Jeff Cable's Blog

Another fun Bat Mitzvah: And Sophie's awesome party!

2012-01-30T21:19:00.000-08:00

People sometimes ask me why I love to photograph events like Bar and Bat Mitzvahs. Some people are in this business strictly for the money, but I shoot these events because I feel privileged to be able to capture family history and I push myself to create something very special for them. Not only that, but I am invited to be a part of the family for the day. For a typical day, I am with the family from 9am until 11pm. We better have fun together! This past Saturday I became part of Sophie's family and I had a great time capturing images for them. As always, I tried some new photo techniques and looked for those key moments that defined them (not me).

We started taking photos at 9am. In order to separate the family from the background, I chose to use the Sigma 85mm 1.4 lens. The depth of field on this lens is amazing and allows me to have some fun. I also used a Canon 580EX II flash with a diffuser to add a little punch of light.

Sophie showed up in the morning and was ready for photos. She knew the routine, since I had photographed her for their signature board at their beach house months before.

As we started shooting images on Saturday morning, she and I looked at the back of the camera, and she said "I am so photogenic today" and she was!

Later that evening it was party time! They had the party at the Pacific Athletic Club in Redwood Shores, CA and the place was decked out! But before I shot images inside, I took Sophie outside to get some shots of her in front of these trees with lights on them. I knew that shooting the Sigma at an aperture of 1.4 would let me blur the background beautifully and keep her tack sharp. (Photographer's note: You might be wondering why I shot this image with Sophie so far to one side. I did this, thinking that this might make a nice cover shot for their album, or at very least, a good two-page spread. If you were to wrap this image, you would have Sophie on the cover with the lit tree on the back page - where you could inset another image. You should always think about your final product when shooting images at these types of events.)

There are certain "key shots" when shooting a Bar or Bat Mitzvah, and this is one of those. I made sure to insert myself into the middle of the dancing to get this shot of Sophie being lifted in the chair. I love her reaction as she first gets lifted high. (Photographer's note: For this shot, I used the Canon 16-35mm wide angle lens at 16mm - aperture of f2.8. It is very important that you make sure to stand back a little. If you get too close to the subject, they will become too distorted and you will end up with some pretty hideous shots. The best shots are usually just as they first get lifted in the chair, since this is when they are most surprised.)

And then I quickly moved back onto the DJ's stage to get a high shot of the family dancing.

The DJ can make or break these types of parties, and Dan (from Denon and Doyle) is one of the best. He is great at getting people out on the dance floor, and I grabbed this shot of him working the crowd.

These two images (above and below) show mom having fun at the party. For these shots, I made sure to have the focus on her, but also shoot wide enough to include the crowd around her.

(Photographer's note: To draw a little more attention on mom, I lightened her face (and Sophie's) in Adobe Camera Raw. Remember that your viewer will be drawn to the lighter part of the image.)

My favorite part of shooting any event, is when something great happens that was not scripted. This shot shows one of those great moments. The DJ invited everyone to sit down for dinner and then put on one of Sophie's favorite songs. Without missing a beat, Sophie stopped in her tracks and started singing the song with her friends. I love this!

Speaking of "real moments", check out this shot of Sophie watching her photo montage. Do you think that you can recreate this moment? No way. This is the real thing. I knew that she had not seen the montage before, so I sat down on the floor near her, pre-focused on her eyes and waited for her moments of surprise. I was rewarded with this. (Photographer's note: While everyone in the room is watching the video montage, this is the best time for you to be taking images of mom, dad and the children. Because the room will be darker than usual, you should use a very fast lens and a diffused flash. I like to turn the flash down a bit, making sure not to over light my subject.)

Another great moment during the montage, as Sophie and her friend react to a funny picture.

If this photo does not make you laugh, something might be wrong with you. :) I saw these two putting on some props and getting ready to step into the photo booth. I set my camera to the proper settings, pulled the curtain back, and shot this. When going through the images at home the next day, my wife and daughter said that this was their favorite of all time. Too funny.

Towards the end of the evening, Sophie did a candle lighting celebration.

Of all the images of the day, I think that this is my favorite. Again, shooting this image wide open at f1.4, I was able to grab this image with no flash at all. I wanted to make sure to keep the mood from the candle light and not add any "artificial light" to the shot. I did lighten Sophie in ACR in post processing, but was able to maintain the great light that was surrounding her.

As the night wound down, there was time for one last slow dance. I saw that Sophie was dancing with this nice young man, so I ran over, hopped up on the DJ's riser, and asked them to look up at the camera. Another fun shot, and another memory for them forever.

San Francisco: A foggy day and night can make some really nice photos

2012-01-27T21:01:00.000-08:00

Living near San Francisco, I have had many chances to photograph the city. The great thing about SF is that the weather changes so often that no two trips are the same. On this particular visit to the city, the fog was pretty heavy, and mostly covering the Golden Gate Bridge. Many people would look at this as an unfortunate situation, but since I have photographed this area with clear skies, I embraced the fog and used it to my advantage.

When we first arrived at Fort Point, the bridge was completely obscured by the fog, but as we walked around the area, we could see that the fog was starting to clear in certain spots. I waited for both towers to become visible and shot this image. I really like the way that the second tower is just barely visible in the distance.

We were walking away from the bridge, and when I turned around I saw this scene with the bridge half covered and all the people in the foreground. Notice how all the tourists and buildings create a strong foreground to better accent the background.

Further along our walk, we came across one of my wife's favorite areas. This is the rocky beach where people like to stack the rocks into formations. I got down low to this stack and shot this image with the Palace of Fine Arts in the background.

Towards the end of the day, we made our way across the Golden Gate Bridge to the small town of Sausalito. Just after the sun set, I saw this beautiful color appear over Angel Island. I set up my tripod and quickly grabbed some shots before it disappeared. So pretty!

You know how I said that fog can actually add to a photo? Well, here is a perfect example of that! San Francisco has a really pretty skyline, mostly defined by the Transamerica pyramid. When you see the typical postcard shot of the skyline, they are taken with perfectly clear skies, but I actually like this shot with the "key" buildings peeking out from the fog. The lights of the city are illuminating the fog and the light at the top of the Transamerica building is perfectly lit. The Coast Guard boat, to the left of the photo, helps fill what would normally be a dark void. (You can click on these images to see them larger.)

Fifteen minutes after shooting the fog covered skyline, the weather changed again and I got this shot of the skyline more visible. I like both images, but what makes them interesting to me, is that they are taken from the same spot, in a short time span, and yet so different.

San Francisco Steets - Haight Ashbury Graffiti at it's best!

2012-01-21T14:06:00.000-08:00

There is something really cool about returning to your home town and seeing it in an entirely new way. In all the years that I spent growing up in San Francisco, I rarely made the trip (no pun intended) to the Haight Ashbury area. But in December, I was driving through the area with my family, as we headed towards Golden Gate Park, and I saw all this great graffiti on the buildings. Not wanting to disrupt the family plans, I kept quiet and drove through. My mind was screaming "Stop and shoot some images of this!"

We drove another 1/2 mile towards the park and one of the kids said "That was really cool graffiti back there", and everyone else started talking about turning around and taking pictures there. Without any hesitation, I swung the car around and we went back, and I am glad that we did.

The color and form in this street art is amazing. We walked around and found some really cool alleyways covered with this artistic expression.

I really like the way that the two guys sitting in the bottom left of the frame seem to blend right in with the art.

This place really is a trip (pun intended this time) and I found myself equally fascinated with the wall art and the people who inhabit this area.

The wife and kids were armed with their new iPhones (with a much improved camera) and they captured some really cool images.Everyone liked this "rainbow wall".

Here is my son Connor who was using the Hipstomatic app to gather some very nice shots. He has a really great eye for photography, as does my wife and daughter.

These are close-up shots of the rainbow wall (seen above). It was really amazing to see the detail in this mural.

I was drawn to the colors here, and really liked the fact that even a piece of plywood, which obviously was covering up something, could be camouflaged so well.

We took a lot of images of the walls, but I wanted to focus on the details as well.

Believe it or not, this was one of my favorite images from our walk. I saw this door handle (you can see this in the first image in this blog post) and really liked the colors and the way that something so mundane could look so interesting. What do you think? Am I nuts?

In one of the alleyways, I saw some more cool graffiti but was disappointed that cars were parked in the way of getting a full view. But, then it occurred to me that the reflection of the art onto the hood of the car actually made for an interesting photo, so I incorporated the car into the shot.

