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.
Connor at the Log
Connor climbs onto our log table on a sunny day. He’s lit with a softbox to the right.
Connor and the Fence
Connor takes a moment out of his day to pose in front of the newly completed picket fence. He is lit with a softbox on camera right with the sun as a backlight. The fence is one of the three projects that I finished this year. The other two are a sandbox and a bed. I’ll show some pictures of those soon.
Vashon Early Morning
These shots are from an early morning walk on the shores of the southern tip of Maury Island. I used a small off-camera flash to illuminate the foreground and retain the blue sky.
Leaving only my footprints behind.
Q13 Anchor Headshots
Some of the news anchors at Q13 recently asked me to shoot some new headshots for social media sites.
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.
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.
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.
Tragic Mix
I had my camera with me today when I came to work and had to grab a shot of the audio console while on break. The wireless strobe is laying just out of frame on the console pointing back toward the camera.
On FLICKR
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.
