In lieu of family portraits, I turned the camera around on a one-year-old session to grab this behind-the-scenes shot.

So let’s break down a bit of mystery. You can see that portrait photography is more than spontaneously capturing a toddler with some magical artsy-fartsy “eye”… in addition to getting the camera, light and setup just right, I also needed three adults and a dog to make this shot happen! That’s not to say I go to these lengths to setup every shot, but the occasional cute dog can be a lifesaver.

I love working with this family. Thanks again for a lovely fall morning.

Product photography is an important component for any studio, whether it be a portrait, wedding, pet or event studio. Showing images of products on a website or in a brochure helps clients to understand what they are purchasing. It can also give a sense of a photographer’s style.

Part of my remit as a stylist for DesignAglow, a company that designs beautiful resources for photographers, is to give personality to their new products. I thought it would be useful to occasionally share some of my techniques here on blog.

To start, this week I shot a series of birth announcement cards with a “menagerie” theme. I chose neutral wood and burlap props to give the cards a rustic feel and to complement their subtle colors. Here’s one of the final images:

Below is a shot showing the setup. You can see that even though it is a natural light setup, I controlled all the light very carefully. A piece of cardboard blocks a section of window to prevent strong shadows on the objects. A large reflector bounces light back on to the front of the pieces. The table is far enough away from the window behind it to blow out any detail in the curtain when shooting at a low depth of field. I have also raised the table up on boxes so the scene is fully in front of the window and not the windowsill. Finally, the wooden chair is handy to hold extra props, but it is really there to stand on! A step ladder or chair allows me to raise the camera above the scene and capture a variety of angles!

I hope this is helpful to other photographers out there. You can check out all images (and loads of other great products!) over on the Design Aglow website. Feel free to ping me with questions!

—heidi

We set out to capture some special images of the new baby and a group shot. While we did, there was lots of activity in the room and plenty of wonderful candid moments too…

{For photographers: This room in the shot above provided an ideal lighting set up. A huge picture window to the left provided the main light. A natural hair light was provided by a glass block window across the top of the back wall. We moved all the furniture and rugs out of this area to use this as our “studio”. It was an overcast winter day so it was important to use the best light available!}

There were three main types of assignments: News, Feech and Sports.

• News assignments varied constantly and there were quite a few assignments at night. A night might go like this. “Heidi, please go shoot this important civil rights speaker. He will be in a dark auditorium with spotlights on him. Get as many expressions as you can in five minutes, then get back here pronto. We’ll hold page 3 for you. See ya.” Steve gave assignments, was the motivator, and he offered excellent technical advice in very plain language.
• Feech encompassed any non-news assignments. “Heidi, we have a hole in the paper on page 7 today. Go shoot feech.” Feech is a picture that is good enough to stand on it’s own with a caption, but no article. It could be a car crash, a balloon launch, something happening on campus or in town. Feech is suprisingly hard to get. Joe was a master of Feech. To do feech well, you have to have more than technical skill. You have to be creative.
• Finally, there were sports. We lugged our gear onto the court, the football field, the diamond, soccer field… everywhere. I used a Nikon F2 and a range of manually focusing lenses. Maybe some day I will write a blog post about focusing tricks that I learned while shooting sports. Sports were competitive for the players on the field and also for the photographers. Although I dislike college sports, I knew it was a privilege to be at a big-ten game. Two or three of us might shoot the same basketball game, race back to process our film, then see who got the best shot for tomorrow’s back page. Lloyd usually did. Sports photography gave me the most practical experience for shooting toddlers.

So why am I writing all this? Well, I bumped into Steve this last spring and it got me thinking about how much I learned from those three guys, and how much I use what they taught me. Every. Single. Day. More was learned in two years with them than anywhere else, including fine art photography courses at college, my Master’s degree, assisting professional shooters, or attending seminars. Thank you Steve, Joe & Lloyd.