And then, after looking at the images of the car reflections, I started looking for other cars that were parked in front of graffiti filled walls to see if I could find more unique views. I found that the darker vehicles, that were fairly clean, would give me the best results. For this image, I got down low to the side of the car to find the best reflection. My goal was to highlight the reflection but still show enough of the vehicle to let you know what you are looking at. This just goes to show you that what first might appear to be a distraction to your image, may become the main subject.

A Bat Mitzvah - Hollywood Style

2012-01-17T08:07:00.000-08:00

This past Saturday was another mitzvah photo day for me. It was Sarah's big day at Peninsula Temple Beth El, which is a pretty Temple located just South of San Francisco. I had just returned to the SF Bay Area from another trip out of state, and was worried that my lack of sleep would effect my shooting concentration. But, as it turns out, I think I should shoot while sleepless more often!

OK, to be fair, my photographic skills were good, but my subjects and the environment is what really made this special. All I had to do was take control of the camera and be creative, right?

The inside of this Temple is very modern with blonde wood and amazing colored accents. I have photographed here before, and I love shooting the images at a wide aperture to blur the background and draw attention to the kids and their family.

It is important to get nice individual photos, but equally important to get a nice family shot as well. As I look at these images, it just makes me so happy to do what I do. I feel like the luckiest person in the world, to capture family history for all these families.

This is a photo from inside the Rabbi's office. Rabbi Eisner spent quite a bit of time with the family before the service and emphasized the importance of the day. As he spoke to the family, I stayed in the background and grabbed some shots at those moments when I felt that it would add to the story of the day. Yep, that is what this is all about. We need to tell the story of the day through images. I especially liked this shot since it shows the smiles, the admiration, and the love of the family.

After the service (which I am not allowed to photograph at this Temple), it was party time. And let me tell you, these people know how to throw a party! The theme of the party was "Hollywood", because Sarah is really into acting. They had rolled out the red carpet at the entrance to the party and also included mirrors with lights, like you would see inside a green room. Before all the guests arrived, I saw Sarah looking in the mirror and asked her to hold that pose for a minute while I captured this shot. I am SO glad that I did! I also had her strike a bunch of other poses for me (hey - she is an actress, right?!) which also turned out nicely.

And since I liked Sarah's "mirror shot" so much, I asked her parents to stand in this spot as well. (Photographer's note: There are a couple of key elements in this image which I used to my advantage. First of all, I wanted to shoot wide enough to include, not only their faces, but also their backs, so that the viewer understands that this is a mirror shot. I popped a little bit of on-camera flash to make sure that there would be a little bit of light on their backs to separate them from the background. I then manipulated the image in Adobe Photoshop to darken certain areas, lighten their faces, and clean up the dust spots on the mirror. I also noticed that one of the light bulbs was not lit, so I cloned a bulb from a different spot and fixed that. After I had retouched the image completely, I ran it through NIK DFine to remove digital noise and voila!)

After shooting the other mirror images and letting the video team steal my idea (but I love Andy and his crew so we are all good), I had Sarah turn towards me for a side shot. For this photo I did not use any additional flash, but relied on the light bulbs to light the front of her face.

Did I mention the big party? Oh yeah, this place was decked out with all kinds of Hollywood details. And the kids came ready to dance. Linda and Gary, from the Pinnacle Production Group, were incredible. Their attention to detail made my job that much easier. As many of you know, having a good background is almost as important as having a good subject and foreground. The decorations in this venue made this a perfect place to shoot!

I am always striving to get a different shot of the party. Do I have a bunch of images of the kids dancing? Yep. But, I also wanted to get a shot showing Mark (the tireless DJ from Denon and Doyle) and Andy (the king of event videography from Blue Moon Productions) working the crowd. So I held my camera above my head and shot an image over Mark's head and down at the crowd. I used Andy's light to highlight Sarah and my diffused on-camera flash to light up Mark. (Photographer's note: My flash actually made Mark's arms a little too bright, so I darkened them in Adobe Camera RAW so that they were not the brightest part of the image. The human eye is drawn to the brightest area and I wanted that to be Sarah. But, notice how the position of Mark's arms frame the action and draw your eye right to the center of the photo - right where Sarah is standing.)

I have photographed many speeches from the parents, but having this amazing background really made a huge difference. The statues and Hollywood sign frame mom and dad perfectly.

After the parent's speeches, some of Sarah's friends surprised her with a tribute. I knew this was coming, so I positioned myself behind Sarah to include her in the photo. You don't need to see her face to feel her emotion in this shot.

And the surprises kept coming, as Sarah surprised most everyone with a song. It is so cool to see 13 year old kids (or young adults) who have such poise and confidence.

As a photographer, it is easy to get captivated by the main subject, but it is also important to be looking around at all times. As I photographed Sarah singing her song, I noticed her parents standing off to the side of the stage, thoroughly enjoying her performance. I quickly moved over to get some shots of her parents, to show the pride and joy in their faces.

Towards the end of the evening, it was time for the father/daughter dance. But this time, dad decided to dance with both of his girls. It was an amazingly emotional time for them and I did everything I could to grab this image. I must have shot 25 images of this dance to get that one perfect shot with both girls visible and dad feeling the moment. After shooting these images, and seeing this one on the back of the camera, I knew that my day was complete!

Pinnacles National Monument: A beautiful National Park

2012-01-13T13:33:00.000-08:00

Over the holiday break, the family decided to make a day trip to Pinnacles National Monument (National Park) which is located about 3 hours South of San Francisco. We had great weather, albeit a little on the cool side, and really enjoyed our short 3 mile hike.

This park has a nice variety of trails, caves, creeks and even a pretty little pond at the top of the hike. We were surprised that the pond was lightly frozen over, which is very unusual in Northern California. I really liked the reflection of the rocks off of the surface of the pond.

One of the highlights of this park is the hiking through the caves. They have two different caves (upper and lower), but due to the fact that thousands of bats were hibernating, the upper cave was closed when we made our visit. As you exit the lower cave, you come out to this huge rock which has fallen and lodged itself in this precarious spot. Very cool!

The rock formations are really beautiful in this area.

Here is a self portrait of me shooting. This is probably one of the more flattering images of myself. :)

I shot this photo to include the foliage in the foreground, while still highlighting the rock formation in the center of the image.

As you might know, I am always trying to find the beauty in nature, even if it is not the obvious scene that most people would photograph. I shot this image showing the amazing colors of the natural growth on the rocks.

Guess who just got full credentials to the 2012 London Olympics?

2012-01-06T17:44:00.000-08:00

Since the day after returning from the Winter Olympics in Vancouver, I have been working with numerous groups to see if I could secure one of the few photo credentials to the 2012 Olympic Games in London. Well...after a lot of work and a lot of waiting, I heard from the U.S. Olympic Committee yesterday and I received the top level credential. Some call this credential "The Golden Ticket" because it gives you virtually unlimited access at the games. I can shoot every event, from the best position. With just over 50 of these in the entire country (including Sports Illustrated and all the large newspapers and magazines) it really is a photographer's dream. Even though this will be my third Olympic Games, I still consider this to be a once in a lifetime opportunity.

So...make sure to subscribe to the blog to see the events that lead up to the Olympics and then daily posts from London, starting in late July.

That is one DIRTY puppy!

2012-01-05T10:30:00.000-08:00

I usually do not write a blog post with only two images, but this one was just too darned funny to pass up. The other day I was editing images in my home office when my wife called out to me to come over to the family room with my camera. I wondered what she wanted me to shoot, so I grabbed the camera and went out to see what was going on. There is front of me, was one dirty little dog!

I guess this is what happens when you don't give a puppy enough attention. He went on a little digging expedition in the back yard. We would have been really mad about the 6 inch hole that Cooper dug in the grass, but he was so darned cute that we just laughed about this. I tried shooting images through the glass door but they weren't good enough, so I risked my clean clothes, opened the door and shot some images of the guilty little guy. I just love the way that the mud covered his paws and was perfectly placed on his face, with just a touch above his eyes. We could not have done a better make-up job if we had tried.

After getting some cute pictures, it was time to give Cooper a good bath. My wife then grabbed a blow dryer and went to work on him. I had fun taking more photos as he stared down my wife while getting coiffed.

What is the lesson here? Well...I guess if you are a photographer, the lesson would be to have your camera ready at all times. And...if you are the owner of a puppy, don't leave them alone for a second! :)

My Favorite Images of 2011 (A Video)

2011-12-31T15:20:00.000-08:00

To continue the tradition...here is a 5 minute video highlighting my favorite images of 2011. I hope that you enjoy viewing the show as much as I did capturing the images throughout the year.

