Every winter I pass on photographing the New Years Eve fireworks display.  Generally because it’s too cold, raining, snowing, etc.  This year though, the weather couldn’t have been better.  Clear sky, very light wind and temps well above freezing.  Had to get out and do it this time.   Many people want to know how to take good fireworks photos.  I saw people last night shooting with flashes on.  Doesn’t work!  Fireworks ARE the flash!  You don’t need high speed photography or a super fast lens either.  I shot these at F-11.  What you do need though is a tripod.  My exposures were 4 seconds.  (ISO 200, F-11 @ 4 seconds) with a Nikon D700.   The other thing that helps is to scout your location ahead of time and arrive early to stake out your spot.  I did both.  I decided on a downwind location so the smoke didn’t blow toward me and ‘fog’ the exposures and I wanted a mix of skyline and bridge in the composition.  Getting there early allowed me to stake out the exact spot I’d scouted previously and here are my results:

Hope it’s a good year for the planet.

Been outta the studio a lot recently working with friend and fellow photographer, Mark Lozier.  We did some fun work in his studio recently for U.S. Optics working with two awesome models and a lot of new glasses frames.

From that local gig, we then ventured to North Jersey to the University of Medicine and Dentistry in Raritan.  Mark got the job of photographing equipment and procedures for  a dental text book.  We worked tethered – a Nikon D300 to laptop.  Each shot was automatically imported directly into Adobe Lightroom for immediate analyzation and approval by us, the client (Lippincott Williams & Wilkins | Wolters Kluwer Health) and the instructors we worked with at the school.  Not the most glamorous work, but interesting and informative.  For instance I learned that I need to floss more often!

Here’s a sampling of what we were photographing….

Here’s what our “studio” looked like in the school.  Our models are all students and couldn’t have been more pleasant to work with.

The above shot was taken with my iPhone.

I have a gallery on the site called Fun Art.  It started out as Fine Art, but then I started thinking about that.  What is Fine Art Photography?  If you look at all the web sites touting ‘Fine Art’ you’ll probably be just as confused as I am.  Some work is awesome and stands out.  However, a lot of it is what I would deem ‘street photography’.  Of course there can be gems in that too, but most of the time it seems more like photojournalism to me.  Since I’m not sure how to categorize  my work, I’ll just call it Fun Art since I have fun doing it.  Fair enough?

Recently I posted images from a session that I did on the campus of Princeton University (10/26 post) as well as added a few to my portraiture gallery.  Since then I’ve played with one and took it from it’s original capture shown here…

and created a Fun Art piece by cropping, overlaying a texture of sycamore tree bark (really!) and changing the blending mode in Photoshop.  Then, to finish it off, added the

saying that I think gives it meaning and says something about the character of Maria.

One of the things that I’ve learned is that often when we take a photograph there’s an even better photograph with more impact IN the original composition… somewhere.  As in the case of the image below which was made in Rockport, PA this past Sunday, I thought I’d found the best composition before I pushed the shutter button.  The original image is almost never finished right from the camera even now in our instant-gratification-digital-world.  Sure, it’s OK, but the second version is after processing and a slight crop in Lightroom.  The enhanced colors and contrast make the image pop, at least in my eyes.  How about yours?  Then when I was almost done messing with it I accidentally hit the space bar on the keyboard which in Lightroom makes the image magnify.  In this case it filled the frame from side to side on my screen and I thought WOW, I like this version much better.  So, I made a copy of the enhanced original and then cropped the copy to what I saw during the ‘bump’ of the space bar.

Which do you like better?  I enjoy reader feedback so please feel free to comment.  Oh, and I almost forgot… when processing, I also removed the branch sticking straight up on the right side of the waterfall that is still in the original version.

