Professional Photography 101

Shold photographers tweet?

2009-09-24T17:57:00.001-04:00

http://www.professionalphotography101.com/blog

2009-09-22T15:50:00.001-04:00

You're missing posts on the other site!

http://www.professionalphotography101.com/blog

:+)

My blog is moving!

2009-09-15T23:10:00.001-04:00

My blog is moving to http://www.professionalphotography101.com/blog

Please visit the site and bookmark it too!

HDR Photography - light

2009-08-28T17:11:00.007-04:00

Ya... Sort of like bud light or miller light. I'm trying not to over-do it. Here are some of my latest experiments in HDR photography:

What do you think?

Food Photography - scraping light

2009-08-17T15:18:00.004-04:00

If you've read my articles on food photography, you know how I harp on "scraping light". Here's a good example of when we were setting up and the main light was jest a few inches from where it should of been. Can you tell the difference? If not, get your eyes checked ASAP... :+)

Before

After

HDR People Photography

2009-08-14T16:28:00.003-04:00

Ive been playing more with this new HDR technique. I still have lots to learn, but I've been working at it these last two days. One nice thing about being a professional photographer, the local modeling agencies and models are glad to help you out when you need some free models for testing. They know that, in return, they'll get some nice prints for themselves...

I really have fallen in love with this technique. You can add just a little "something extra" or go hog-wild and make it look more like an illustration than a photo. So what do you think?

I think this one is my favorite.

HDR Food Photography

2009-08-11T19:44:00.007-04:00

Today's shot

I'm back from vacation, and I had a great time while I was gone. I traveled about 2000 miles on my motorcycle. Check out my FaceBook page if you want to see my vacation shots... :+) I did Skyline Drive and all of the Blue Ridge Parkway, top to bottom.

Since I've been back, I've been playing with HDR photography, with both people and food shots. It's pretty interesting and I still have a bunch to learn. I have a couple of test people shoots lined up on Thursday and Friday, So I'll have a bunch of images to show you guys. Just for fun, I shot a food photo yesterday (just playing around) and I converted one of today's today's food photography shots into HDR. I really like this technique and think it has a lot of potential with illustrative type of projects.

Yesterday's test shot

You really have a wide range of "change" you can make to your food photography. It will take me quite some time before I master this, if ever.

You like this stuff?

Soup Photography

2009-07-29T09:24:00.003-04:00

Yes, I'm a little strange... But it's the little things in life that make you happy...

I've photographed soup should many times before, and to tell you the truth, it's not all that tough. You just want to light from behind and try not to add too much fill light. Watch the glare and use an overhead box for downward fill. No big deal... btw - there were no models in the final shot.

The tough part about this shot was the lighting I had to do for the damn pot! I thought about trying to take a picture of the lighting setup, but I didn't have a wide enough lens for my Nikon...

I used six sheets of 4x8' foamcore around the set. The entire set area was aroung 18' x 18'. It was huge! Chrome is a tough thing to shoot and it's something that is very subjective. Luckily for me, this was a brushed chrome, or the retouchers would of made more on this project than I did... So that's food photography for you... Take care until later!

Food photography lighting setup

2009-07-28T22:12:00.001-04:00

I'm testing out uploading posts from my iPhone, so I can upload stuff from vacation.

Here are three samples of lighting setups from my last pizza shoot. This might give you some clues as to how it was done.

It looks like the photos show up smaller then normal, maybe I can change that in the future...

As far as the pizza photography lighting goes... You can see that it's much more complicated than most people think. I've made a small breakthrough with this last shoot. With my food photography lighting, I flagged off the main light from the pizza so I could see what the mirrors were doing. I've often thought about this but never took the time to do it. On this shoot, I did it and I really like the results. With all the lights on, it's hard to see what each mirror is doing, but when the subject off from the main light, and the light still sees the mirrors, I can see much better, what the mirrors are actually doing. I was very happy with the results of this shoot.

Now that I have the iphone capable of uploading images (remotely), I'll probably make a lot more posts. (hopefully ;+)

-- Post From My iPhone

What they don't teach in Photography school...

2009-07-21T12:20:00.004-04:00

I've been a busy little bee, writing away, but it just hasn't been here... :+) Here are a couple of posts from my other web page that you might find interesting... They're more additions to "what they don't teach in photography school". It's more basic photography / professional photography career information. Hey! Anyone out there on facebook? I just rediscovered it after a few years. Back then, I thought it was only for kids, but now, I'm really enjoying it. If you haven't give it a try.

Well. I have to pack now for a two-day location job in Ohio. I'll post some pictures while I'm gone. In the mean time, check out the link above.

Ta-ta...

Food photography / self portrait

2009-07-13T10:46:00.004-04:00

Here are some "behind the scenes" photos from Friday's shoot. I have some other stuff to share, but it will have to wait until next week. I would think that these are the best kinds of photos for people wanting to learn more about food photography...

Have a great weekend!

Hey! That's me in the back there!

Behind the scenes..

This is the shot we ended up with, without the goober behind the set.

Photography school - New articles

2009-07-09T15:07:00.002-04:00

I’ve been busy as a bee writing. I’ve written so much that it’s too much to post here. Check out the following links if you’re interested…

What they don’t teach you in photography school (1-6)

Digital Food Photography tips (1-5)

Things they didn’t teach me in Photography School #1

2009-07-01T13:13:00.003-04:00

What follows is a list of things that I’ve learned from experience after leaving photography school. The idea to create this list is not mine, but I wanted to start my own, thinking that it may prove useful to some of the people that visit here. If nothing else, it will help fill in the gaps when I have nothing else interesting to talk about. So I’ll make posts from time to time adding new things they didn’t teach me in photography school.