(To see this video larger, click on the YouTube icon and watch it there in 720p)

I am sure that 2012 will be a great year, full of memorable moments and amazing experiences. I hope that I can capture those in images to share with you all. Happy New Year to you all!

Boise, Idaho: Christmas lights around the capital

2011-12-30T11:07:00.000-08:00

As you can see from the previous blog entries, I spent part of last week in Boise to shoot some videos for Lexar / Micron. I posted some images showing some creative ways to use your camera to make Christmas lights more interesting. The following image is a combination of two shots (taken while on a tripod). I decided that I liked the unfocused lights on the Christmas tree, but wanted everything else in focus. So...I combined the out of focus photo and the in focus photo to make this image.

And, as the year winds down and we get ready to take down all of our lights and decorations, I thought I would post a couple of my favorite images of the capitol, which I took over two evenings.

The first evening, I went around and took numerous images of the capitol building. It was after 10pm and the night was very dark (not to mention the cold - brrrrrrr).

I love the way that the purple lights from the tree light the sidewalk below. This photographed beautifully in contrast to the white lights of the building.

And then, the following evening, I went back to the Capital building and tried some more images. I timed it earlier so that I could capture the deep blue sky just after sunset. Since I had already photographed in this area the night before, I had some ideas of where I wanted to shoot in this better light. (Photographer's note: It is always advantageous to scout out an area, if at all possible, so that you know the best vantage points, when you have a short amount time with "perfect light" to work with.)

I shot this image from the edge of the street to not only capture the building, but to get the street sign peeking in the frame.

And then, to add something different to the image, I went behind a barren tree and shot this image, using the branches of the tree as a foreground element.

This last shot has a funny story. I was shooting images from many different vantage points, and was looking for another foreground subject, but could not find anything else that interested me. I thought to myself "I wish I had someone sitting on that park bench." Then I thought, "Hey - I could sit there, if only I had brought a flash with me." It didn't take long for me to realize that I had my iPhone 4s which has a flashlight app, and that I could leave the shutter open for 30 seconds and insert myself into the photo. So that is exactly what I did. I set up the camera on the tripod, set the exposure for 30 seconds, hit the shutter and then hurried over to the spot and sat there with the iPhone light shining up towards my face. Goofy but fun to try. :)

Idaho Steelheads ECHL Hockey: A chance to shoot images from the bench

2011-12-26T14:35:00.000-08:00

Last week, while in Boise for some other business, I decided that, since the Idaho Steelheads hockey team was in town, I would head over and check out the game. I talked to a friend of mine who works for the team and he said "Hey - do you want to shoot the game for us?" I thought about this for a little bit, since honestly I was torn between shooting more hockey or just relaxing and watching the game for the pure pleasure of it. But, after much thought, I decided to shoot the game, and I am glad that I did.

There were three reasons that I decided to photograph the game. First of all, my passion for photography won out. Secondly, even though I did not have my 70-200 2.8 IS lens with me, I knew where I could borrow one easily. Lastly, after talking to my buddy, Britt, he said that I would have full access to shoot from the bench with no glass in front of me. The thought of shooting this high level of hockey without having to deal with a small hole in the glass (or shooting through the glass) was intriguing.

A nice "cluster" of guys working in front of the net. I also like the fact that the puck is clearly visible in the far left of the frame.

One of the advantages of shooting from the player bench, is that everything is happening right in front of me. Even during the down times, I could shoot images of the guys as they talked strategy and listen in.

This image (above) was taken with my iPhone 4s during one of the times when the play had stopped. This shows you where I was standing during the game. Why did I take this with my iPhone? Because I only had one lens with me for the game and that was a 70-200. Not wide enough for this shot from this vantage point. :)

After the Steelheads scored a goal...the celebratory gathering.

Gotta love the beard on Chris Hepp!

Another goal...another celebration.

Pure concentration from the goalie as he awaits the inevitable shot from the Alaska Aces player.

As I mentioned earlier, it was fun to have so much freedom while shooting this game. I was shooting from right next to the players bench, with no glass separator between us.

I could shoot really nice images of the coaches at work and even had full access to the locker room between periods and after the game. I can guarantee you that I do not get this level of access when shooting the NHL or Olympics.

As a hockey player myself, I found it really interesting to hear the discussions and colorful talk on the bench throughout the game. Great stuff!

The game went into overtime shootout, and Marc Rancourt made this great goal, to make it 1 to 0 in the shootout. From this shot, it does not look possible that he snuck the puck past the goalie's outstretched leg, but he did.

Jerry Huhn, the Steelheads goalie, played an awesome game against Alaska. Here is a shot of him stopping one of the Aces as he tried to make a backhand move.

This is the type of shot that I am always looking to capture. This was the final shootout goal of the game with Derek LeBlanc sneaking the puck five hole on the Alaska goalie. You can see the puck getting past their goalie as it makes it way to the back of the net.

Game over and time to congratulate each other. I shot a couple images of this, but this one really stood out from the others. Why? Looking right into the middle of the group, you see Ian Lowe, with his perfect hockey smile (missing teeth). That makes the picture! :)

After the game, I followed the team into the locker room and captured a couple of images of Coach Sauter giving his post-game speech. As you can imagine, it was an upbeat speech after a very good, and exciting game.

Thanks to Britt, Coach Sauter and the rest of the Steelheads organization for letting me be a part of the action for the evening.

Creative photography during the holidays - Having fun photographing lights!

2011-12-21T08:26:00.000-08:00

Check out this cool image. Would you believe that this is just another Christmas tree, photographed in a different way? Well...it is true and I am going to tell you some cool ways to take your everyday holiday lights and make them into your own artwork.

OK. Let's start with the basics. You need a bunch of holiday lights and a camera which lets you control the focus and shutter speed.

The first image was taken from this Christmas tree. This is one of the "normal pictures" that I took when first approaching this tree. I set the camera on my tripod, focused on the tree and took this. It is pretty, but not spectacular, and my first thought was "how do I make this more original?".

So...I turned off the auto focus on my DSLR camera and manually set the focus to purposely blur the lights. I liked the results, but this started me thinking about other ways that I could turn this tree into something even more. And then the fun really began!

If you are a regular reader of my blog you have undoubtedly seen me use my zoom during a long exposure to create some cool effects. I did this once again, but like the image before, wanted to push myself to get something better. And after going back to my computer and looking at these images, I decided to go back to the tree to try making some more "art".

For this image and the rest of them in this blog entry, I did not use a tripod, but handheld the camera to shake things up a bit. For this image, I once again put the camera in manual focus mode and made sure that the lights were very much out of focus. After doing this, I then combined that with the zoom effect, where I zoom the lens during a multi-second exposure (typically between .5 sec and 1.5 sec).

This image was taken like the one above, but I extended the length of the exposure (1.5 sec) to create more blur. Hopefully, at this point, you are seeing what I was thinking. Continually asking myself "OK, that was cool, but what else can I do?" There were people in the area who asked me what I was doing. I showed them the images on the LCD of the camera, and after seeing their overwhelming positive reactions, I knew that I had some images to share with all of you.

After shooting the out-of-focus images, I decided to try and shoot some images in which I would handhold the image and change the focus during the exposure. You can see the results of this technique by looking at the smaller focused points of light within each of the blurred lights.

Next, I kept with the out of focus setting, but instead of keeping the camera pointed at one part of the tree, I moved the camera back and forth to create the waves of color that you see here.

...And again with a longer shutter speed.

I then tightened the focus a bit more and swept the camera back and forth as I moved it down a portion of the tree to create these snake-like shapes.

I even tried moving the camera straight up and down the tree to see if that would be interesting.

I saved this image for the end of the blog (as I often do) because it is one of my favorites from the evening of shooting. As you can see from this photo, I had a pretty tight focus on the lights of the tree, and twisted the camera during the exposure, hence the circular pattern. But, it wasn't until I got back to my Mac and saw the face in the middle, that I realized how cool this was. Do you see it? It looks to me like a smirking cartoon character right in the middle of the circular lights. No planning, just great luck!

I encourage everyone to try these techniques, to find the enjoyment and amazement that I did last night. If you do, make sure to share your images with me!

Family photos: Some ideas on how to take better photos for the holidays

2011-12-17T10:19:00.000-08:00

Towards the end of every year I start getting phone calls and emails from friends asking for family photos. There is nothing more gratifying than capturing nice images for family friends, who otherwise may not have them. As I looked through all of the images, I thought that I would do a blog post about family portraits to help give some tips for others to use.

All of the images that you see here were taken in the same small park by my house. I have not photographed in this spot all that much, but try to come up with a different location for my friends each year. I picked this park because the trees still had fall colors and their was ample sunlight and shade for me to pick good shooting locations.

This was one of the first shots that I took of Dave (one of my hockey teammates) and his clan. This is a nice "straight-on" shot of them. We had the younger kids sit in the front to add a little more dimension. I am not a huge fan of the straight line "firing squad" look. :)

After shooting the first grouping, we repositioned the family to try something different.

Then we searched for a tree with interesting bark to try something a little more fun. We started with the parents in front and then had the kids go around behind the tree and peek out from behind them.

Remember how I just said that I usually do not line up families in a straight row? Well... part of photography is about breaking the rules. So, this time I broke one of my own rules and had them line up and hold hands for this shot.

Walking through the park, we came across this area of grass which was covered with fall leaves. I asked the kids to lay down and hold hands and then, using a 24mm lens, I pre-focused the camera and held it out directly over them and fired off this shot. (This was our favorite from the session and the image that they used for their holiday card.)

But, we were not finished yet. It was time for the kids to have some fun. I asked each of them to pick up a bunch of leaves, and then on my count of three, to throw them in the air. My wife, who was there helping out, asked the parents to stand in the background. It was a great idea and a nice addition to the photo. (Photographer's note: For all of the images in this blog post, I used an on-camera flash generally set to -1 stop. For this particular image, due to the fact that I needed a fast shutter speed of 1/1600 to freeze the action (and my camera and flash only sync at a maximum of 1/200), I set my flash to high speed sync mode. Without the flash, the kids would have been silhouettes, due to the bright sunlight coming from behind them.

The next day, I returned to the same park to photograph more friends. Since this was a smaller grouping of people, I decided to put them in a place where I could use the late day sunlight as hair light. This is a totally different look from the images above, and really works well for them.

The last family of the weekend was coming from their company holiday party, and we had to work fast, as the sun was setting and I was losing my light. As we got out of our cars, I noticed that the late afternoon sunlight was hitting the golden leaves of this tree, and thought that it was make for a nice background. So we started in this spot (literally 5 feet from the street).

Later, when looking at this image on my computer, I wondered what it would look like in black and white. So, using NIK Silver Efex Pro, I converted the image to see how it would work. I liked it, but thought that it needed a little more.

First, using Adobe Photoshop, I created a layer mask and brought back the colors in the family, while leaving the background B&W. The results were interesting, but not quite what I was looking for.

Trying something a little different, I then lowered the opacity of the B&W layer to reveal a little of the color in the background. I like this better than the pure contrast of color and B&W in the image above. It gives a hint of the color in the trees, but maintains more of the attention on the good looking family.

Whenever I photograph families, I always shoot candid shots in between the formal poses. I love this shot of their daughter as she looked up at mom. There is no way that I could have gotten this "real smile" in a family pose. No way!

Talk about real emotions - I love this shot! Like the family the day before, I asked Mike and Bonnie and the kids to pick up leaves and throw them in the air. What do I love so much about this shot? Look at the emotions of the kids and they throw the leaves. Doesn't this just scream "pure happiness"? I especially love the expression on their son, with his hands outstretched and him looking to the sky. Upon first look at this image, I was a little disappointed that Bonnie was not throwing leaves at the same time as the rest of the family, but as I continued to look at the photo, I realized that the look of her enjoying her daughter's excitement was even better.

Like I said at the beginning of this blog post, nothing is more gratifying than capturing nice images for family friends.

A true test of the new Sigma 120-300mm f2.8 lens

2011-12-04T14:35:00.001-08:00

If you have been following my blog for the last month or two, you might have seen the entry about me shooting a night football game. During that game, I used my Canon 5D Mark II with the Canon 100-400mm variable aperture lens (which is variable aperture). I was really looking forward to capturing images in that lighting, but not thrilled that I had to go to ISO 6400 to get a shutter speed fast enough to capture the action. So...I figured that it was time to bring in the big guns. I borrowed the new Sigma 120-300mm f2.8 lens (more to capture images of a bar mitzvah inside a dark temple) and figured that it would be great to test it out at another night game. I had some questions in my head as I headed towards the field. Firstly, could I shoot at ISO 1600 with the fast lens? Secondly, how fast would this lens focus? Lastly, how sharp would it be?

I set up the camera and lens on my Gitzo monopod, since the lens is about 6.5 pounds and not something I wanted to hand-hold for a couple of hours. And then it was time to answer question number one: What ISO could I shoot at? I tried shooting at ISO 1600 but, even at f2.8, determined that ISO 3200 would be a safer bet to buy me a little faster shutter speed. Having shot at this high ISO many times before, I was much more comfortable and happier at 3200 than pushing the camera any higher.

Shooting this lens wide open at f2.8 gave me another advantage over the Canon 100-400mm lens. Not only could I shoot at a lower and cleaner ISO, I could also further separate my subject from background and the other players on the field. This is very apparent in the photo above, where the running back is perfectly in focus, while the wide receiver is soft.

Lastly, there was the question of focusing speed. When photographing sports, I usually set my camera to servo focus and use the center focus exclusively, and this is what I did on this evening. The lens tracked very well, with almost no lag or perceivable noise.

I have been shooting with the Canon 100-400 so much that I was used to the push-pull zoom. It did take me a little while to get used to the rolling zoom of the Sigma lens, but did not hinder my shooting at all. The OS image stabilization worked very well, even with the lens mounted on my monopod.

In a recent blog post, I did show a bunch of images which I shot at the San Jose Sharks game, using this same lens. But, an NHL game is lit pretty well. How would this lens perform inside a roller rink with really nasty lighting? It was time to try that too.

In the two images above, you will notice that even at ISO 3200 and an aperture of f2.8, there is still motion in final images. That just shows you how tough this shooting environment is. There is no way that I could have shot these images with a variable aperture lens. I was lucky to get 1/250 sec, which is really needed to freeze any kind of action.

The two shots above are photos of my son taking a slap shot. I love watching my son play hockey, and it is also nice to be able to supply images to his teammates and staff. I will tell you that walking into the rink with the big Sigma lens definitely turned some heads. With 23 elements of glass, the long black tube, and a whopping 105mm filter size, this is no small lens that can be used in the background. When you shoot with this thing, people know you are serious.

It was so nice to be able to freeze the action. The combination of shooting at f2.8, lower ISO levels AND having the reach of 300mm was awesome. There were times when 300mm was almost too much lens for this type of sport, but other times when I was loving the really tight shots.

I was very impressed with the solid build of the lens and the quality of the images, so much so, that I dropped the big money and purchased this beast to add to my collection. I guess that says it all.

Macro photography: A really close look at our front and back yard

2011-12-01T08:30:00.000-08:00

Before the cold air and blustery winds made their entrance, I decided to go outside and shoot some macro shots of the yard. When I teach photography, I am often asked about shooting locations. I tell people that you don't need an exotic location to get nice photos, just go outside and take a close look at your surroundings. With that in mind, I stepped outside into my back yard and focused on a small group of flowers.

I started by shooting this one flower. I liked the way that the white petals and blue and yellow inside colors worked against the green leaves in the background.

Then, using my Sigma 150mm macro lens and an extension tube, I moved in closer. My goal was to bring the details of the flower into view. How many people stop to look this close at a flower? I like the symmetry of the flower, but was also interested in showing the pollen spread across the petals. After looking even closer at the pollen, I noticed that much of it was not on the petals, but was suspended above the flower on very faint spider webs.

And then, after spending a little more time looking closely at the flower, I noticed that the owner of those webs was hanging out on the backside of the flower. I waited a while and the spider decided to come up for an appearance.

My new friend, and neighbor, hanging out on his flower. (Photographer's note: Don't be impatient when photographing nature. I once took a snorkeling class at the Great Barrier Reef in Australia, and the instructor explained how you would see so much more if you stopped in one spot and REALLY looked around. He explained that we were not in the water for exercise, but to see the wonders around us. I took his advice and swam slowly, often stopping for long periods of time, and saw things that I would normally have missed. The same is true when it comes to macro photography. Don't just look at the obvious! Then, zoom in, capture the details, and show your friends a world that they are missing. )

After shooting the images in the back yard, and being intrigued by the little visitors to our yard, I then went to my front yard to capture the Brown Skipper Butterflys who were busy.