I’d like to share what these guys taught me about the process of shooting. We all know about the rule of thirds and exposure compensation and all that good stuff you find in books. But here’s what I use on a daily basis in my portrait work :

1. Crop in the camera
   Are you seeing the finished picture when you snap the shutter? What information are you including in the image and why is it important? We’ve become lazy with digital. Crop in the viewfinder and you will save yourself a world of pain.
2. Do not shoot at standing eye level
   It’s just about the most boring angle to capture another human being. I vaguely remember Steve standing on a mailbox once to get good overhead shot. I almost always lay on my stomach at some point during a family portrait session.
3. Shoot first, ask questions later
   Pictures don’t take themselves. Pictures don’t happen when the camera is hanging around your neck so you can chat to someone. Don’t be a spectator. When shooting children candidly, if you aren’t sure what’s happening with your subject, try to shoot it anyway and then get a handle on the situation. If the pictures don’t work on a technical or emotional level then you have lost nothing in trying.
4. Adjust your camera settings en route
   On assignment, I would adjust my camera while walking up to start shooting because that was the only time available. It’s the same with kids. I don’t ask them to wait around so that I can fiddle with the camera. I do it on the fly.
5. Eyes = tack
   The eyes of a human being are (almost always) the most important feature to capture when shooting portraits. If the eyes in a portrait are not
   TACK SHARP then I don’t try to sharpen them digitally. I discard the picture. I check sharpness by eyelash clarity. If the front of the eyeball is clear and every eyelash is visible, it’s a keeper.
6. Get one good shot
   The paper did not print 20 mediocre pictures on Page 1. It printed a single excellent picture. Now, during each set-up, each pose, each child, each grouping, each family, I aim to get one good shot. The edited collection of good shots from throughout the shoot adds up to what the client eventually sees. They don’t see the mediocre stuff.

Hope this gives you some insight into my shooting technique and helps other photographers out there. Happy shooting!
— Heidi

I was asked to create a range of dramatic portraits of Frayne Lewis, President of OneSun Entertainment. The portraits needed to be shot in the recording studio environment. We shot in three indoor locations, all of them very dark and atmospheric, which is ideal for creating music, but not so great for creating portraits. Rather than bring huge lights into this very intimate setting (which would have to be dismantled and reassembled at each of the three locations), I decided to work with a single off-camera flash.

One benefit of shooting with a loose flash is that your assistant can reposition the flash very quickly, simply by moving closer or farther back, changing the angle, etc. It is a way to create exciting light in a short window of shooting time. Another key benefit is that the subject is not overwhelmed by lots of equipment, and tends to stay quite relaxed.

This technique is a simplified version of something I saw demonstrated live by the amazing Joe McNally. The idea is to turn your flash into a little portable softbox by shooting though a reflector. During Joe’s demo, he kept tweaking his angles, the flash output, the aperture… there was a constant thought process happening. Even for a technical master such as Joe, there was no “right” way to do it.

I used Lite Links to synch the camera and the flash. While I was adjusting the settings, I accidentally triggered the flash *before* the camera and captured the flash in the process of firing. This frame is a dud portrait, but a great shot of the set-up. Hope all you fellow photo geeks out there enjoy it!

– heidi

HERE’S THE SETUP:

HERE’S THE FINAL IMAGE:

Scrumptious. Gorgeous. Fabulous. Timeless.

This weekend I had an album delivered that just had to be shared. From top to bottom, this piece was all about quality. It was so delectable that I’ve decided to order another to keep at the studio — just because. Albums are often thought of as leap of faith, and they don’t have to be.

It started with great design from Willow Album Design (because hey, I’m a photographer, not a graphic designer. Let’s leave design to pros.) I heartily recommend Britney’s service to other photographers looking for an elegant and efficient supplier. She took my images and made them sing on the page. She also provides a proofing service that I was able to use in conjunction with this bride and groom.

The album was made by Finao. It is 12″x12″, which is a substantial size. It’s more than substantial. It’s impressive. It feels heavy. Really heavy. It feels special.

The cover is thick and luscious. The pages are permanently mounted photographic prints on rigid board. The edges are amazingly bound and perfectly aligned. There are no flaws, and the whole affair is packaged with recycled fiber papers (pineapple leaves! mulberry leaves!) and real leaf skeleton adornments. Truly, Finao creates works of art.

Albums like this are available to any of my portrait or wedding clients, including past clients. They will also be part of the Summer House 2010 package, which will be announced later this week.

Thank you, suppliers. You are wonderful.