1. Success in professional photography is as much about marketing as it is about photography. When an Art Director or a VP or Marketing finds that they need the services of a professional photographer, they usually reach back into their memory and try to figure out which photographer they should decide to call. They usually do this based on the special needs of the project verses the particular talents the individual photographer. Some projects are very complicated or extremely important and require a very specific style. Other projects are less important; there maybe a smaller budget, or the shots my not require a particular style. Either way, the photography buyer make’s their decision based on all kinds of information. The key point here is the word “information”. If the photography buyer doesn’t have your information, or doesn’t know who you are or what you do well, then the chance of you getting the job is very small.

Marketing is about giving potential buyers information. They need to know what you do, what your style is, what your price range is, what you capabilities are, how difficult you are to work with, how dependable you are, what things you prefer to shoot, what you’ve shot in the past, and a whole lot more. If they don’t have this information, then it’s a whole lot harder for them to make a decision about selecting you for their project, and if they don’t know you at all, then you’re out of luck. They have to know about you to think about hiring you…

Even if you aren’t a great photographer, there are still projects out there that you would be perfect for, but unless the potential client knows about you, you’ll never get the job.

People Photography

2009-07-01T10:41:00.006-04:00

I shoot a lot of food photography, and I really like it, but I have to admit that variety is truly the spice of life. If all I show as food, photography wouldn’t be as much fun as it is. I also like to photograph people. Shooting for colleges is fun because you get to go to new places and interact with the future of America. Here are some images that I like, that I’ve done for a college not that long ago.

What’s fun for me about this type of photography is that it’s very different than what I usually do. With food photography, I usually “create” the photo and in school photography, I need to “find” the photo. Usually, there’s an idea that I’m assigned to illustrate or a department that I’m attempting to represent, but besides being pointed in a direction, there’s a lot of freedom in what ends up in front of my camera. I think what makes me good / different, is that I tent to find and enhance, rather than just capture. I'm used to abusing the "truth in advertising" rule... :+)

Food photography for Kings

2009-06-08T16:43:00.006-04:00

Food Photography again… Actually the pancake shot was lit like I normally light pizza. It was sort of an interesting discovery on my part. Basically, I lit the shadow side with mirrors and three different areas, alternating: light, dark, light, dark. It’s subtle, but affective.

The pulled pork sandwich shot worked out really well, I thought. What I like most is the texture across the sides of the bread, especially the shadow side.

I was a little disappointed with this chicken shot. Actually, it’s the cauliflower I think looks a little texture-less. But it was…. Ya just can’t put texture where it isn’t… I know, I’ve tired. The client wouldn’t let us switch it out with fresh, but I understand his concern. There is such thing as “truth in advertising”. You do the best you can with what you have…

I like this chicken shot. The only thing that bugs me is the fact that I think we lifted the rear end of the breast a bit too far. It looks a little unnatural to me.

I like this fish shot too. Nice texture in the rice and nice shape on the veggies.

All in all, not a bad day’s shoot. What do you guys think?

Pizza Photography

2009-05-19T07:29:00.004-04:00

Shooting pizzas again. Sorry, but I''ve had a lot on my plate lately :+) and haven't been able to post as many things as I would have liked to. Here are three examples of outlined pizza photography. I'm pretty happy with the results. I've refined my technique a little this time around. I try to improve things a little on every shoot. (a lot, if I can) I've added a couple more mirrors, probably totaling 8 or 9. To create as much depth as possible, it's important not to "over-fill" and to let the darks go dark, but not too dark.... It's an accuired taste and technique. What I'm getting at is... you can light too much and it''s the darks that make the difference. Light, dark, light, dark... all the time scrapping the light as I go. That's how I light the crust. The backgournd should give you some clues about how this is lit.

Most of you guys have absolutely no idea what I'm talking about, do you? Claudia does.... :+)

Portraits with a sb 800

2009-05-12T12:14:00.007-04:00

I finally finished the portrait project I've been working on. I took this "budget" job so that I could try out some techniques I wanted to work on. The budget was so low that I couldn't afford an assistant and therefore I needed to get the equipment level WAY down. So far down, that I could get everything except the light stands, into one pelican case. Since I'm historically a studio photographer that went on location shoots with most of his studio, I wanted to learn how the "other half" lived. That meant that I had to come up with a lighting kit made out of "on-camera" flashes. I first started out with three heads and then cut it down to three, and usually ended up using just one. I found that the key to working like this is to look for locations that worked for the composition AND the lighting. I learned quite a bit...

This was shot with a SB 800 on an umbrella (shot with 80-200 f2.8 on my Nikon D3)

Shhot with an SB 8000 on a large umbrella (shot with 80-200 f2.8)

Shot with an SB 800 with a large umbrella

I found that one of the hardest things to do was to keep the umbrella, head and stand from blowing over in the wind. It's hard to justify taking sand bags when you're attempting to fly as light as possible.... (shot with 28-70 f2.8)

This was shot available light only. Not too often it works out this way, but the light in this room was really nice. (28-70 mm 2.8 zoom)

This was shot with the SB 800 insde a medium box using my 85 1.4 lens

Mitchell's Fish Market shootf

2009-05-12T11:43:00.005-04:00

Here are the results from a recent food shoot. I was happy with the results. We tried to keep the backgrounds simple.

Heinz Soups

2009-05-04T17:39:00.005-04:00

Okay... I've been gone for a while. No excuses, I just didn't have anything exciting to share. I did a job for Del Monte where I basically poured out the contents of their cans in a bowl and then did the same with their competitor's cans of food. That way they could compare what the consumer saw and not what the food stylist could create. I guess it was valuable to the company, but it was pretty boring to shoot. And then I had a bunch of environmental portraits, which wasn't too bad. I did get a few good shots out of that, but I never got around to posting them. Maybe later...

