Twice as fun.

Riley was in the studio today for a very fun First Communion Portrait.  She had a beautiful dress complete with the little veil and gloves.  It was very much like photographing a miniature bride.  She did a great job following my suggestions, now I need to get ready to help mom identify her favorites.  I think my favorite part was when I asked her what her favorite after school activity was and she said “I like to go home and play with my little sister Caitlin”.

Great Smokey Mountains National Park

This weekend I am leading a photography workshop in the Great Smokey Mountains National Park.  We have had splendid weather conditions.  I offer many local photography workshops in and around Rochester, Michigan, but once or twice a year I like to arrange a destination workshop.  The National Parks are always a popular choice.  This image was shot along the Roaring Forks Motor Trail just outside of Gatlinburg, TN.  A destination workshop is the perfect opportunity to immerse yourself in your photography for several days.  By doing so you can substantially improve your landscape photography skills in a short period of time.  Time for dinner, look for another update soon.

Tulips in all their glory near Campus Martius

As a photographer I have always enjoyed a wide variety of photography subjects.  Things like flowers and plants have always made for enjoyable macro photography, and are some of the most common items students request to learn how to photograph better when they  come to me for private individual photography lessons.  The Campus Martius area is currently ablaze with hundreds of Tulips.

I lead a Art Deco photo walk in Detroit, Michigan yesterday.  The weather was threatening most of the day but I was happy to see participants from as far away as St. Clair, Michigan.  As I drove down from Rochester Hills, thru Troy, Birmingham and Royal Oak the rain eased giving me hope.  Every time I schedule a photo walk for Rochester Photography Workshops I wonder if people will find the destination interesting and if the weather will cooperate.  Well yesterday the weather behaved enough to be workable, and the destination was simply amazing.  The Guardian Building was phenomenal.  I am always amazed at the level of craftsmanship and tremendous design sense when I visit a gem like this.  To think that it was built back in the 20′s is really amazing.  Just look at the detail, color and proportions.

My thanks to all those that came out and joined in.  I estimate we had around 25 people at the height of the event.  After a disappointing stop at the Penobscott building, a subset of the group continued on foot and by car over to the Elwood bar & Grill.  I particularly enjoyed walking around the city.  For instance I never noticed the beautiful courtyard outside the GEM theatre until I walked past it yesterday.  From the car I guess I have always been focused on traffic and hunting for a parking space to get to the game.

Look at how beautiful it was yesterday all in bloom!

Rochester High School Murder Mystery Promo Shot

Today Kyle, my intern, brought over two friends to shoot some promotional shots for Rochester High School’s theatre department.  Working together we light the scene carefully so as to  bring his vision to reality.  The challenge here, as with many portraits was to direct the light where we wanted it, and keep it off areas where we didn’t want it.  The Profoto’s were up to the challenge.  We used a variety of light modifiers to carefully direct the light where it was needed.

I enjoy shooting portraits with a little more meaning than most.  When I am approached to photograph a High School Senior, a Business Portrait, an Engagement Portrait, Family Portrait, or even a Baby I ask a lot of questions.  I want to understand what the motivation is behind the portrait.  How it will be used, where it will be displayed.  By learning more about where and how my clients plan to use an image I am better equipped to create an image that looks as if it belongs.  If I am asked to photograph an Attorney for instance I want to know if they want an image that will make them appear friendly and approachable to attract new clients, or if they need something with a little more attitude to put their opponents on notice that they aren’t going to be easily swayed.

Clients appreciate this purposeful approach when we take the time to create their iconic image of the day.  For a Wedding couple it might be a backlight shot of them at the end of the day, or a dramatic kiss under a setting sun.  For a newborn photograph it might be a close up shot with the had knit cap from great grandma.  Whatever the circumstance we take the time learn what makes your image click.

Custom backdrops being made at the workshop

Last weekend I attended a multifaceted workshop at Mary Duprie’s Studio in Pontiac, MI.  We started out Friday night by painting our own canvas backdrops.  This is something I have wanted to try for years, but never really had a good concept of how to go about it.  Mary has made hundreds of backdrops so she was a great person with whom to learn.  She shared her secret mix of paint colors and we went to town.  Once the paint dried we experimented a little with plaster and finally colored venetian plaster.

A cropped shot of the finished product

It was a thoroughly enjoyable experience, and I now have a hand-made backdrop that I will use for years to come.  I will be making more, but I think I’ll wait until summer and make mine in the garage, my studio floor is not as water tolerant as Mary’s!