As I mentioned, the greatest thing about macro photography is that we see things that normally are not seen. I shot hundreds of images of these butterflys (since they move fast and macro photography requires a very steady hand and precise focusing). Looking through my images I was able to see just how the insects were collecting their nectar, using their proboscis. The proboscis is really cool and rolls up like a party noisemaker. This then can be extended into the flower for easy extraction of the nectar. I have seen thousands of butterflys in my life, but never really taken the time to see them this way.

I like these last two images, because not only am I capturing the Brown Skipper while collecting their nectar, but I am capturing them as they are watching me. I wonder what they were thinking as they stared into my lens. Hmmmm...maybe they learned something about me. :)

Photographing the San Jose Sharks vs. Chicago Blackhawks

2011-11-25T22:03:00.001-08:00

It has been a while since I have photographed a San Jose Sharks game. With my current work load, travel schedule, family time, and other things, it has been hard to fit this in. But, on Wednesday night, the day before Thanksgiving, I got headed over to the HP Pavilion to capture the Sharks vs. the Blackhawks. And this time, I did not shoot from a glass position, but instead used the new Sigma 120-300mm 2.8 lens from a higher position. I wanted to see how this big lens, being shot wide open, would perform in this environment. I usually shoot the Sharks games at ISO 3200 with the Canon 1D Mark IV, but with this lens, I was able to shoot at ISO 800 with an aperture of f2.8 and still get 1/1000 sec. Awesome!!!

I started from the far side of the arena to capture images of the players coming out of the Sharks head. I have photographed this before, using the strobes in the rafters, but wanted to shoot this without any additional light, to capture just the lights from the Sharks head.

Then it was game time, and Antti Niemi, the Sharks goalie, was awesome from the start. (Photographer's note: When photographing hockey, it really helps to get the puck in the shot. Not always, but for the action around the net, it adds urgency and helps the viewer understand what is happening at that moment.)

Logan Couture gets the puck on his stick to keep it out of the Blackhawks players reach.

I love the intensity on the face of Jonathan Toews as he tries to make an offensive move from behind the net.

Douglas Murray is an absolute tank on the ice, and not easy to take down. Here is a shot of him absorbing a check and protecting the puck.

I usually do not position myself behind the protective nets, but happened to be in this spot when this action occurred. Another amazing save by Niemi.

Chicago's goalie, Corey Crawford, peaking out from behind Joe Pavelski.

This is not one of the best photos from the game, but it happened to be the game winning (and only) goal of the night.

The one and only celebration of the evening, but all that it took to win the game 1 to 0.

Another photo from behind the protective netting, but I love the expression on Joe Pavelski's face as he absorbs a shot in front of the net.

Jumbo Joe Thornton cycling the puck in the offensive zone.

As I went through the 1400 images from the game, this one caught my eye. I liked the way that all three player's sticks were going for the puck. Very geometric! :)

Andrew Murray deflects the puck just wide of the net. Oh, so close to a goal!

Here Michal Handzus shields the goalie and the Sharks almost get a goal. The puck looks like it is going in the net, but it went wide to the left of the pipes.

Then the clock counted down to zero and the Sharks came out with another win.

I was in the locker room visiting with my friends from the team who I have not seen in a while. As we were talking, I was watching all the reporters interviewing Antti Niemi, and decided to shoot a couple of images of this. He had an amazing night with his shut out vistory, and was the number one star of the game.

Senior portraits of Claire - who is not quite a senior yet

2011-11-18T19:35:00.001-08:00

It was the middle of October and the weather was really nice here in the San Francisco Bay Area. I had been talking to a family friend of ours for weeks, trying to coordinate a time to shoot images of her beautiful daughter, Claire. Finally we had a day when I was available, they were available, and the weather was cooperating. Time to shoot!

We drove to a couple of different locations to find good light and nice surroundings. I wanted colors in the background that would compliment Claire's skin tone and outfit. As you can see, Claire has great eyes, so I made sure to highlight them in these images. For the above shot, I used an on-camera flash stopped down a full stop to add a touch of light to Claire's face and get some catch light in her eyes. For the image below, I turned off the flash and relied on a silver/gold reflector (thanks to my wife who was holding that) to add light to the right side of her face.

It is always fun to find new perspectives when shooting portraits. For this shot, I climbed down into a dry riverbed and had Claire stand up above on a foot bridge. (Photographer's note: Whenever I shoot portraits, I do my best to make sure that there are no distracting "objects" in the background. In this case, I moved my position to make sure that there was mostly trees behind her head, so that her blonde hair would stand out from the background.)

Usually, when I shoot portraits, I look for a shaded area with a nice background. This spot next to a tree was perfect. The canopy of this tree and surrounding trees gave me a nice shaded spot and I had some nice greenery behind Claire, so that she would pop out from the background. I added a hint of fill flash once again and really liked the results. (Photographer's note: When posing a subject, the first thing that I do is, I ask them how they would lean against this tree, in this case, if I were not there taking their picture. This helps me get my subject to look the most relaxed and natural. After they do that, I might ask them to change a couple of things, but try to keep them close to their original pose. Why am I doing that? I want them to be themselves. I really do not want hundreds of pictures of people doing the "standard poses". That is not my style.)

After shooting a bunch of portraits, we decided to hit the nearby railroad tracks (which are rarely ever used) to shoot some final shots. If you have been reading my blog for a while, you know that I have photographed my kids and others on the tracks before. But this time I wanted to do some different poses. I asked Claire to go further down the tracks and walk back to me. While she was doing that, I fired off a bunch of images as she balanced herself and walked towards me. She loves being barefoot, and I think this added to the image.

This was one of the last shots that we took that day, and one of my favorites. Claire looks really relaxed in this pose and I love the way that the train tracks curve in and out of the shot. The tracks work as an element to draw your eye right to Claire.

We had a lot of fun shooting these, and I am sure that we will be doing more photos in the future.

A new addition to the Cable family - Our new puppy, Cooper

2011-11-14T14:22:00.000-08:00

OK, I will be the first to admit that I was not thrilled with the idea of getting a puppy. We have our hands full with the kids, work, sports and so much other stuff, but the family really wanted a new dog. Since our gentle giant, Bailey, passed away, there was a noticeable void in the house. So, a couple of weeks ago, we got a cute little Labradoodle (labrador retriever and poodle mix) and named him "Cooper". He is a handful, but he is so cute that he makes for the perfect photo opportunity for me. :)

This is Cooper hanging out in the backyard, at the age of 10 weeks.

It is hard to resist this cute puppy face.

Cooper, enjoying his new toys.

Time for some action shots.

I shot these last 3 images as a test of the new Sigma 120-300mm 2.8 lens. I love shooting this lens wide open as it gives great separation between Cooper and the background. I think Cooper will be a well photographed dog. Welcome to the family Cooper!

Photographing a Bar Mitzvah for the Rabbi's son (no pressure!)

2011-11-07T14:59:00.000-08:00

Saturday was an amazing day! Almost a year ago, the Rabbi at Temple Emanu El in San Jose, CA asked me if I would photograph the Bar Mitzvah of his son. I was so honored that he asked me to capture this important day for their family, and I was excited for the opportunity. Rabbi Magat is an amazing guy and I have always loved shooting at his temple. He has this easy-going attitude and a genuine passion for what he does, and I knew that this day would be a key moment for him and his family.

Now that the day is over, I will admit that I did feel a bit more pressure on this day. I can only imagine the pressure on Raya, his son, who had to stand in front of a full synagogue and try to manage the expectations of his father and so many others. But, not only did Raya exceed expectations, he showed maturity and countless emotions during the day. It really was a photographer's dream job.

We started with family photos in front of the temple. I was happy to wake up to a cloudy morning with no rain. To a photographer, this is perfect weather. It is like having a giant soft-box in the sky, with perfect diffused light and no harsh shadows.

It was pretty cold outside, so we quickly moved inside to shoot all the shots with Raya and the Torah. While I was photographing the family with the Torah, it seemed like most other mitzvahs, but as soon as we entered the Rabbi's office, that all changed. This was the first moment when Raya's dad had to juggle being the Rabbi and a very proud father. I have photographed him with other children in his office before, but this time, it was his own son!

After shooting images facing the parents, I quickly moved behind mom and dad/Rabbi, to get some shots of their son facing them. I love the this perspective and it really helps tell the story.

This was not your normal turn out to a mitzvah. You would have thought that it was the high holidays with all the people who came to see this momentous event. I grabbed my fish eye lens and took this shot to show the crowd in the temple.