— heidi

I wanted to be able to shoot with great detail in low light, without getting grainy shots. I am not disappointed.

{ Coincidentally, a lot of great photographers who already shoot with amazing digital cameras (see here and here) seem to be messing around with their Hasselblads this month. Kind of “rediscovering” low-grain medium format shooting. I don’t know if I am uncool, but I have no temptation to touch my medium format cameras. Not now. }

So here’s a shot from last weekend’s family, showing extreme detail in her eye. We are talking about tack* on the front of the eye. Um, hello? That’s me in her eyeball. And look how nicely the focus falls off. That’s due to a particularly wonderful lens. For photographers: this was shot with a D700 at ISO400, 85mm 1.4f lens, 2.2f at 1/500sec, window light at left, reflector at 45 degrees right.

Love being a dork. — heidi

* tack is super-nerd lingo for tack sharp.

A few months ago, Design Aglow, a magazine and professional photography resource, asked for photographers to share their “dirty little secrets”. That is, how do we get the shot?

I sent in one of my tricks with an accompanying picture and it was chosen to lead the article! YAY! (You’ll see that it is one the pictures that I use in this site header too.)

For me, this is a great honor. Photographers are improvisers — we must constantly think and adapt to changing conditions. During a shoot I always ask myself: what is the light doing? where are the shadows? how are the kids holding up? is Mom tearing her hair out yet? what is the background?

To photographers who read this site, I do strongly recommend that you check Design Aglow. You will be hooked…

Me: “Regan, I love your haircut.”
Regan: “Thanks. I did it myself.”
Me: “Would you like to sit in the princess chair?”
Regan: “That is not a princess chair. That is a Queen chair. Sure, OK.”

These shots are just the tip of the iceberg for her personality.

I am also delighted to include some fly-on-the-wall images from this session, taken by Regan’s mother, who is a very accomplished photographer herself. I basically threw a spare camera at her and said “here ya go!” Many many thanks, Kerri! I hope these extra images will give some insight about how I do sessions with small children. You can see that there is not a lot of intimidating equipment around, and that I spend a good portion of time making the child feel comfortable. What you cannot see is how chatty the session usually is. Regan is looking at the camera in so many shots because we are just blabbing away!

Giving is Awesome was founded in December of 2008. It was a simple premise: photographers give a portrait shoot and products to a family who deserves it, but can’t afford it. In the twelve weeks since then, over 530 photographers have donated over $550,000 worth of custom portraiture to families who couldn’t afford it. Artists in places as far flung as Australia, the Philippines, the United Kingdom, and Mexico joined in. Giving is Awesome is also featured in this month’s issue of Professional Photographer magazine, and we’re looking to continue to spread the word about giving. Lenovo and Microsoft are sponsoring the ‘Name Your Dream Assignment’ contest, which grants $50,000 to the photographer who wins to shoot whatever/wherever they would like.

What better way to spread the word than to load 12 photographers into a tour bus and hit up cities with Giving is Awesome shoots? The blog traffic generated by the tour would easily reach 50,000 photographers per day, thus multiplying the number of photographers who sign on for the 2009 version of Giving is Awesome. (The goal: 15,000 photographers for the 2009 edition.)

…but how would we decide who to shoot for those tour bus Giving is Awesome giveaways? Why, we would rely on our friends at ConKerr Cancer, an international charity, to provide our subjects: children currently living with cancer. We’d be bringing awareness of both utterly smashing organizations to light, spreading the photographic love, AND rockin’ a tour bus! Now we’re talkin’!

What if this project doesn’t cost $50,000? Easy! ConKerr Cancer receives the funds to purchase cameras for their chapter coordinators, less the expenses of the tour. This allows the impact of the tour to go much further than the people on the bus, or even the photographers associated with Giving is Awesome. It’s the ripple effect in its truest form, giving sparking giving sparking giving.

For more information about the organizations mentioned: www.givingisawesome.com & www.conkerrcancer.org

DIG IT? GO VOTE! Click that little ‘pic’ button in the upper left of the assignment details, when you get there. (You’ll have to register to do so, but I promise it’s worth it! Pretty please, vote?)

GO!! http://www.nameyourdreamassignment.com/the-ideas/givingisawesome/giving-is-awesome-tour/

The PPA article: