Day 195, Bridal Portraits

Day 194, Bridal Portraits, originally uploaded by solostandfound.

Oh yeah, I put up all of the lights and backdrop to shoot these. I love my Costa Rican family, they are really good to me. It is good to be able to do something for them. They are my best friends family, but since we have been best friends since we were like 11, they have always been around. When I was a missionary in Argentina, his mom wrote me more then my parents did.

I think these came out really well. I am really enjoying shooting with the studio lights. Probably more then most of the other shooting that I do.

Thanks for looking.
EXIF Data,

Camera:	Canon EOS Digital Rebel XTi
Exposure:	0.005 sec (1/200)
Aperture:	f/3.5
Focal Length:	31 mm
ISO Speed:	100
Exposure Bias:	0 EV

Day 194, Daughters and Electras 3 of 3

Day 194, Daughters and Electras 3 of 3, originally uploaded by solostandfound.

We love bikes here. Well, I love bikes and my kids are getting it from me. They all have an Electra and they love them. I shot their bikes as well, but they are not ready to post. I want to reshoot them to make them match.

I also want to shoot all of my bikes as well. I have 3 Electras and my Cannondale Synapse. I will get them up before I sell a few of them.

Thanks for looking,
EXIF Data,

Camera:	Canon EOS Digital Rebel XTi
Exposure:	0.005 sec (1/200)
Aperture:	f/4
Focal Length:	18 mm
ISO Speed:	200
Exposure Bias:	0 EV

Day 193, Daughters 1 of 3

Day 193, Daughters 1 of 3, originally uploaded by solostandfound.

So I have had the studio lights and backdrops up in my garage for awhile now because I wanted to shoot some stuff with them to put up here. Here is the first that I am throwing up, my daughters.

They are really all pretty good to my eye. I had to up the contrast to hide the backdrop flaws, but all in all they came out pretty good.  I shot them to put up in order on the wall.  I placed number 2 in the middle of the frame just to make it work with the side of the frame shots for 1 and 3.  They hang pretty well on the wall.

Thanks for looking.
EXIF Data,

Camera:	Canon EOS Digital Rebel XTi
Exposure:	0.003 sec (1/320)
Aperture:	f/1.8
Focal Length:	50 mm
ISO Speed:	100
Exposure Bias:	0 EV

Day 29, Portraits at Church Christmas Party

Day 29, Portraits at Church Christmas Party, originally uploaded by solostandfound.

It's Saturday night, and what have I got going? No not a concert. Not a trip to the theater. Not even going to see a movie. I am going to the church Christmas party. I was asked by the activities committee to take portraits. I am not very good at this yet, but it was a great chance to get better. I was excited to go. I was also a little nervous. What if I messed these up? Well, I figured you usually get what you pay for. And as I told one of my friends, "I'm free till I'm good."

It looks like I am still free since some of them did not come out very well. One family came out unsaveable in photoshop. As I went through them, it looked like they were all over exposed. I hooked up the camera to my laptop to keep a check on that, but it seems that I missed it just the same. That at least was an easy fix.

The best portraits were the kids, this was something fun for them. As I was setting up my gear, I wanted to take some test shots and my friend was watching with his kids. So I put them up on the stools and started shooting.

I was looking more for exposure and shadow then composure. But the little girl, she is really cute and the same age as my youngest, she has the most expressive face. We were playing and I was telling her to make monster faces. Her brother thought this was funny. Hence, the final shot. It came out as my favorite.

I have posted a few more of my favorites below along with the EXIF data for the picture today. As always, thanks for looking.

______________________________________________

Camera:	Canon EOS Digital Rebel XTi
Exposure:	0.8 sec (4/5)
Aperture:	f/5.6
Focal Length:	55 mm
ISO Speed:	100
Exposure Bias:	0/3 EV

Day 19, Family Portrait

Day 19, Family Portrait, originally uploaded by solostandfound.

What a chaotic night! If you saw my post a few days back on my brother, Andrew, you had the chance to read that I bought a studio light set up and a backdrop. I seem to always aim much higher then I should. For my first song on the guitar, I wanted Clapton or Stevie Ray Vaughn. Talk about over my head. Clapton has these monster mutant long fingers, and I still haven't got one song down on what are now a collection of 3 guitars. They look great hung on my wall in my office. I have since backed it down a little and I am working on Johnny Cash stuff now.

For my first studio type portrait, I tried to shoot 23 people (half of them are kids) with a brand new set up and next to no time to work out the bugs. Did I say half of them were kids? So I made some big errors and I am not happy with the portraits. I am working out some fixes with photoshop, but just the same, it was as big a let down as not being able to pick up a guitar and drop Claptonesque riffs.

While I had everything set up, I ran each family through and shot some other pics for fun. I like how these came out. For next time, I will move the subjects forward a little and put up a backdrop light or hair light. I will make sure the backdrop is ironed. That was really an easy fix in iPhoto. Just a little of the retouch tool. I will hook up my camera to a laptop and then I will catch lighting problems in the first few shots. I will.... well the list is kinda long. But the individual family groups were not bad. Here is the "funny" shot that I have done some of the editing on. (the backdrop was about 2 feet to small on the sides and about 5 feet too small in the front - a lot of photoshop to fill in and make look natural)

Here below are the shots of my parents, my brothers and their wives and children and my sister and her husband and children. Clicking on any of them will take you to my Flickr photostream and you can see them in larger formats there.
I just can't wait to try again.

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Camera:	Canon EOS Digital Rebel XTi
Exposure:	0.02 sec (1/50)
Aperture:	f/5.6
Focal Length:	28 mm
ISO Speed:	100
Exposure Bias:	0/3 EV

Day 16, My Brother

IMG_5084.JPG, originally uploaded by solostandfound.

This is my youngest brother Drew. He is a junior at BYU and majoring in International Business. I took this pic as a test shot for my first ever portrait shoot with the full shebang. I bought some lights from a really nice guy on Craigslist, and a backdrop from Ritz . I shot this with two lights with umbrellas and one soft box.

The problem is that I really had to work to clean this up. I had to retouch the creases in the the backdrop. And then some minor crops. This is a test shot and not what I was shooting. I was going to make the best portrait ever for my family. Let's just say that it did not go as planned. First off, having not shot too much with lights, I made some real rookie mistakes. I have a list a mile long for the next time we are together. But after some preliminary fixes the funny shot will be included with the portrait post in few days.

Also, another of Drew, who is available ladies if you are interested, as well as a candid of Drew and my daughter.  I will post the other portraits in a few days when I have time to edit them.

Did I mention that Drew is available?  He even speaks Tagalo and Cebuano!  

_________________________________________________

Camera:	Canon EOS Digital Rebel XTi
Exposure:	0.02 sec (1/50)
Aperture:	f/5.6
Focal Length:	55 mm
ISO Speed:	100
Exposure Bias:	0/3 EV