training tour manager. The shot directly above is of yours truly with RC. I handed my camera to one of the attendees (wasn’t hard finding a willing photographer there).
After the seminar, I walked around the downtown area looking for a bite to eat and enjoying the architecture.
There was this one mirrored sculture on a corner that this exchange student was getting her photo taken of in front of by her host family. A couple of us photogs were patiently waiting for them to be done, when I realized they were never going to be done! I walked away and came back 15 minutes later and they were still there! Well, now she became my subject!
I asked her permission first, and then explained to her hosts that the shot I envision involving this interesting art piece is of the reflections themselves. I snapped a couple of shots like this:
It was a nice little release of creativity after absorbing so much photographic knowledge all day! If you’re able to make it to one of the Kelby Training Live events, please do so. They’re not expensive at all and are a great experience.
A couple of weeks ago we spent the extended weekend in western North Carolina. One of the days was spent at Asheville’s Biltmore Estate. How do you shoot a touristy estate that forbids photography inside and is littered with pixel peepers on the outside?
Well, one answer is to get in close and get the detail. Try and isolate a subject and create a graphical image of it in its surroundings.
The property is littered with great statues – most of them with a major subject and a minor subject interacting. The challenge is positioning yourself in a way that incorporates the background in a non-distracting way. The image directly below uses the lines of the staircase to draw you into the figure of the cherub, while the bushes behind provide contrast.
Getting in physically closer, but zooming out shows how a similar composition can look completely different! I had to depend on color to get the right contrast to isolate the statue here.
And this photo of a statue works best by getting low and letting the blown-out cloudy sky act as a white background.
During the winter months, some people wouldn’t see much value in a landscape devoid of lush vegetation. I tend to enjoy the look of the barren trees and yellowed grass mixed within the evergreens.
Finally, capturing a moment is one of the most exciting things to do when shooting in a place like this. It’s like a little gift when you have an amazing background and a subject to place within it. The couple was enjoying the view when I happened upon them (from the stairs in the pictures above).
That’s how I attack a situation like this – by getting closer, moving around, and seeking out moments. What’s your method?