As fun as it was, I was happy to get home for a little rest before starting day two.  Saturday started with an introduction to working with a makeup artist, selecting the subjects clothing and designing the set.

Janet was our model for the day.  She brought a fun selection of outfits.  We first photographed her in some her own clothes, then we switched over to working with Mary’s vast wardrobe collection.

Janet with wardrobe from studio collection

I have a Profoto beauty dish, but I never got the results from it that we were able to get at this worship.  I now have several new lighting setups with which I look forward to experimenting.

Getting the lighting fine tuned.

After a brief break for lunch we moved onto working with natural light.  When I teach workshops I spend a lot of time discussing how to shoot indoors and out using natural light.  May of my Photography students don’t own studio lights and are trying to photograph family members (their children typically) to their best advantage.  Once again, Mary had a different take on things and the images came out beautifully.

Window Light Portrait

A quick wardrobe change and the addition of an elegant chair gave us very different look for our next setup.  The 17th century chair gives this portrait a very timeless feel.

We shot this set with several different backgrounds.  The black is the most timeless.  I like all the different looks, but the black is my favorite.

For day three with had a new subject with which to work.  Alex was a more experienced model and Mary taught us how to take her from where she was and give her a few new techniques with which to advance her skills.  I look forward to high school senior photography time.  I will be adding a modeling flair to the session that will be great for creating dynamic images and fun for the kids.  It was fun to watch as Alex picked up on the new information and started to apply it to her modeling.

A formal look with Alex

The lighting for the image at right is designed to primarily feature the mask of the face with subtle shadowing.  Alex was a beautiful subject and the lighting had to take advantage of her features.

A very different look with Alex

The image at left was our last set of the workshop.  We changed up everything.  This was shot high key.  I went in close for a very dramatic headshot, then pulled back for a much more playful image that I find very appropriate as Spring starts to take hold here in Rochester Michigan.

Alex full length ready for Spring

With Wedding and Mitzvah seasons gearing up I am very excited to have had the opportunity to study with Mary Duprie and expanded my expertise.  I can’t wait for my next portrait client so we can collaborate and make them look fantastic.

3 versions of the same image created with Lightroom and nik Silver Efex Pro2

Mike was in the studio today for a private photography lesson.  When he called to schedule his one-on-one photography training he asked what the lesson would cover.  I told him it all depended upon what he wanted to learn.  Individual private lessons are open ended..  If you want help understanding off-camera flash that is what we will talk about.  If you would like help with composition, or posing then we will head down that path.  Individual Photography lessons usually work out to be a mix of discussion and hands on shooting.  The images above were part of a demonstration related to the lesson.

When Mike told me that he had never used Adobe Photoshop Lightroom I offered to extend the photography lesson into the post-processing realm.  So we import the image to show him how powerful the develop module is in Lightroom.  The top image is the RAW file straight out of the Nikon D4.  The middle image was created (including the edge effect) using nik Silver Efex Pro 2 from within Lightroom.  The bottom image was the result of me demonstrating how easy it was to experiment with various camera raw settings and create a “new” look and then save it as a develop preset.

When asked what post-processing software I recommend, the response is always Lightroom.  While Lightroom does have a learning curve, it is no where near as cumbersome as Photoshop.  I periodically offer Photography workshops centered around Adobe Lightroom.  I have two scheduled for the near future.  The first is an introduction to Lightroom with an emphasis on getting your images into the catalog and starting the organization process.  The second Lightroom workshop delves into the develop module and printing.

Old St. Mary’s Catholic Church, Greektown

Today I led a photo walk in Greektown.  The image above is a High Dynamic Range (HDR) shot built from 7 separate photographs.  The camera was secured to my Induro Carbon Fiber tripod and I used an external shutter release to avoid jostling the camera.  Many newer cameras allow you to shoot a “bracket” of images and will automatically increase and decrease the exposure to give you overly bright and overly dark images that are later merged together to capture detail that could not be captured in a single shot.  My software of choice is nik-HDR Efex Pro, which I run from either Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 4.0 or Adobe Photoshop CS6.