The shoot today was for Heinz soups. The tough part about this job was trying to match the lighting of some other photographer. That's a hard thing to do, but at the the same time, something that's very educational. There's a guy here in Pittsburgh that's a really good shooter, but his technique is very different than mine. Today, I learned a lot about how he does what he does. I had to imitate it. You'd be surprised at how much you can learn when you have to imitate another photographer's style. The good thing is that you can take what you want from what you've learned and then ignore the rest. Back when I was teaching at the Art Institute, I would suggest that my students copy, as exactly as they could, a photo they liked. Some people thought that this was a little unorthodox, but I thought (and still think) that it's a great way to learn. Sure, you can't continue to copy all your life, but it's a great way to figure out different techniques.

Gotta go. Tomorrow, Mitchell's Fish market! I love the "shootie bootie" from those shoots!

:+)

Del Monte shoot - Day 2

2009-04-15T16:13:00.003-04:00

Actually, it was just a half day. We ended up doing a total on 6 shots in a day and a half.

I was happy with the results and I had a half day to catch up on stuff...

:+)

Del Monte Shoot

2009-04-14T17:34:00.007-04:00

Here's what we did today. I'm real happy with the results. Please keep in mind that, as a photographer, you don't get to pick the recipes you shoot. I help compose and even that is done as a team and therefore requires compromise. If I control anything, it's the lighting, and even then, I have to have it okay'd by the client(s). Over all though, not a bad day's shoot.

Natural Food Photography - complete?

2009-04-10T15:57:00.002-04:00

I've posted the rest of the article I started on "Natural Food Photography".

I'm sure I didn't find all the typos and and grammatical errors, but once I'm finished typing, I'm just so anxious to get the ting up, that I just decide to live with the fact that you all know I'm semi-illiterate.

Hey, ya get what ya pay for...

:+)

Comments welcome

Heinz Shoot

2009-04-09T18:41:00.001-04:00

Here are the shots from today's project.

The first image is the layout that the client showed up with and the shots after it are the elements we shot to create the finished product. We also shot other variations with other types of food that they could drop in as needed. At first we had planed to actually shoot the food in the tongs, but we decided to shoot each shot separately so that the client would have the most flexibility possible positioning and sizing each element. I was very happy with the results of today's shoot. The client was new and the shoot went smoothly and hopefully, the clients will return again and again. I hate searching for new clients... :+)

If you're into figuring out lighting, all the shots were outlined so you can see from the shadows much of my lighting layout.

Well, I'm off to Virginia Beach to visit relatives. Have a great Easter!

Layout

Food Stylist Directory

2009-04-08T18:45:00.002-04:00

If you ever need a food stylist, this link will come in handy...

I put it together just to gain a little more SEO ammo for my food photography web site. And it does the job. This page is one of my most active pages, not only on "hits", but "G" money too.

http://www.foodportfolio.com/food_stylists/index.html

You might want to bookmark it, just in case...

:+)

More from that Cheese pour shoot

2009-04-08T18:38:00.005-04:00

Here are some follow up images from my last food post. Here's the retouched / composite shot and also a copy of the original layout. I think it's valuable for wanna-be professional photographer to see the whole story from beginning to end. (The middle is a post or two back...)

Church's Chicken Shoot

2009-04-06T19:15:00.005-04:00

We worked on an ad today for Church's Chick Puerto Rico.
The letters will be retouched into the drips and the drips will be at the top on the page and the Image on the white background will be the main image, taking up 4/5s of the page.

I was very pleased with the results and more important, so was the client. Everybody from the shoot just left for Permantie's, a local restaurant that everyone visiting Pittsburgh just HAS to have. God knows why... They have the worst food around, but they have really good P.R..

:+)

Food Photography Lighting Seminar #6

2009-04-04T14:55:00.003-04:00

What did I do today? I gave my sixth food photography lighting seminar. I've come up with a one or two day seminar where I take one student and teach them everything I possible can about the subject of food photography. We sometimes even get into different aspects of commercial photography and I share all the tricks and techniques that I know.

Today, I had a guy that works for a city magazine in Indiana. So far I've had students from Ohio, Virgina, Wisconsin, and Arizona. And next month I have one scheduled from Tennessee.

The seminar is designed for current professional photographers that want to move into another aspect of the profession, food photography. I assume that the student knows their way around a camera and has a basic understanding of studio lighting.

It's been going really well and I'm pretty sure that everyone has left here feeling as though they gotten their money's worth.

That's what I did today and here's a shot that today's student came up with. Isn't it yummy?

Test shots for the movie gig, that I didn't get...

2009-04-03T17:58:00.009-04:00

Well, I ended up not getting that movie gig. Too bed too, I really wanted it, but that's the way the cookie crumbles... I did the test shoot today and I'm really happy with the results. I was right. This adds a whole new dimension to my portfolio. I'd be interested in knowing what you think...

So, I get this call.... :+)

2009-04-02T15:28:00.006-04:00

Ring ring...

"Hey, you shoot food, right"? the voice on the phone says...

I say, "Sure, I shoot food".

He says, "You shoot fish food"?

I say, "What do you mean fish food"?

"I mean, fish food", he says...

I say, "You mean fish as food"?

He says, no. Fish food.

I say, you mean food for fish?

He says, "Yes, fish food".

I say... "Sure"!

So here's the result of me specializing in shooting food... all kinds of food...

Hey, it pays the rent and it sure beats working for a living! :+)

Environmental Portraits

2009-04-01T18:43:00.002-04:00

I got a couple of nice shots today... I picked up a portrait hob where I need to go to about twenty locations and photograph a bunch of financial types. Usually this means a bunch of boring shots, but I'm trying to get some portfolio pieces from this gig. There is no Art Direction, so if the shoots look like crap, it's all my fault. I've been wanting to do more environmental portraiture, so when this job came along, I jumped on it, even though it's paying a lot less than my normal rate.