I mentioned the emotions that Raya exhibited during the day, and this is one of those moments when he broke into a big smile. I captured endless photos of him embracing the day.

What I love most about this image and the images that follow, is that you can see the loving relationship between, not only his father, but with the Cantor too.You have to remember, this boy (now a man) has literally grown up within the walls of this building.

Comfortable with the Rabbi and Cantor? Yep - I think so!

This temple is notoriously dark inside, and I have photographed here enough to know that I would be pushing the camera to it's limit. So this time, I came armed with the new Sigma 120-300mm 2.8 lens. This is a 6.5 lb beast of a lens, but it was amazing! All of these shots were taken from the back of the synagogue with the Sigma lens.

Not every moment was filled with a smile. There was time for some other emotions too. As I stood in the back of the temple and shot these images, I realized how much more emotion was being presented in front of me, and I cherished every moment to capture this in camera.

These last three frames show totally different emotions, and yet all of them were captured within a 40 second time span. This gives you an idea of the magnitude of the day, and the level of intensity that was up at the bema.

Then, later that evening, it was party time.

I love this shot of Cheriel (mom) dancing at the party. (Photographer's note: I purposely slowed the shutter of the camera for some motion blur shots. The works best when panning at the same speed as your subject. The flash will typically freeze them while blurring everything in the background. Why do I do this? It gives a sense of the action and motion in the dance.)

While everyone else is watching the photo montage of Raya growing up, I watch for the reactions of the family and friends. I love the expression on the bar mitzvah boy's face. There is no way to fake this! (Photographer's note: I try to get the DVD from the family earlier in the day. I do this for two reasons. The first reason, is that I want to test the DVD in my laptop to make sure that everything plays correctly. Secondly, it gives me a chance to preview the photos and guess at the one's that will get the most response from the guests. I then key in on different family members, trying to remember when those "key images" are coming up and capture their reactions.)

The mother/son dance with dad / daughter in the background.

Cheriel having a great time at the party.

It is not uncommon at the end of a mitzvah party to have something called a "closing circle". This is when the child (well...I guess they are an adult now) goes around and thanks everyone for coming. I usually shoot images from within the circle, but this time decided to go outside the circle to shoot. Just as I moved from inside to outside, I saw Raya pick up his friend and spin him around. I quickly raised my camera over the heads to the kids and fired off 4 or 5 shots and caught this.

Then...the party was over and I started packing up my camera gear. Raya's mom came up to me to thank me and then said that she had to hurry down the hall to her husband's office, where Raya's grandmother was about to give him a special gift. Unfortunately, Raya's grandfather had passed away 3 weeks ago and his grandmother was about to give him her late husband's shofar (Ram's horn which is traditionally used as a horn during the high holidays). This was a key memory in their amazing day and I knew that I could not miss this moment! I quickly threw together a 5D Mark II and a 24-105 lens, popped on a 580EX II flash (with diffuser) and followed Cheriel to the office.

I captured numerous images from inside the Rabbi's office, but this moment was the most precious. I think the image speaks for itself.

New York City at Night (Top Of The Rock / Statue of Liberty fireworks for her 125th)

2011-11-01T14:43:00.000-07:00

This past week I made my annual trek to New York to present at the Photo Plus trade show. As I always try to do, I made the most of my free time, getting in some time to shoot images of the city. I was even lucky enough to be there just in time for the 125th anniversary of the Statue of Liberty.

On my last trip to NYC, I made my first trip to the top of the Rockefeller Center (Top of The Rock) to check out the view. At that time, the weather was hazy and not worth shooting any images, but I took a lot of mental notes as I knew that I would be back 6 weeks later. I was hoping to come back and capture images of Central Park with the fall colors on a clear day. As you can see from the image above, I did not hit the peak of colors, but the weather was spectacular and the view was still really beautiful.

Shooting images from the Top of The Rock can be really impressive, but trying to get a unique shot is a challenge. I decided to get low to the fence and shoot this shot of the George Washington Bridge through the arch of the fence, framing the scene. (Photographer's note: I shot this image at f11 to give a little more detail to the fence, even though I was focused in the distance.)

Then, at 5:51pm, the sun was about to drop below the horizon and the last of the day's sunlight kissed the side of the Empire State Building.

Since tripods are not allowed at this location (like so many other places), I found a ledge with a good vantage point and basically stood there, guarding the spot, for an hour or more.

Again, striving for something different, I leaned over the ledge on the upper level of "The Rock" and shot this image. I like this image, because it tells more of a story than then the straight cityscape shot. The photo combines the well-lit cityscape with the crowd of people trying to shoot images (behind glass - ughh - they really should have come up another level to get an open view!)

After waiting in "my spot" for an hour, I was rewarded with an amazing sunset!

New York really does look amazing at night.

I was at the trade show on Friday and some people from California sent me text messages about the celebration of the 125th anniversary of the Statue of Liberty. Funny thing is...nobody seemed to know about this in NY. But once I found out that they were shooting off fireworks that evening, I rearranged my schedule and headed to Battery Park. Since I did not bring a big lens with me, I first had to ask some favors from my friends at Canon, who were at the show, to borrow the right lens. As always, they came through for me. Thanks Dave!

The image above was taken before the fireworks show. I was testing different exposure settings and saw this boat coming through the frame. I shot just one image and was lucky enough to have the string of blue lights, that were on the back of the boat, perfectly highlight the Statue of Liberty. Some times you just have to get lucky, right?

And then at 7:47pm, it was show time!

Since I mentioned luck, let me tell you how lucky I was for all of this to fall into place. In the entire week, I had two evenings with some time to shoot the images. On Tuesday night, when I shot from the Top of The Rock, the weather was perfect. It then rained until Friday, when it cleared up just in time for me to shoot the Statue of Liberty shots, followed by New York's early snow storm, which lasted until I flew out on Sunday, when it was blue skies again. Nice. Thank you mother nature!

The most interesting Bat Mitzvah in the world

2011-10-23T20:08:00.000-07:00

Yesterday was a chance to photograph a really fun Bat Mitzvah in San Francisco. And, you might be wondering why I titled this "The most interesting Bat Mitzvah in the world". Well...as you read this blog entry, you will find out why!

I had been speaking with the family for more than a year, but met them for the first time a couple of weeks ago when we shot Aidan's portrait for her signature board. Not only did we have a great time, but it is a great chance to get to know each other before the big day.

This was the first time that I had the pleasure of photographing a mitzvah at Temple Emanu El in San Francisco (one of the largest and oldest temples in CA). We had a beautiful sunny day, which is not a guarantee for San Francisco in October. We started our family portraits in the temple courtyard, where I captured this image of Aidan and her parents.

And then it was time to capture images of the service. Whenever I photograph a mitzvah, I am always looking for those special unscripted moments, and this is one of those. Aidan's parents were giving their speech to her and got choked up. Without missing a beat, both Aidan and her mother reached out to dad to give him that much needed support. Love that!

I really like this image of the rabbi and the bat mitzvah girl. The combination of her expression and his gesture help to tell the story. I also really liked the colors in the rabbi's talit (shawl), which really stand out against the wood background.

As I mentioned...the service was in San Francisco, but the evening party was located across the Golden Gate bridge in a small town called Larkspur. My son (who was shooting the video) and I decided to head directly over to the other side of the bay to grab some lunch and build the evening slide show. As we approached the bridge, we were amazed to see how perfectly clear it was. For those of you who have been to this area, you know that this bridge is frequently fogged in, even on the warmer CA summer days. We just had to stop to shoot some images of the bridge and the city. (Photographers note: As I photograph during the day, I am always looking for background images for the family's album. Since this family's mitzvah celebration spanned across both sides of the bay, and required everyone to make this glorious trip, it made sense to have some of these images for them - and me too of course!)

Then it was time to party at this really amazing venue (Tavern at Lark Creek). I grabbed this image of the family in front of the house later in the evening, but thought that I would show it to you now so that you could see the party location. (Photographer's note: In order to capture this image, I metered for the building, which would normally leave the family silhouetted, and then manually popped the flash - which I was holding in my hand - to light the 3 subjects. It is important to remind your subjects to stay very still for the 3 or 4 seconds of the exposure, even after the flash has popped.)

I shot this photo right after Aidan showed up at the party. You can see her great smile as she greets her friends and relatives.

When I got to the party venue earlier in the evening, I looked up and saw this large skylight with bright light above and thought "hmmmm...this could be challenging for the photo of the horah", which is the classic shot of the child in the chair. Well...like so many other things that came together yesterday, the family was running a little late in the schedule and the horah happened just after the sunset and we had this amazing blue light in the sky. I could not have planned that any better if I had tried. Perfect timing!!!!