The amazing detail afforded with HDR images is becoming increasingly popular.  How to process HDR brackets is one of the topics I will be discussing at my Lightroom 4.0 – Editing and Output workshop on Friday April 13th.  I enjoy teaching others how to improve their photography and have been expanding my workshop offering lately.  If you would like to get notified when new workshops are added you can join our newsletter or enroll in the Rochester Photography Workshops MeetUp group, either of which is free.  Enrolling in MeetUp will ensure that you get notified the moment a workshop goes live.  The news letter usually gets published a day or two later.

National Park Passport (3.5″ x 6″)

I just scheduled a Macro Photography Workshop for Tuesday, April 24th.  I  love playing with macro and close-up photography.  For this simple example I grabbed my National Park Passport, which is very cool by the way.  I wish I had bought it when I first started visiting the parks.  The shot above is to show the overall size of the subject.

This shot is taken from the end of the spine looking toward the opposite end.  All shots were made with a Nikkor 105mm f2.8 micro (Nikon’s term for a macro lens) mounted to a full-frame Nikon D4 body.  This shot exhibits minimal depth of field, and the smallest area of overall sharpness because I am shooting down the length of the object.

For this next image I shot with the camera aligned much closer to parallel with the spine so the area of sharpness is expanded.  It still has very narrow depth of field, but with the sensor plane closer to parallel with the spine we see more of the spine in focus.

For this last image I manually adjusted the lens to the “close focus limit” then simply moved closer and closer to the spine until it came into sharp focus.  This is as close as this lens can focus before adding in additional spacers (extension tubes).  If you think you will want to do a lot of very close-up work then a macro lens should be part of your kit.  Keep in mind however that you can get quite close with most normal lenses with just a few relatively affordable add-ons like extension tubes or close-up filters.  If you want to learn more check out the workshop in April.

ISO 12,800 lighted only by the screen of the iPad

As a professional photographer I am called upon to shoot a wide variety of subjects like High School Seniors, Weddings, Bar Mitzvahs, Bat Mitzvahs, Retirement Parties, Family Reunions, Wedding Anniversaries, Newborns, the list is almost endless.  The thing that all these events have in common is that you need to know your gear inside and out!  You can’t be fumbling with your Digital SLR when you should be capturing that special look or reaction.  I just received the New Nikon D4 so for the next week or two I will be testing every imaginable feature so I know how to get the most out of the D4 and can focus (pun intended) on my subject.

I teach photography lessons and photography workshops.  I constantly hear horror stories from attendees that choose their child’s high school graduation to try moving away from the auto mode on their Canon Digital Rebel or Nikon D5100.  Not a wise move.  Experimentation is a wonderful thing and I encourage it, but not when you are attending a once in a life time event.  A quiet walk in the woods is the time to experiment and play.  Attend a workshop, read a book, whatever you need for inspiration, then go to and give it a whirl.

The new Nikon D4 is capable if ISO 204,800.  That is crazy high and the test images I shot today at ISO 204,800 are marginal, but the image above was shot at 12,800 and with only minor adjustments in Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 4.0 it looks beautiful.  What this means is that as an event photographer I have many more options when it come to deciding how to best preserve the big day.

Fun shot of the Crofoot Ballroom in Pontiac, Michigan

My friend, Andrea Solomon, is an event planner in West Bloomfield and a few years back she encouraged me to start photographing Bar and Bat Mitzvahs.  As an event planner Andrea has planned hundreds of weddings and mitzvahs over the years.  So, it came to pass that I expanded my event photography business beyond weddings, retirement parties and anniversary parties to also include mitzvah celebrations.

I will be ever grateful to Andrea Solomon for giving me the push necessary to get into such a great event photography specialty.  The shot above was from a recent party held at the Crofoot Ballroom in Pontiac, MI.  I always arrive early for an event photography engagement to scope out the building and the decorations, etc.  The sky was amazing this particular evening and the sun was lighting up the side of the building with an amazing warm glow. This is one of several shots that got my evening off to a rocking start.  I could shoot in their all day!  The architecture and the lighting are wonderful.  It is a great place to host an event.  The perfect combination of edginess but with all the amenities necessary for a first class outcome.  I have been there when they were partying in the enclosed outdoor patio which is another great place to grab some nice candid shots while guest enjoy the fun and sun (or stars).

I would love to take a high school senior down to the Crofoot Ballroom as part of an urban exploration day.  I’ll have to look into that.  The shot above is the result of combining 9 separate exposures together to realize a finished image that could not possibly be accomplished in one shot.  If you are interested in learning more about this type of photography check out my workshops.