Speaking of low-balling... I think I picked up another low-paying job that I really wanted. I'll be shooting some actors for posters that will appear in a movie. the movie has something to do with ultimate fighting and they're working on it here in Pittsburgh.

I had a call a couple of days ago and went to show my book for the job. It looks like the job is mine if I want it. Like I said, it doesn't pay much, but I'm thinking that this will add another dimension to my portfolio. I've actually scheduled a test shoot with a bunch of models so I can work up the lighting. I'm actually trying to create "bad" lighting, like some samples the movie people showed me. I scheduled the test shoot before I got the commitment for the job, thinking that even if the project fell through, the test shoot would teach me something, if not add to my portfolio. And besides, I had the time...

Here are two portraits for the financial people.

It was the client's idea to shoot with the city in the background, but rather than just line them up, I wanted to do something a little different. This probably won't make it int the portfolio, but it ain't that bad either...

Now this shot, I really like... To do this project profitably, I've had to strip down my kit so that I can get in and out quickly, without an assistant. I hate working without an assistant, but I've been trying to be a little more "photo-J" in my approach to shooting people. My kit consists of three hand-held Nikon flashes, a flex fill, three stands, a couple of umbrellas, a medium Chimera box, my camera stuff, and a tripod. Everything fits in a Pelican 1600 case and a small duffel bag for the stands, umbrella and tripod. If you're interested in seeing the lighting setup, check out one of my first posts on this blog.

The shot above was done with just one flash through the medium box off to my left. I turned off the overhead lighting but left on the "spots" on the wall. I also left the window shade open on the right side of the frame for a little fill. You can see that the light to the right goes a little blue in color. I don't mind that at all. I think it makes things look "natural". This in another example of that 85mm 1.4 lens. Man, I do like that there lens... :+)

TTFN

More LAX photos

2009-03-30T12:23:00.004-04:00

Victory in O.T.!

Gotta love it.

Pizza Photography

2009-03-26T18:26:00.005-04:00

Shooting Pizza today... All outlined (cutout) shots. Notice the gray cards next to the pizza? That's for color balance. Nothing really exciting here, just the bread and butter of the industry. We shot 3 pizzas, five sandwiches, a garlic bread shot and two other non-food shots. Pretty full day.

I'm blowing off tomorrow to ride my motorcycle to Richmond VA to watch (and photograph) my kid play some more Lacrosse. I'll show you some of the pictures, maybe on Monday. :+)

Have a great weekend.

Splash photography

2009-03-25T15:01:00.012-04:00

Okay… Here’s an example of what we were playing with today. The shots are for a flavored water package. The one I posted is actually an early test shot, but I really like it. They’ll never use it, but I still like it. :+)

The three other images (below) are samples of previous shots that the client happened to have on her computer, that she was nice enough to put on a jump drive for me. This is how they’ll be using the images we shot today.

If you'd like to read about how I shot these, I wrote an article about it on the web page.

Here's a "behind the scenes" shot from today...

Shooting Sports Action!

2009-03-24T11:37:00.015-04:00

It’s lacrosse season again!

I haven’t quite finished the article on “What makes food photography look natural”, but in the mean time, girl’s lacrosse season started, and since I am a professional photographer, people expect me to shoot a few games. And since I’m shooting these games, I thought take the opportunity to share with “yous guys” what little I know about shooting sports photography. I’m surely no expert at shooting sports, but I have had quite a bit of experience, being that one of my kids is an amazing athlete and has played several sports over the years.

Rule #1 – Have the right tools. For me, that’s pretty easy since I get to write off all this expensive equipment. I usually shoot with a Nikon D2x. I prefer that over my D3 because the chip is smaller, which make the lenses longer. I’d like to brag and tell you that I own a 500mm f 2.8 lens, but I don’t. I do own an 80-400mm VR lens though, which was expensive enough… I bought the lens just for shooting my kid. I may have used it at work for a shot or two, but it’s basically for shooting sports. Unless that is, you work at the IRS… Then, it’s an essential tool of my business. :+)

Like I said, I usually use my D2x for shooting sports, unless that is, it’s a night game. Then the D3 stands head and shoulders above the D2x, with regards to low light capability. I’d gladly sacrifice a few millimeters of lens for beautiful grain.

Rule #2 – Shoot with the light. Good light is good lighting, whether you’re in a food photography studio or at a lacrosse field. When possible, have the light enhance your photography. Whenever possible, I like to have the light behind my back. This tends to evenly illuminate the players and is the most forgiving and flattering lighting situations. If you shoot with the light behind you, you will find that the success of your photos will depend more on the action and composition. You will get more acceptable photos under this type of light, and this is definitely the safest way to go.

Like in many rules, the rule about shooting with the light is sometimes meant to be broken. Having the light off to one side, usually makes for a more dramatically lit photo. The problem is that your subject needs to be facing the right direction. And since you’re at the mercy of the action on the field, you will only be able to get good photos when your main subject is facing toward the light. In a sport like soccer or lacrosse where the players face every which way at any given second, this means that your target subject will be facing the light only about half the time and you’ll be missing some good action at the expense of good lighting. This is good and bad. You’ll be missing some shots, but the shots you get will be even better with the more dramatic lighting. Hey, life’s a compromise…

Rule #3 – Go with the action. Great lighting of boring action doesn’t do you any good. Your job as a photographer is to capture the best action possible with the best lighting possible. To do this, sometimes you have to think outside the box a little. When the action dictates that I face the sun, I try to directly face the sun. What this does is to “rim” the entire person in sun and not burn out anything but the rim of the person. You usually need to go with manual exposure doing this because your meter often times gets fooled by the high contrast of light in your viewfinder. The ideal situation is having the background behind the subject in shade, just as the subject’s face is in shade. This effect makes for some pretty cool photos. Another tip here is to drop your camera angle so that you eliminate as much grass from the photo as possible. The grass (field) will appear brighter than normal and usually is a little distracting in the photo when your exposure is made for the subject’s face.

