Green Monster
Sometimes Connor gets tired of having his picture taken and just stares at me looking very annoyed. That is when his toy takes his place and I get to shoot something that doesn’t constantly move. Key light is through an umbrella and the blue edge light is bare.
Back Porch
Connor is walking down our back steps in to the back yard. He is lit with two lights. One is through an umbrella to my right. The second is bare and at the bottom of the steps, pointing up at him. Nice hat!
Connor’s New Bed
“Surely there aren’t any monsters under my new bed!“
Connor is almost two and a half and he has a new brother on the way. I figured that it was about time to move him out of the crib and into a bed. I found some great plans and went to work. Modified slightly because I wanted a railing. It’s actually a little snug for a modern crib mattress, but it still works. I would make a few minor adjustments if I were to build it again.
All shots were taken with two off-camera flashes. I have lighting descriptions on various flickr pages: Naked Furniture, Monsters, Morning Light, B/W, Froggies.
Reading To Connor
I make periodic self portraits with Connor and myself. I took this one partly to test out my new second speedlight. I have the main one pointed through an umbrella in front of us and the second one is on the floor behind me. You can see a little bit of blue light on my shoulder from that one. I’m also wearing my new Star Wars apron – taking a break from cooking.
Flaming Pumpkin Festival – Year Three
Welcome the the Third Annual Flaming Pumpkin Festival! It’s always nice to end Halloween with a nice flaming pumpkin…. or pumpkins.
My favorite shot of the night is the one above. He was a very small pumpkin with a very large mouth. Buy prints of him HERE. Makes a great gift!
I added one element to the photography this year. I had a wireless flash positioned to the right of the camera with an orange gel to keep the color nice and warm. I didn’t use it on every shot – see right. I also had a continuous light behind the jack-o-lanterns gelled blue to illuminate the smoke.
The pumpkins are filled with flammable materials and sprayed with generous portions of lighter fluid. – Don’t try this at home.
Year Two
Here’s last year’s victims! More pictures in this post: prestonpro.com/photoblog/2010/11/08/flaming-pumpkin-festival
Year One
My first ever flaming pumpkin. I loved this guy, he was HUGE. Here’s a multi-exposure shot from before the burning: prestonpro.com/photoblog/2010/01/09/great-pumpkin
99 %
Here’s a nice stock photo of some bills and change. I made it all in one exposure (no photoshop) using a long exposure and an off camera flash.
Seattle Zombie Walk 2011
The 2011 Seattle Zombie Walk has come and gone with another world record.
It’s now the end of October and this weekend’s ZomBcon has reminded me that I never posted about this event from July!
The record was successfully broken with 4,522 registered zombies.
Here’s a small collection of some of my favorite shots.
I shot the zombies using 50mm and 24mm lenses in natural light. Click on any of them to zoom into the large size.
If you spot yourself, send me your info so I can get you a larger copy.
Zombie walks on Wikipedia.
Demon Moon
I went to Seattle last night with the hopes of getting a good shot of the “super moon” from Kerry Park. We arrived before sunset and found dozens of other photographers already there with their cameras and tripods out, lining the wall, waiting for the moon to make an appearance. I got some shots of the crowd and took a dinner break at the 5 Spot. When we came back the moon was finally out and the crowd had only gotten bigger. No one was shooting near the sculpture, so I set up there. The shot is a six second exposure with a 24mm. During the exposure, I quickly fired my flash three times by hand pointing it at different areas of the sculpture.
Snack
Connor enjoys a Cheerio and milk break while we take a walking tour of the University of Washington campus. We’re currently at Red Square and in the background is Suzzallo Library.
Happy PI Day – 3.14
Yesterday while brainstorming ideas for PI Day, the main image that kept coming to mind was π shaped bokeh. I had read the concept for creating the light shapes before, but had never tried it. The miniature cutting took a while, but worked great in the end. The lights are Christmas lights strung up over black fabric. The foreground lighting is a flash behind the subjects and to the left of camera with a reflector to the right. I used a Pentax 50mm f2.0 lens at 2.0 for every shot. Click on the smaller images to see them full size.
Hellboy and Wink
Wink and Hellboy were both shot with the Pentax 50mm 2.0. They are lit with a 20″ softbox to the right and a gold reflector just off camera on the left. The background is a blue painted poster board from another project. These guys have always been favorites of mine to shoot.
