Dani & Matt’s wedding sneak peak
June 30, 2010 by Brad ·
Dani & Matt’s wedding was SO MUCH FUN! I delivered their images just this morning, so I don’t have their approval on specific images yet, but I did get permission to share a few general photos of the night. Thought I’d start off with this one, which sums up the great time everyone (including me) had at the reception. My thanks to Journey, the tv show Glee, and the DJ from StarzEntertainment.
…somewhere in the niiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiight!
·Photography 101 Seminar Pt 1 review
June 28, 2010 by Brad ·
Before you utter “who does this guy think he is?” see this previous blog post for an explanation of the seminar.
What a great group! They arrived enthusiastic, and it just got better. By the end of our afternoon, they actually asked for homework, and were giddy when I came up with an assignment for them! Who could ask for better?
We covered the very basics of photography, zeroing in on the exposure triangle of shutter speed, aperture, and ISO. There was a little bit of knob-twiddling, but the technical camera-specific how-to stuff was kept to a minimum for now. We all operated our cameras in full Manual mode today, indoors and out, and learned about how to create an optimum exposure without and with the camera’s light meter. I was really impressed with how quickly my three students picked up on the concepts. Their excellent questions spurred some really great conversation too. What may have been the most exciting part of the day was when we dabbled in straying from optimum exposure in favor of more creative exposure. I could really sense how empowered the three felt when they began to see how they were learning to make deliberate choices in how their images would look. They took their first steps from taking photos to making photos. It was so cool to see!
We actually created very few images today. Well, to tell the truth, I guided them through making a lot of poor exposures intentionally – letting them identify the problems, and letting them correct them using their new knowledge of shutter speed, aperture, ISO, and depth of field. Sadly, most of the images were either of me or the boring backyard. Here are a few that they created as we sat around the dining room table, using the cameras in full Manual mode:
Nicki captured Johnnie here, with a low-contrast background. We didn’t talk about composition today, but Nicki took some classes in film-based photography in college. It shows, as she used the Rule of Thirds to great effect here.
Nicki intentionally overexposed these tiki mugs, using (but outsmarting) the camera’s light meter, to keep the dominant backlighting from the window from making her real subject (the faces) from being too dark.
Caralie captured me going on and on about something against a challenging very contrasty background. She used a wide aperture to throw the yard out of focus, and then really nailed the right shutter speed keep me from underexposing. She balanced the darkness on the right with the other window light from the left very nicely via good shutter speed choice. (That dent in my forehead shows well in the sidelighting here. I ran into an iron stop-sign pole at full speed when I was five. Knocked me clean out.)
Caralie created this photo of Johnnie composing an image that stayed on her camera’s card and went home with her. Hopefully I’ll have some of her homework to show next week. In this image, Caralie used a shallow depth of field (via aperture choice) to isolate Johnnie’s face and the camera’s side from the background.
We didn’t set out to make any great art with our images today. We aimed at using none of the cameras’ automatic features and coming up with a properly exposed image anyway, with some deliberate choices about how the image’s background and subject would be captured. They all did great! Can’t wait to see what happens when we start getting into the creative stuff! These three are gonna be amazing!
·Photography 101 Seminar
June 25, 2010 by Brad ·
It’s full already, but I’m too excited not to announce my first seminar on basic principles of photography, which kicks off next week. It wasn’t something I had intended to undertake, but there has been a public outcry, a literal demand from some very nice and very enthusiastic folks I know. At first it was just a series of offers to assist me / work as a protegé. What made the most sense to me was to bring everyone up to speed on what I would need them to know at the same time. That struck me as a little limited and rather self-serving, so instead it’s going to be a series on the fundamental principles of photography with a lot of hands-on application.
The plan is coming together as a once-a-week afternoon of intensive instruction and experimenting, with at least one field trip scheduled. In addition to covering the basics of the camera & flash, we’ll be studying some distinguished photographers and learning to replicate their work as skill- and vision-building exercises.
Will I open do something like this again, opening it for wider participation? Most likely, yes. I will use this first series to explore how to best combine my experience as a teacher with my calling as a photographer. I am not looking to put myself on a pedestal or paint myself as one of the “rock star” photographers who teaches other pro’s. Those are the folks I’m still paying to see and learn from. Nor am I offering marketing or business tips. I’m just trying to give nice folks in my community a better understanding of how to use their cameras, these amazing photographic tools they already have, to make them less mysterious, more fun, and more deliberately productive. (Chances are we’ll move on to digital workflow and editing to, but that may be another series.)
Hopefully, some of what we cover will turn into blog posts (or more) here. I hope to share some images of us in action and what we produce here too.
Wish us luck!
·Whoa! Where I have been?
June 25, 2010 by Brad ·
Let me tell you. First: making my first short film. I didn’t film the senator or the LtCol with the plane, but I did everything else. First time with most of the gear and all of the software. Considering all that, I’m pleased with how it came out. This first edit was aimed at the riders/participants, so it assumes that the viewer already knows a lot about the event. A second version will get underway soon, aimed at donors & sponsors, giving a much broader intro to the Ride for Semper Fi.
The Ride for Semper Fi – Riders’ Welcome from Brad Jones on Vimeo.
Second: I photographed Dani & Matt’s wedding. The editing is allllllllmost done. Highlights here soon.
Third: I went to California to crew for Team 401 – All Wheels 4 Fibromyalgia in the Race Across America (RAAM). But as soon as the prep work was all done and we hit the road, I hit the ground. I was laid out by what turned out to be a blockage in my small intestine. That meant me having to abandon as a crew member, and eventually meant spending four days in the hospital narrowly avoiding surgery. The docs never could determine why it occurred.
Then, I was off to Indianapolis to photograph Patty & Bob’s wedding. It was a great trip, worthy of its own blog entry. I hope to get down to editing that one in the next couple of days. Great trip. Great couple. Great 1939 Caddy limo that took them from the gardens to the boat slip where they embarked for an aquatic arrival at the reception!
So, now I’m back, recovering, editing, and getting back into the swing of things.
More very soon, as I have new plans for the blog!
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