Rule #4 – The tighter the crop, the better the photo. Action is usually more dramatic with a tighter crop. Why waste all that space in your picture for unrelated data such as the school bus in the background. There are times when some of the background elements support the story of the particular photo, but for the most part, The closer you get to the action, the more dramatic the image.

Rule #5 – Variety is the spice of life. One thing I have to always fight in my own photography is to vary the crop of my images. While tighter is better than looser, when it comes to cropping, sometimes a little looser or even too tight a crop makes for a good thing, if your intention is to show several photos. For example, I figure that my shots will probably end up on the team’s web page, so that if I don’t vary the crop a little the resulting web page will appear boring. Mix in some close-ups and a few looser shots if your intention is to walk away from your shoot with several photos. If you want to walk away with only the best photos possible, then tighter is still better.

Another place where variety is important is in camera angle. When shooting field sports like Soccer or lacrosse, the photographer can’t vary the vertical axis all that much, even though I have been know to lay in the grass for some shots. A good way to get some variety is on the horizontal axis. Change your point of view. I know that I will probably get the best shots from behind the goal, but after a while, all the shots look very similar. There are nice shots to be had from behind the subject too. A shot of someone shooting on goal from behind is sometimes a welcome variation when you already have a hundred shots fro the opposite angle.

Rule #6 – Don’t forget the defenders. It’s easier to shoot the offensive players because their action is usually facing you and they’re usually closer. Defenders like photos too.

Rule #7 – Shoot high traffic situations. I try to shoot as many photos as possible when the target subject is in high traffic situations. Having the opponent in the shot brings more tension and purpose to the photos. It illustrates the struggle of the sport and makes everything more purposeful. It adds drama too.

This point reminds me of a photo I took of my daughter’s soccer game when she was nine years old. The shot was pretty cool. She was sort of hopping over a defender and you could see that she had just scooted the ball post the opponent and there were several girls in chase. It was definitely a keeper photo, but what made is really special years later, was that the opponents in the photo ended up being good friends of my daughter’s, that she hadn’t even met yet! It was like capturing a part of history that we didn’t even know would be significant.

Rule #8 – See faces. Sure, a dramatic pose is one thing, but if you don’t see the eyes of the player, it looses just a little. If possible, try to get the player’s eyes visible in the photo.

This is my kid. She's an amazing player and a pretty damn good person too.

Rule #9 – It’s about drama! Compositionally, you want some flow to the picture. If you can get the players with their hands, legs, and sticks forming an interesting shape, you’re much better off. A leaning body is more interesting then a straight up and down body and a falling body is even more fun to look at.

Rule #10 – Simplify the backgrounds – While action around the subject usually adds to the shot, “stud going on” way behind the subject, is usually nothing but distracting. Whenever possible, try to shoot with simple backgrounds, with as little in focus as possible. If you’re confident in your camera’s focusing ability, shoot wide open. That’s one of the tricks to making the viewer concentrate on your photo’s subject. Have only your subject in focus and there’s nothing else to look at, right?

If you are able to have the focus trop off so that the background is not distracting, it’s sometimes interesting to select a background that has some interesting colors. You don’t want to pick colors that distract too much or conflict with your subject. You don’t want a red background if your school’s uniform is red. Contrasting or neutral colors are good background colors, similar colors to your subject’s predominate color, do not make for good background colors.

Rule #11 – If possible, have the ball in the shot. Somehow, having the ball in the shot makes for a better shot. It brings relevancy to the photo. It’s not just a picture of two kids running down the field, it’s a picture of one kid trying to do something relevant while another is trying to prevent the success of the opponent. It helps tell the story. You will be able to have some decent photos without the ball, but you’ll find that the ball brings some excitement that just isn’t there without it.

Okay, so there you go… This is pretty much what I know about and use in my sports photography. Hopefully this will come in handy when it comes to shooting your own kids or maybe when you get to opportunity to make a few bucks on the side shooting the local teams.

Good luck

Email promotion

2009-03-19T10:15:00.004-04:00

This is what I've been doing the last couple of days (mostly)

http://www.foodportfolio.com/e/pages/MichaelRay3_09.html

I had a couple of small projects come in over the last couple of days, but for the most part, I've been working on an email promotion. Yes, some may call it spam, just as all those postcards in your mailbox are considered "junk mail", but if you're going to be a professional photographer, you need to promote yourself and email promotions are effective and have a great ROI.

So what do you think?

I tried to make it more personal than just an ad, and a few people (in forums where I gave it a preview) stated that they didn't care for the approach. Obviously, I liked it...

I know... This subject really isn't about food photography, but it is a bout professional photography. If you're not interested in marketing, you won't survive as an independent professional photographer. I'd put money on it, no matter how good you are.

Here's the way this works... I design this emaier in web page software (I currently use Go-Live,but will need to learn Dreamweaver soon) and then copy the html from the page into my "spamming" email software. In order to embed an images in the email, without having it be an attachment, you need to have the image or images on a server software and put the URL of that image into the html of the emailer. That way, the images shows up, but not as an attachment.

I got about 80 positive responses from my email blast. I'm not sure how many images were opened, but these types of promotions tend to work over time. Someone may have opened the email, liked it, went to my site, bookmarked it, but didn't contact me. And then, when the right job shows up on their desk, they'll contact me. As least that's how I hope it happens. :+)

TTFN!