Quite a while ago I talked with friend and fellow photographer, Maria Martins about doing a portrait session of her.  Well, two or maybe three years later, we finally got it done.  When we talked about her wardrobe choices and she described the outfits she wanted to be photographed in, Princeton University Campus immediately came to my mind.  I think it was the word ‘Tweed’ that did it.  So, off to Princeton to do the session.  We were accompanied by another friend and aspiring photographer, Allison McCaffery, who volunteered to assist by carrying gear and handling the small video light that I occasionally like to use as a fill or accent light.  As it turned out, the large backpack of gear that Allison carried never got opened.  My plan was to do the entire session with a Nikon 70-200 f 2.8 VR lens wide open at F 2.8 in aperture mode and that’s how it went.  I wanted shallow depth of field to separate Maria from the backgrounds but still have a sense of location in some instances.  It was a perfect day weatherwise, and Maria was as pleased with the results as I am.  Here are my favorites…

Yesterday afternoon I took a bike ride (I don’t ride on roads, but rather in the woods on a mountain bike.  Often I take a camera with me and yesterday was one of those times.  I was hoping to find something that represented autumn.  I came across this abandoned cabin and spent a little time walking around it looking for a good angle and composition that would tell it’s story.  This view seemed best and after making some images of it I applied what I call Fun Art modifications to the original.

On Friday a friend that I occasionally get to kayak with asked me if I’d like to join him and one of his friends for a white water kayak adventure on a creek I’d never heard of call Muddy Creek.  Yuk!  None of us are what could be termed ‘expert paddlers’, but we manage to survive our adventures.  So, of course I said, “yes, um where the heck is it?”  “Not far”, says Mike.  OK, 4 states later – NJ, DE, MD and then PA and we found it.  Oh, neither Mike nor his friend Luke had ever been there either.  TGFGPS (thank God for GPS).  So, we’re there, at the take out end which is on the Susquehanna River.  Then we leave my car there and load my boat and gear into Luke’s Jeep and using a guide book that Mike used to direct us from, we travel through a lot of woods and farm country and park next to this quiet little crystal clear (and cold!) creek.  So much for the Muddy part, and I’m happy about that.  Creek kayaking is a little different than river kayaking.   Creeks are generally smaller, narrower and bumpier.  Lot’s of rocks to go over, around and often…. into.  They actually make kayaks called Creek Boats which are specifically made for this type of aquatic terrain.  None of us have one.

So, with only Luke’s descriptions of hazards read from the guide book while standing on the creek bank, we pushed off for what became an all day paddle.  The beginning had several small drops and waves to play in so we dropped and played.  Here’s Mike dropping in off a rock.  Notice how clear the water is?  You can see his  boat underwater.  No Mud.

The first several hours of the trip were fun, easy and added no adrenalin to our systems.  Then, I tried to zip through a fast narrow  gap between two rather large tree limbs  wedged behind rocks in river center.  Didn’t make it and got pinned sideways.  It took a couple of minutes to get free and float backwards into another snag without my paddle which I had to give up to get out of the first one.  Fortunately Luke caught my paddle floating by and brought it to me and the whole deal became a non-event.  Then we came to a drop that seemed a little intimidating even though we’d seen a YOUTUBE video of it.  But the water level was higher in the video.  There was only one corner that seemed possible to run it and Luke decided to go for it and made it nicely.  I was below with a throw rope, just in case.  Then Mike decided to give a shot.  But he forgot one minor detail….. To get in his boat!  Here’s Mike’s boat doing the drop flawlessly.  And backwards!

It doesn’t get any better than that!  Until you put Mike IN the boat and try it again.

Pretty embarrassing when your boat does it better w/o you.  But it was funny and there were no dues other than a dunking.

The next hazard we came was skirted by all of us, but here’s a photo from below of Luke just to give it scale.

It was a nasty drop through a narrow channel in the rocks with a few rather large rocks in the center.  Maybe another day when the water’s higher and covers the rocks better.

These photos were taken with a little pocket size Olympus waterproof camera that I carry when paddling.  It’s officially a Stylus 725 SW.  I prefer to call it a point and hope.  There’s no viewfinder, an industry trait I’m not fond of, just a 2″ LCD screen on the back that is difficult to see outdoors.  Not to mention that I need reading glasses to see anything with detail that small so I just point and hope I get it.  The camera also doesn’t do well in low light.  I did mention that this was an all day deal, right?  Well when the light got low and the shutter speeds got slow, nothing much was sharp.  Although, I do kinda like these two….

I hope ya’ll had a nice weekend too!