OK - now is the time that you get to understand the title of the blog entry. It turns out that Aidan's uncle, Jonathan Goldsmith, is the actor who plays "The most interesting man in the world" in the Dos Equis commercials. He was gracious enough to let me shoot this portrait of him during the party.

I asked Aidan to give me a pose when everyone had sat down for dinner. I love this shot of her having fun.

It is quite common at mitzvah parties to have a candle lighting ceremony. I absolutely love this shot of the family lighting the last candle. What makes this image so special is that I did not use a flash to get this shot. I used the ambient light from the candles to light their faces and used a very fast 50mm lens to grab the image.

While everyone else is enjoying the video montage, I am looking for the reactions of the family members.

If you have read my blog before, you know that I like to try different things with my camera. This is one of those shots where I twist the camera during a slow shutter and pop just enough flash to freeze the subject. This makes an already fun shot even better!

This was the last shot of the evening. I saw this last group of girls saying goodbye as the music ended. I quickly threw on a 16mm lens, grabbed a flash and diffuser and asked them to huddle above me as I lay on the ground. They formed a nice tight circle above me (and I got lucky with the light centered above them).

It was a REALLY long day. We left the house at 7am to drive to San Francisco and left the party at 11pm that evening. We were both exhausted as we headed off for the hour plus ride to our home, but were summoned by the Golden Gate Bridge which was amazingly still crystal clear. Connor actually convinced me to head back up the Marin Headlands to get some night shots. Good call Connor! It was a perfect end to a perfect day of shooting.

Family portraits - A beautiful family gets a beautiful book

2011-10-17T08:45:00.000-07:00

About 6 months ago, good friends of ours (from our swim club) asked if I would take their family photos. Like so many other families who I talk to, they had not had nice family pictures taken in quite a while, and really wanted to capture images of them. It doesn't take long before the kids are off to college and you realize that you don't have nice family pictures of you and your teenage kids. A couple of weeks ago, we set out to a local park and had some fun.

I started with individual shots of the kids. This is a good chance to loosen everyone up and let them get used to me and the camera. My goal with family photos, is to get their true emotions in the images. You can see in the image above, that this is Kendra's real smile. I really try to avoid that "posed smile" look.

I asked J.J. to lean against the post, but did not tell him how I wanted him to pose. I wanted to see what he would do naturally.

Then it was time to take some images of Jeff and Lee (the parents). Using the same location, I had them stand by each other and made some small changes to the position of their hands.

For the final edit of this image, I cropped in a little tighter to avoid the hands and arms and concentrate more on their faces.

As we moved from one location to another, I noticed this great sunlight rim-lighting Lee. I asked Lee to stop and give me a smile and grabbed some images using the this great light off of her hair.

We headed down to the creek and I grouped the family together. I positioned my camera so that I could take their picture but also have the small waterfall visible behind them.

Once I felt like I had some nice images of the family, we added their dog, Mia, into the mix.This dog really made my life easy. Some animals are really antsy and difficult to work with, but Mia was so calm and well-behaved, that we just told her where to sit and she listened. All I had to do was call her name to get her attention. (Photographer tip: When photographing a family with a pet, make sure you tell the family members to keep looking at you, and not at the pet. It is your job to get the pet's attention. There is nothing worse than getting the pet to look right at you, but the family members are all looking down at the animal.)

For all of the previous images, I used the Canon 70-200 2.8 IS lens, but then I thought that it would be fun to break out the Sigma 85mm 1.4 lens. I love the narrow depth of field of this lens and the way that I can blur everything but the subject's eyes.

We moved over to a large area of grass and I took some more family photos. As you can see, this location is very different from the family photos at the creek (which is just a couple hundred feet away from this spot). I prefer to take family photos in different locations so that the family has more choices. The family and I really liked this photo, but there were a couple of things that really bothered me. So, it was time to put Photoshop to good use.

The first thing that bothered me was that Kendra was a little too far from the other three family members, so I carefully selected her and moved her closer to her mother. I was also bothered by dad's foot sticking out to the right side of the image, so I cloned the grass and removed that distraction. After some skin touch-up, removal of fly-away hairs, and other little modifications, we were good to go.

After all the image retouching was complete, it was time for Annette to start the book making process. You can see the book by clicking here.

Photographing High School Football at Night (Prospect Panthers)

2011-10-08T17:15:00.000-07:00

I live very near Prospect High School in San Jose, CA and have driven by their football field countless times and thought that it would be fun to shoot one of their night games. Well...now that my daughter goes to school there, and was heading to the game last night...I thought that this would be a perfect time to make that happen. So...I grabbed my Canon 5D Mark II, Canon 100-400mm lens and my Gitzo monopod and drove the kids to the game.

First things first. The key to good sports photographs is location. I found the person in charge and asked for permission to shoot from the sidelines. As I figured, getting access to the high school sidelines is a heck of a lot easier than getting access to an NFL game or the Olympics! But, it is always a good idea to ask permission in these situations. Not only were they happy to let me on the field to shoot, but once they found out my photography experience, they were asking for me to send them images. No problem! So...it was time to start shooting.

Since this was a night game, with decent but not ideal lighting, I cranked up to ISO to 3200 and started to shoot. Seeing that my shutter speed was less than 1/200, I decided to do something I usually avoid, I cranked up the ISO to 6400. This allowed me to shoot images between 1/250 and 1/400, which is just enough to freeze the action and keep things in focus.

I made sure to key in on both the offense and defensive players to capture as many players as possible.

I moved positions during the game, sometimes lining up right on the line of scrimmage (which is not possible at an NFL game since this is a restricted area for the team members only).

I shot this image from the end zone. This is a good example of the peak of action, as the ball carrier is crossing into the end zone and the referee is signaling a touchdown. I really love the kid in the background who is also signalling. :)

Proper camera settings are really important for these types of shots. Here is what I recommend for anyone out there trying to shoot football.

1. Shoot your images in RAW.
2. Set your camera to Aperture Priority mode
3. Try aperture settings between f2.8 and f5.6 (thus allowing more athletes to be in focus in each shot)
4. Adjust your ISO and Aperture to make sure that your shutter speed is at least 1/250.
5. Set your focus mode to Servo focus (so that your focus is constantly changing as the players move to and from you).
6. Use a zoom lens that can get you close to the action. Minimum of 200mm.
7. Use a monopod to save your back.

This shot was taken at 1/160 sec and you can see some motion blur, but I really like the added effect. The key to this shot is that the ball carrier (my main subject) is in perfect focus while the others are not. Why was the shutter speed slower on this shot? Did I change my ISO or Aperture? Nope. This was slower because it was a darker area of the field, out of the direct lights from above.

The cheerleaders came out at halftime and put on a short show. Capturing these images is important, because it is part of the high school football experience.

Capturing their peak of action is just as much fun as photographing the football game.

And then it was back to the game.

The Prospect Panthers dominated this game, which meant that there were lots of opportunities to photograph them making big plays and scoring touchdowns.

An interception at the beginning of the 3rd quarter.

Earlier in this blog entry I recommended camera settings. No I am going to recommend some editing tips. Once you have shot your images, I would recommend the following steps in your RAW processing software (I use Adobe Camera Raw in Photoshop CS5):

1. Adjust your exposure to make sure that your image is not blown out or too dark.
2. Straighten your image to keep the horizon straight (unless you are trying to go for that angled artistic shot).
3. You might want to lower your black level (since I find that my 5D Mark II overcompensates the blacks levels)
4. I added just a tiny bit of Fill Light to many of these images, to lighten the shadows and make the players faces more visible.
5. Reduce the Noise Levels. I adjusted my Luminance between 18-30 on most of these images to get rid of the digital noise (caused by the ISO being set high at 6400). I could have also used NIK Dfine, but this takes more time and I would only use that on a "portfolio image".

I hope this helps all those budding sports photographers to take better pictures at your next night game.

First time photographing a triathlon

2011-10-01T10:38:00.000-07:00

Last weekend was the "See Jane Run" Triathlon and my wife and daughter took on the challenge. They had to swim, bike and run. The only thing that I had to do was get up at 5am on a Saturday morning (ughh) and take the photos. I had never shot a triathlon before, so this was uncharted territory for me.

This is a picture of my daughter, Ali and her best friend, Danielle, as they prepared for the race.

My wife and daughter as they stepped into the starting area, to begin the swimming portion of the race.