Natural Food Photography

2009-03-14T13:38:00.006-04:00

* For those on the mailing list, please post you homework assignment as a "comment" so that others may benefit from your insight.

I'm writing an article here that will probable end up on one of my other pages (pro-photography 101 or food photography blog) but I thought I'd post my working draft ere in the mean time.

I've come to notice some things lately in my own photography that I hadn't noticed before. I'm doing more subtle things that I think have made a big difference in my work. Once you get to a certain point in your career, the improvements tend to be minor, compared to when it's earlier in your career and there's more to discover. I guess it's the "old dog, new tricks" syndrome.

Anyway... I wanted to share some things that I think will help the budding food photographer's learning curve go a little faster. This is the first part of the article. I need to add illustrations and photos, but that will come later. You'll just have to tune in later.

Natural food photography – (First draft)

Have you ever wondered about what makes a food photo look natural? Sure, documentary and photojournalism photographs by definition, usually tend to look natural. What about other types of photography? What about food photography?

When a food photographer takes out his camera and takes a picture of an existing environment, things tend to look very natural in the resulting photo, but when that same photographer tries to create a natural looking photo in the studio, he very often falls short of the mark. I’m not saying that the photos always look good, but they usually look “natural”. There are many reasons for this shortfall, and this article will attempt to explore why many studio images (food photography in particular) do not seem to look as natural is they could.

For the sake of organization, I’ve broken the issue of how to make your studio food photography into two categories. One category I call “inside the crop”, which refers to all the elements that can be seen directly in the boundaries of the photograph. The other category I call “outside the crop” which refers to all the elements that aren’t inside the boundaries of the photo, but sill affect the look and fee of the food photo.

I consider this article to be a bit advanced for most photographers just beginning their career as a professional, but I think if you can understand that issues like this exist, you can shorten your learning curve immensely. Usually, beginning professionals are more concerned about things like f-stops and getting things in focus. Some photographers never get past that part of photography, while others realize that all that technical stuff is just a set of tools that enable the photographer to create photos that fulfill their visions.

When I say things like “fulfill their visions”, don’t get me wrong. I’m not talking about some high falutten, mystical ideological translation of some obscure concept. I’m talking about simple decisions we all make as photographers to create better photos that fulfill out needs. One example might be, “which depth of field would work best for what I’m trying to do”? Or another might be, “What should be in focus to help sell this product”?

Inside the crop

When a food photographer sets up a shot, and I’m assuming that this is some kind of environmental shot, there will usually need to be several elements in the photo to make it look natural. If you look on your own diner table or restaurant table during your next meal, you will probably notice things that you hadn’t thought would be there. There might be a menu rack or table tent display, or an extra plate off to the side that no one is using, or a candleholder or some other object not normally around. I’m not saying that you should put weird things in all your shots, just be aware that thinking outside the box with propping, can sometimes make your shot look a little more natural.

Too many food photos tend to be much to sterile looking, in my opinion. People make a mess when they eat, usually. Some of their food leaves crumbs behind and sometimes not all those crumbs stay on the plate. Sometimes people don’t put their silverware back exactly where they picked it up. Heck, sometimes the kids set the table and the fork is on the wrong side of the plate and sometimes the water glass is not where Martha Stewart suggested it should be.

Sometimes, people actually eat their food. At least some of it might be gone before the picture is taken. In real life, that may actually happen ya know... Sure, it might not make for a national ad, but maybe it would be perfect for an editorial illustration.

To be continued…

Before I leave, I have a homework assignment for you...

Name three things that make the food photo look "more" natural than it might have...?

Good luck!

K.I.T. Calls

2009-03-12T14:41:00.004-04:00

While I'm on the subject of marketing, I wanted to suggest to you that's it's important to KIT, or Keep In Touch with your client base. One good way to do it is to get on the phone and just shoot-the-shit a little, and another way is to just drop someone an email once in awhile. Whichever way you do it, it's a good idea. Remember what they say... Out of sight, out of mind". The longer you're out of contact with a client, the more likely they are to find a new supplier.

Of course, like everything else, you can overdue this... I think that dropping someone an email once a month is just about the right frequency. The tough part about doing this is coming up with a good excuse for the contact. If you're at all like me, it's not all that easy for you in the social arena. Frankly, it's not my nature to just pick up the phone and chat, so I need to come up with an excuse. I'm always searching for excuses, but here are some favorite ideas I have for contacting clients...

Web page update - just let them know I've updated the site and that they should check it out if they have time. (just used this one today...)

New shot that I like - I'll send a .jpg and ask them to check out this new technique or style.

News / Gossip - Hey I heard so-and so just got canned.

I thought of you - ...when such a thing happened.

Ask a question - Hey, do you happen to know ...

Those are just a couple of my excuses. The tough part comes when you have multiple contacts at the same place. You just can't (you can, but you feel stupid) send the same kind of email to the same office, just in case the two people happen to talk aobut you and compare notes.

This may sound really contrived and a little fake, but it's still a good idea. If it comes naturally to you, great. If not, that doesn't mean you shouldn't do it. Remember... Out of sight, out of work.
:+)

Learn how to make web pages!

2009-03-11T08:52:00.006-04:00

If you're going to be a professional photographer, you should probably learn how to design web pages. Sure, your design skills will probably never rival what a full time professional web designer could create, but still, the skill comes in handy. Really handy.

As a professional photographer, you'll need to market yourself, and in this day and age, the internet is a huge part of marketing. Show me a failing photography business, and I'll show you a poor marketer. Failure in photography has very little to do with talent (IMHO) it has much more to do with not being able to reach a market that needs your type and quality of photography. Yes, I'm saying that even horrible photographers can enjoy this profession, just to horrible marketing photographers.

