Good images take  time and planing, Great images need luck and photoshop.   Last fall I was hired to shoot a company group photo.  Nothing to hard I thought until I found out it was for 75 to 100 employees,the building and the company trucks. This is were the good planing comes in. The biulding faced west, so I had to create  the shot in the afternoon. There was an all employee meeting that day so it needed to be before the meeting. Other wise we would loses to many emploees skiping out to go home.  I needed a lift to get me up 20-30 feet off the ground. This way the poeple would be looking up at me and therefore I would see all there faces. By the way I had 10-15 minets to shoot it!  

I met with the company owners a week before,  explaining how I thought I would shoot it and all the things I would need to pull off a shot like this. They were very helpfull and understood  what I was trying to accomplish.  They even bought  a t-shirt for every one to help the images look better.

The first image was of the  camera file I shot that day.   this is were the luck came in. as you can tell the storm was coming in from the north.  Passed by and the tail end of the clouds defused the sun, so when the employes look up at me they were not looking in to the sun. The next image  is of all the adtional clean up and recouching I did.  I did this so the client could see all the changes i was going to make.  I added a sign to the building. removed the cracks in the asphalt. and only needed to swop a couple of heads. 

I use Blurb as my book publisher.  The software is great for those who are page design challenged. The new version of the book software allows you to make tweaks and edit the lay out more. My first book,  A delectable Vision, a food portfolio was a hit with  Art directors. I had to get a couple more copies made. It was a collection of images that i did over the past year.  Some of the images can be seen at  Minneapolis Food Photographer, my food site.   The second book, my People Portfolio is now done. This time I went with a rapped image cover and the premium paper.  Its about 40 pages long 10×8 inch horizontal size.  I divided it in to the three areas in-which I work.  Annual reports/ corporate communications, Trade Magazines, and  Collage and Universities. I added some images from a couple resent shoots to keep it fresh. And since most of my people shooting is on location, that is were the name came from.

I’m always trying something new. A new technique, new equipment.  But one thing I try to not to do is do them at the same time. Well I for got that rule this time.  I have been inspired by the images of Nick Onken. especially the sun flare images.  And there was a Minnesota Strobist meeting coming up at a local beach. I thought, hey good chance to try out this technique and a new two flash TTL rig I just put together. What could be  more perfect.  I should have known the day was going bad when I missed the turn to the beach… twice. Got messed up in all the one way streets.  There was no parking lot, on street parking only,  and I was late. so I missed the briefing before the shoot. I really hate being late.   Once I finally arrived and found were the group was. I started to set up. I got the two flashes, the cord, the stand and the 30 inch umbrella. Also the additional battery packs, so my flashes would recycle faster. I got it all put together. I was so proud.  And want happen, one of the flashes would not fire.  So for the next 1/2 hour, a tried to get it working. It worked fine testing in the studio.  I change batteries,  a borrowed flashes from other photographers. Nothing. Finally I just said lets go, I  discussed  the model Kayla what I was trying to do. Got another photographer to assist me and we hit the beach.  I started shooting and the flash would only fire 1 out of 3 times.  I was shooting to fast and the flash was not recycling fast enough. I gave Kalya a brake and  went back to see if I could get the flashes to work.  I did not.  I finally  just used one flash and did some sun setting photos with Kayla in the water.

Above are some of what I ended up with. I think with all the challenges I had that evening things worked out well.  The next day I set up the light again to figured out the problem. I found that one of my batterie packs was fried.  So it was not charging the flash and then the flash was giving the camera a false signal.  I’m waiting on a new pack and I’m going to try the light set up again.  But I think I’ll work in the studio.

I recently was  privileged to meet Mr.Lang.  He is a building contractor. I was not able to go to any of his current remodeling projects. So we did what we could around his office.  I was there to photograph him for MyBusiness Magazine.

He was a great joy to photograph.

My last post I mentioned the California Sun Bounce equipment I just purchased. I finally had the opportunity to use it . One of the advantages of the CSB system is it takes bad light and makes it good usable light. The images were shot with the sun back lighting the subject. This is bad, because I would normally have to add additional lights to the front of the subject to full in or over power the suns effect. Instead I , placed the Sun swatter over the subject and the added a sun Pro reflector in the front to fill in the face of the subject. It only took a couple of minuets. This stuff just opens a lot of opportunity for me to be more creative in how I approach a shot. I posted some of the images to my portfolio page.

I just received my Sunbounce Sun Swatter. Whats that? well is a light modifying tool. Check out a video on it here.
It better describes what it can do. I’ve had my eye on one for a couple of years. Unfortunately its overcast today and I cant test it out. But I will have a chance later, I have a annual report project coming up next week. It will help a lot. Its all outdoors shots. And the Sunbounce will help in controlling the light from the sun. So I’ll be able to shoot at any time of the day. This will help in the scheduling the people for the project.