Sleeping
Connor took a nap on the couch today and I couldn’t help getting a shot of him in the sunbeam from the front door. I had my 20″ softbox ready so I added it behind him as a backlight. My favorite shot ended up being this one that I was going to use to document the lighting set-up. I ended up replacing the background with another shot of a blue backdrop. Loving the single sock on the ottoman…
Greenbird!
Salsa!
This is my first attempt at making salsa. I photographed the process with my Pentax 50mm 2.0 and lit with a wireless strobe bounce off the ceiling. It was pretty tasty stuff and fun to shoot while cutting. Click on any of the small photos to see them large.
Emerald City ComiCon 2011
Last weekend was the ninth Emerald City ComiCon and I was there to photograph the atmosphere. Click on any of the images to see large sizes.
Having been a huge Star Trek: The Next Generation fan it was amazing to meet William Riker himself, Jonathan Frakes. I was able to tag along with my station’s press crew and get a little more access to a few stars. Also below is is Tron, Bruce Boxleitner.
The Blue Period
Above: Bare strobe on floor pointed up at Connor. Color temperature pushed cool and then slightly desaturated.
Below: Full CTO on strobe at eye level. Shutter speed set at 1/6th second to give me time for a quick pan move while shooting. Flash freezes Connor while the deep blue sky washes over him.
Splash!
Trying my hand at splash photography. Flash is below the set firing straight up. The glass is a tasting glass from last year’s Pumpkin Beer Fest and the green object is a mini tiki pencil top. This turned out to be harder than it looked. Both the aim and timing are tough.
Flaming Pumpkin Festival
Welcome to The Second Annual Flaming Pumpkin Festival! Above are the before shots of “Stinky Pete” and “Scarface”. They both enjoyed long and fruitful lives before being burnt to a slightly charred medium well. They were carved on Halloween Eve and lasted three glorious nights before entertaining us with flames shooting out of their eyes and mouths.
Click on the smaller images to see full size.
Vashon
We finally took Connor to his Nana’s house on Vashon Island recently. It was both his first time on a ferry and an island. I managed to take over three hundred pictures and then deemed over one hundred good enough to be processed. All of the pictures in this post were either taken with my 50mm 2.0 or 24mm 3.5. Click on any of the smaller pictures to see them full size.
Here’s Connor on a Washington State ferry. He has a great time getting help walking up the aisles on the passenger deck by Leah. Below he’s enjoying the benches up front with the great views and hanging out by the emergency life rafts. There was a really good photographer on board that took a great family portrait of us.
Valerie made a great shrimp po’ boy lunch for us. Connor enjoyed the fireplace and crawling on the new floors.
Connor hangs out on the dock and the beach. I really love that wooden sculpture that someone built years ago.
Petting Zoo
We recently took Connor to a petting zoo for the first time. I have a bunch of shots of him looking at/touching the animals, but I thought that these would look more interesting here. That is Leah and Connor in the way out of focus background below.
Valerie’s Garden
I took these shots of Valerie’s garden on our recent trip to her house on Vashon Island. I usually do shots like this with the 50mm, but decided to do the whole shoot with the 24mm for a change of pace and perspective. The few shots here don’t quite do justice to how many cool plants are there, but they’re some of my favorites of the day. Click on the smaller pics for large sizes.
That’s the house up there. The deck and kitchen widows provide great views of Quartermaster Harbor and the other side of the island.
Everett Marina
These shots are from the guest moorage dock at the Everett Marina. Everything here was shot with the 50mm 2.0. I really loved the structure over the dock. It provided some great perception of depth when shooting from end to the other.
Aliens at the Beach
While doing a photo shoot with Connor at the beach in Everett, I took a break to get some landscape shots. That’s when I spotted these three through the grass. I managed to get off a few shots before they were gone.
Magnum
Let’s begin with the shot above. Connor is giving us his best attempt at “Magnum”. I think he’ll have “Blue Steel” down in the next couple of months. These shots are from Howarth Park in Everett. We were shooting with a very bright backlight coming from the high sun. I used my gold reflector to get some of that light onto his face. I’m also a big fan of the Monkey Butt shot down below.
Magnuson Park
These four shots are from a trip that Connor and I took to Seattle’s Magnuson Park by ourselves. We were hanging out while Leah and her mom were attending an event in another part of the park. He had just started crawling at the time and it was hard to keep him in one place to get some shots. Everything was shot with the Pentax 50mm 2.0. I really love the black and white shot from behind. He’s watching some kids playing basketball.