That's where your need to learn web design comes in handy. Did you know that email marketing involves web design too? Yes, it does. All that spam you get is actually emailed web pages (html). Should you become a spammer? I am... kinda. The thing about email marketing is that there is a very thin line between email marketing and spamming. Think of it in reference to your own "inbox". There are probably emails that you receive that you find interesting, that I might consider to be spam. One man's spam is another man's opportunity.

It's about targeting. But that's another subject for another post. We're talking about learning to design web pages. If you can design web pages, you'll also know how to create emailers too and that's a big part of marketing for the professional photographer.

Sure, you can always hire someone to do your web design, whenever you need it, but when you start out in professional photography, money will be tight. There will be times (always really...) when you'll have to make decisions about where to spend scarce resources, and if at those times you can do your own web design, funds will end up going to other needed things. In the beginning, you'll have more time than money, time you could spend marketing, if you know how to design web pages and emailers.

In other words, success is largely about marketing and marketing is closely related to web design. Therefore... if success = marketing and marketing = web design, then it stands to reason that success = web design... :+)

This is a sample of my spam... I mean,,,, my email marketing. :+) I sent this to about 6,000 people. Not all appreciated it, some did.

I'm working on a new web page...

2009-03-10T09:12:00.005-04:00

Big & Simple...

When you're a self-employed professional photographer, you end up wearing many hats. Today's hat is marketing manager / web designer. Part of building a business is marketing and thankfully, it's part of my job that I enjoy. As a matter of fact, there aren't too many parts of the job that I don't enjoy...

So here I am re-designing my web page. I like the current design, except for the fact that the images are a little too small. The current trend is toward larger images, I'm assuming because of the greater impact they have and also based on the fact that most viewers have greater band-width then they had just a few years ago.

I'm jumping on the band wagon and since I do my own web design, I'm in the process of making it happen. I don't have a shoot today so today I'm web designing. If you care to see the work in progress, you can see it at: http://www.foodportfolio.com

I'd appreciate any feedback.

Thanks!

Food Photography - It's about the details

2009-03-06T17:28:00.014-04:00

Most novices to the photographic industry would think that "motion" photography takes longer than "still" photography, but in reality, the opposite is true. The thing about still photography that makes it take longer to shoot is because the motion image is only there in front of the viewer for a second or two, while with still photography, the viewer can sit there as long as they care to, and analyze the picture to death if they want. The still food photographer has to keep that in mind when he approaches his task.

I was listening to NPR a few years ago and someone was interviewing a member of the Bee-Gees (sp?). The interviewer said something like, “How do go about writing good music?) The musician said something to the effect of… “Most songs are about three minutes long, and I try to fill every moment of that time with something interesting”. That statement stuck with me over the years and I think that you can apply that same principle to photography. A photograph is a piece of paper (or file) with a defined area. It’s your job as a photographer to fill that space, all the space, with something interesting. The elements in your photo should be interesting to look at. Yes, you have to be careful that the wrong things in the image don’t look too interesting, and take attention away from the main subject of your photo, but they should look interesting none-the-less…

I’ve included three images from today’s shoot. We actually did four shots today, but I didn’t really like the fourth, so why share stuff you don’t like…? :+) One the third image, I’ve included a couple of close-ups to illustrate the point about how the details are important.

Here are three images taken as the shot was being built.

This shot looks pretty good, right? Ok, take a look at this shot and the next.

Here's the area to look at.

compare it to this area...

These details aren't even in focus, (on purpose) and I still thnk that they're really important in making a good photo.

Here's a little difference. It's just a little mirror into the rice and front of the fish

See how this shot has just a little more life...
And here way the last tweak I made. Most people wouldn't even have noticed it,but to me, it makes the shot. I think little things like this is what separates me from my competitors.

Before

After

Early

Final

Okay, that's it for this week. The whether is nice for a change and I'm going for a motorcycle ride!

Have a great weekend!

Stuff from yesterday

2009-03-06T09:26:00.005-04:00

Here's some stuff from yesterday. I had two different clients, 1/2 day-1/2 day. Very different stuff, but like my email signature used to say... It's all in the lighting!

I'm a little short on time, I'll have more later. We're shooting food today. :+)

Take Notes

2009-03-04T21:07:00.003-04:00

Sine part of the purpose of writing this blog is to give you an idea of the “life” of a professional photographer, I figure that I’d try to include a few “every-day” lessons. One lesson that I would like to share with you is the benefit of keeping notes. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve wished I remembered how I previously lit something. Many clients come back and want you to do “some more” photography for them and they’d like it to match the previous stuff you’ve done for them. A few years back, I started making notes on some of the jobs I did. Sure, some jobs I forget to document, and it comes back to bite me, but all-in-all, taking notes has paid off and I’d really suggest that start the habit.

There is one down-side to taking notes. It’s easy to get lazy and just refer to the notes instead of tackling a similar, but new lighting challenge. Why not just light this thing like I lit it last time? It worked then, right? Well, mostly because you’ll never grow as a photographer, that’s why. I pride myself in constantly improving as a photographer, so why would I not try to improve my lighting on EVERY shot? Why light it like I did a month ago, or a year ago? Aren’t I a better photographer today than I was then? I hope so…

Having said that… There will be times when you need to match an old job, and when that happens, it’s really good to know how you did it. So keep notes. I like to make little drawings and document the lights that I used and the direction and sometime the power of the strobes too. I usually like to write down the lens I used and sometimes even the aperture I used, and other times even the distance from camera to subject.

These drawings really came in handy with today’s job. Without my notes, I would have had a really tough time matching the shots form a year ago, but since I had them, it was a breeze…

You think clients would know better than to leave their products at the studio overnight. :+)

Beet Photography

2009-03-03T15:42:00.008-04:00

Here’s a shot from today that I think you might find a little interesting. We were shooting beets for a can label for US Foods and we came across some interesting lighting problems… I mean, challenges. (you never say problems in business, they’re challenges!) :+) The question is, how much shine (glare) is enough and how much it too much? Here are three shots that show different amounts of, and different types of, glare.