I’ve been playing with the HDR (High Dynamic Range) concept for quite some time.  However NIK Software just came out with a program called HDR Efex Pro which has added a whole new dimension to the concept as far as I’m concerned.  Yesterday I went to a skate park in Philadelphia, PA and photographed a few guys playing in the park.  Here are a few of my many favorites from the session as they came from the camera and in final versions after playing with them in Lightroom/HDR Efex Pro/Photoshop.   I’m really having fun with this!  It also goes a long way in illustrating that a photograph is far from finished when comes straight from the camera.
This is the original image exactly as it came from the camera.  Granted, I did some adjustment in Lightroom prior to working it into the final version, but as I said, it ain’t done yet.

Here’s the final version after some fun with NIK HDR Efex Pro…

Another one of my favorites, I love the ‘bowl’ with the dramatic light in the center.  My luck for having been there mid day.  Go figure!  Anyway, this is the way it came from the camera.

Then I ‘NIK’d” it!

Then, I zoomed in on for some reason and the rider and his shadow just jumped in my face so I recropped it and this version is from the same original.

Different effects and color enhancements completely change the mood.  Same bowl, same rider, different HDR effect.

The original image…

Then ‘NIK’d'…

While photographing the guy above, he suggested that I do some shots with this guy….

So, here’s my favorite as it came from the camera…

And here’s the version that rocks!

I have one more that I just messed with and you think I blew the exposure, right?

HA!  So did I, but after autotoning it in Lightroom, and them taking it into NIK HDR Efex Pro and playing around a bit, I had a pretty decent image.  Then a trip to Photoshop for a sky in the upper left to get rid of the white sky and a bit of cloning graffiti in the lower right to add just a tad of texture I ended up with this as the final image.

Finally!  When my previous web site was designed, back in what seems like the dark ages, it was cutting edge.  I got a lot of compliments on it and thank you Chuck for the original design and Bill for updating it a few years ago for me.   But, ‘digital time’ flies like no other it seems, and it was also very cumbersome to update the gallery images.  So… I didn’t.  I think some of the children in my galleries are now in college.  OK, high school then.

So, after looking at and talking to many, many web developers I finally had to pick one.  Then, what template do I want (yeah I went with easy, template driven this time),  but  didn’t care for any of the samples.  I liked parts of several, but sadly they were not customizable.  So, the company built me a new one!  Cool!  Then, I didn’t like the gallery templates.  Sigh…  So, I made my own in Lightroom and they showed me how to upload my completely customizable galleries to the new site.  Very cool!  And, they’re so easy to update that even I can do it.  In fact, I updated two of them just this morning – the Fun Art and Portraiture galleries.

I’d love to have feedback from anyone and everyone who visits the site.  If you like it, great, if not, what can I do to make it better?

Last week, while at a workshop with several fellow photographers I was asked “how many lights do you use for your studio portraits?”.  My answer was an immediate, “Depends”.  Sometimes I use up to 5 lights for dramatic effects and sometimes only a large softbox and perhaps a silver reflector with it.  Or any combo in between.  Earlier this week another photographer/friend, Cindy DeSau visited and asked me if I ever do portraits with a video light.  My answer to that one was no, but I do have a little Sunpak video light that I used to take on some wedding assignments.     I mostly used it as a flashlight to find things in the camera case in darkened reception facilities, but the real reason I bought it was to use it for night outdoor city wedding and engagement portraits because the color temperature is about the same as street lights.

We decided to try it in the studio and Cindy posed for the test.   Here is the result as originally captured by a Nikon D700 and then after having a bit of fun with it in Adobe Lightroom.  ALL of the adjustments were done in Lightroom without ever working with it in Photoshop.

Here is the image as it was downloaded from the camera with no alterations.  It was taken with a single Sunpak video light that is about 6″ long and weighs about 7 oz. including the battery.

And here’s the same image after the Lightroom “treatment”….

A large part of the “portrait process” is finishing.  I had several images of Cindy from this test, but I liked her expression the best in this one.  As you can see, the finished look on this one is quite different from the original.

Oh, and here’s the light.  I had it mounted on a monopod and just held it where I wanted it and fired the camera with a wireless remote trigger.