I probably shot 30 images before we got the composition and lighting that we finally settled on, but here are 3 images that basically illustrate the lighting choices available to us.

I first started out with a relatively small light source at a relatively high light ratio. I felt as though the highlights were too strong and the shadows were too dark. While we were on the right track, the light ratios were just not right yet.

In the second image, I added some light from on top of the set to “fill in” the shadows, but we just weren’t happy with the way the added light seemed to wash out and de-saturate the color of the beats. The lighting challenge was how to lighten the beets without taking away the color.

In the final image, we ended up lessening the overhead light and adding fill cards all around the set in order to add light from everywhere and at the same time making the light seem to come nowhere. Yes, there is a light direction. You need to have that in order to show texture and shape, but now this is just enough glare in order to relieve the shadows without taking away the color. How did I come upon the correct light ratio? Trial and error. To be a good photographic lighter, you have to be able to SEE what’s there and then figure out how to MAKE it into what you want it to be. If it has too much glare, lessen that light. It the shape is weak, move the light until you get more shape. It’s trial and error.

Personal snapshots with 85mm 1.4

2009-03-02T13:06:00.011-04:00

I know that this is supposed to be a “professional” blog, but I thought I’d add a few personal images from my weekend visiting my daughter and her family down in South Carolina. All this shots were with the 85mm 1.4, shot wide open at 1.4. This will give you an idea of how the focus effect looks at different distances, from long shots to close-ups. It’s really a pretty cool lens.

Even at pretty far distances, this lens has lets the focus fall off quick enough to let the viewer's eyes focus on the subject and ignore the background just a little. And when the photographer moves in close, the focus goes all together.

Fiddle Photography

2009-02-26T21:03:00.007-04:00

I'm in a little jam for time tonight, but I wanted to take a minute and show you what I've been shooting today. This is a sample of the kinda stuff I was shooting, musical instruments. Sure, not the most glamorous of projects, but still beats working for a living... :+)

This is the kind of shoot where you learn about lighting. You're not free to do anything you want, lighting wise, but it's challenging and kind of fun, if you look at it that way. To tell you the truth though, I really don't like catalog photography or product very much, which is what this is... I sort of find that amusing about myself... Food photography and product photography are very similar, but I love one and less-than-like the other.

I'm working on another article. (really early stages) This one is about using depth-of-field in portraiture. I've been shooting a lot of environmental portraits lately, and I've come to a few conclusions that I wanted to share with you.

Portraits with Nikon 85mm 1.4

2009-02-25T18:31:00.001-04:00

Okay... I'm getting a little carried away, but I figured that I needed to get some things up on the blog here so it would be worth your while visiting.

Here are three images that I did testing my new lens, my Nikon 85mm 1.4 lens. Luckily for me, my studio is in the same building as The Talent Group modeling agency, so whenever I need to models to test with, I just give a call down stairs and ask for a specific type of model and wa-la, they appear... Of course, I have to give the models a few images, but it's a good deal for me and a good deal for the models too.

These three gentleman were chosen for their unique looks. I wanted models that I thought would match the effect I was attempting to create. Maybe hot young models would look good with this special effect, maybe they wouldn't, I won't know until I try, but I figured that older / interesting guys would work out, and they did.

So what do you think? Check out that depth of field. That is tight! It's real easy to miss, so if you end up getting this lens, you have to be really careful of what you're doing. I thought that maybe I'd take these images around to show some agencies an effect that they might want to use on some project in the near future.

Comments welcome...

Healthcare Photography with an 85mm 1.4 lens

2009-02-25T17:22:00.000-04:00

I do probably 75-80% food photography, so when another type of photographic opportunity comes along, I often jump at it. Here’s an image from this morning’s shoot. It’s a simple portrait of an Doc in an operating room. I did the shoot with a new lens of mine. It’s a 85mm f 1.4 Nikon Lens. I simply love this lens. If you shoot wide open, you not only get another two stops of speed, but you get an amazingly shallow depth of field. In the next day or two, I’ll post some other shots that I’ve done with this lens. With this lens, you can focus on the person’s eye, and the eyelash will be out of focus. You REALLY have to watch yourself. It’s real easy to blow focus!

The effect that this lens has is pretty amazing though. Before I sprung for this lens, I’d use an 80-200mm 2.8, shot wide open to get this type of feel. But to get that feel, you’d need lots of space between you and the subject in order to shoot at 200mm. With this lens, you only need a little distance.

Another thing I did with this photo is pull back the saturation. (in Photoshop) After that, I tweaked the hew a bit until I got something I liked. The shot looked fine without the tweak, but I like this more. Let's see what the client likes...

Sure, I still take along the 80-200 and all my other lens, but I really do love this new lens. I'll post some mire images, maybe tomorrow.

Welcome to the Professional Photography 101 Blog

2009-02-25T16:20:00.000-04:00

Welcome to the Professional Photography 101 Blog. You may be familiar with my food photography blog, but if you’re not, you can check it out at http://www.foodportfolio.com/blog. The food photography blog isn’t really a blog, just as the http://www.professionalphotography101.com site isn’t either. Both sites are a collection of articles I’ve written about different aspects of professional Photography.

This blog is intended to be a REAL blog or a collection of thoughts and ideas related to my life as a professional photographer. I plan on including different images and descriptions of those images, on a day-by-day or week-by-week basis, depending on the time available. You may want to “follow” the blog to see what I’ve been up to. I’ll try to target the posts toward up-and-coming professional photographers. Feel free to comment or contact me with any questions you may have.

Thanks

Michael Ray