This is my favorite "artistic picture" from the triathlon. (You can click on these images to see them bigger.) My wife, daughter, and Danielle are somewhere in this group of swimmers. I liked the group of swimmers as they passed in front of the lifeguard. I cropped this image to show less of the foreground water and trees, focusing more of the attention on the people.

One of the challenges of photographing a race like this, is that you only see the athletes when they are starting and finishing each segment of the race. This does not give you a lot of chance to photograph them. It is even tougher trying to find your subject amongst the large group of people. I was able to spot Ali as she came in and grabbed this one shot of her finishing the biking portion of the race.

I positioned myself just before the finish line to capture photos of everyone completing the run. Here is a picture of Ali, who came in strong!

Annette finishing the race and happy about that.

The girls showing their medals.

Annette, Ali, Danielle and AnnMarie (Danielle's mom) after they completed the race. Congratulations you guys!

For those of you looking to photograph a triathlon, here are some of the challenges that I faced that you might want to be aware of.

1. Since there are so many people, there are lots of people walking in front of you as you try to capture your images. Try to position yourself somewhere with a clean unobstructed view of the athletes.
2. Related to the first point, all those people can create a distracting background. Try to position yourself where you can photograph your subjects with a clean background, if possible.
3. Since these races usually start in the early morning and end in late morning, the light is not optimal. Think about the direction of sunlight when you position yourself for your shots.
4. Since things are happening all around you (some farther than others), it is a good thing to have a wide range zoom lens. I used the Canon 100-400mm which gave me lots of flexibility.
5. Try to get to sleep early the night before so that you, and your camera, can be focused in the morning. :)

A Photoshop editing challenge to myself (cloning and spot healing brush in action)

2011-09-24T12:30:00.000-07:00

Last week, on my long flight home from New York, after catching up on my email and other work, I had another couple of hours to kill before landing in San Francisco. I had this one photo of a man painting in Central Park, but really was not happy with the fence in the shot. I tried to walk to a different position to shoot this without the fence, but since he was right against it, that was not possible. With time to kill, I decided to try and edit out the fence, one link at a time!

This is the original image. I love the light on the face of the painter, and I like the framing with the two ladies talking in the background. But, as I mentioned, the fence really bugged me. So..time to go to work with the healing brush and clone tool in Adobe Photoshop CS5.

After a couple of hours, I was able to remove more than half of the fence and recreate some of the painter's stand that was covered by the green fence post.

I was zoomed way in on the image when removing each link of the fence. This was tedious work, with the amount of fence that was in the image.

After 4 hours of work, this is the completed image. If you did not see the original image (above), would you have been fooled?

Clearly, I could not afford to make this a habit. Sure... it was a fun challenge and it did test my Photoshop skills, but it also tested my patience. I can also tell you that this was easier to complete on my main editing machine at home. Not only did I have a faster Mac with a 30" Cinema Display, but I also had my Wacom Tablet and no turbulence to deal with. :)

Central Park in NYC - Photographing Bow Bridge (different from everyone else)

2011-09-20T16:15:00.000-07:00

As many of you know, I was in NY last week, speaking at B&H Photo. But as always, as soon as I am done working, I go out and shoot some images for me (and the blog). I took a cab over to Central Park and walked for miles. Not for the first time, I came across Bow Bridge and decided to try and take some images of this iconic site from a different perspective. Like so many other popular sites, which are photographed so often, my goal is to come away with an image that is different from what most people will capture. And so...this is the lesson of the week. :)

I shot this image of Bow Bridge from a viewing platform next to the lake. Why did I shoot this one? Because most people are drawn to the spots that the park marks for you. They figure that, if there is an area built for photos, it must be the best vantage point. And I framed this shot to show the whole bridge, because that it what most people try to capture. But...

I captured this image from the same vantage point. The only difference is that I zoomed in on a portion of the bridge, and not the whole thing. I wanted to show more of the architectural detail, and also highlight the potted flowers against the highrises in the background.

And then, walking about 50 feet up the path, I found this view of the light post at the entrance to the bridge, which was framed by lots of lush foliage. You see just enough of the bridge to let the viewer know that it is Bow Bridge, without being obvious.

This shot does show a wider view of the bridge, but uses some of the trees and brush to give me a foreground, middle ground and background.

For something totally different, I got down low to the railing of the bridge and shot this image. I zoomed the lens to 300mm and used an aperture of f6.3 to create the desired depth of field.

Lastly, I walked across the bridge and down a pathway (towards Strawberry Fields) and came across this cluster of purple flowers. Again, wanting a strong foreground, I got down low with the camera to make sure that I had plenty of the flowers in my frame. Notice how the angle of the flowers, along the edge of the water, draws your eye up to the bridge. There you go. Some different views of Bow Bridge. And, of course, you can use this same lesson for shooting any well known landmark.

Two presentations at B&H Photo in New York City

2011-09-16T19:10:00.000-07:00

On Tuesday, I had the honor of doing two presentations at the world's largest photo store, B&H Photo in Manhattan. The first presentation was called "Portrait Photography - With Minimal Equipment" where I showed many of my favorite portrait photos and talked about the best techniques for capturing them. As the titled stated, the goal was to show how to capture really nice portraits without tons of equipment. Most of the images that I showed were taken with my DSLR and one on-camera flash.

We had a great time during this 2 hour long class, and from the feedback that I have received, it sounds like people learned some new ideas and had some fun too. Everything went smoothly until the very end, after my presentation was over, when one of the participants attacked another to grab one of my give-away memory cards. What the heck?! Not cool!

And then after a 2 hour lunch break, I came back to do the second presentation, which was called "How To Make Money Photographing Events". Once again we filled the room and I shared my tips on how to be a successful event photographer.

I showed many of my favorite images taken at Bar / Bat Mitzvahs and weddings, and I even through in some from the 2010 Winter Olympics. I talked about photographic tips, but mainly focused on the business aspect of photography. Luckily, this time we did not have any assaults happening in the back of the room! I was really lucky to meet so many great people (minus one) and truly appreciate them coming out to see me.

After finishing my presentations and answering a lot of questions, it was time to go out and shoot some images in Central Park. Here is one of the images, with more to come in an upcoming blog.

Bridget - Dramatic portraits in a pool

2011-09-11T12:50:00.000-07:00

A couple of weeks ago, my neighbor (and model for many years) was in her last days at home before heading back to college, and we decided to do one more shoot before she left. I have always wanted to shoot portraits in a pool, getting the lens really close to the water level. So, we decided to use their pool and meet just before sunset on the following day.

Well...we were running a little late and lost all of our direct sunlight, so we took some images in flat light. These would serve as a test for another shoot, a little earlier on the following evening.

It was nice having a chance to "pre-shoot" this. It helped us determine the best angles, and also allowed us to see what we needed to change for the following evening. Here is what we learned:

* The photos look more natural when her hair was wet (we started out with her hair still dry).
* We needed to pay more attention to the brushing of her hair and get it behind her ears.
* Even though I was in the water, I needed to keep my lens low to the water line for best results.
* Due to the reflectivity of the water, I needed to shot in burst mode to get varying results.
* Even though the images were nice, we needed directional (reflected) light to make it more interesting.

So, now that we had our checklist of modifications, we set out to improve on the images from day one.

You can immediately see the difference that the reflected sunlight makes to the images. Bridget's skin has a much warmer golden color and the colors are more pronounced.

Using the direct sunlight coming from behind Bridget, I had her move so that her hair was rim-lighted and then had her brother hold a reflector to bring some more light to the left side of her face.

As we were shooting, and the light was dropping quickly, I became more aware of the variance between the light and dark areas of the images. Working with a reflector, we added light to the left side of Bridget's face and I dialed down the exposure compensation of the camera to -0.3, to add an even more dramatic look to the images.

These last two images are my favorites. Bridget has amazing eyes, and I really wanted to capture that in my photos. The combination of dramatic lighting and her piercing eyes really makes for beautiful photos. I wish I could take full credit for these, but as is many times the case, it is the subject that makes the picture, even more than the photographer!

A Safari in California? Yep - It's Safari West in Santa Rosa, CA

2011-09-05T16:36:00.000-07:00

Last weekend was another fun trip to Safari West, which is located near the Napa Valley in Northern California. This time, I was up there to teach photography to some of the photo buyers from Target. On Thursday evening, I spent an hour and a half teaching them how to take control of a DSLR camera, get it out of automatic mode, and get creative. Then, after spending a night in the African tents (and dealing with a whole lot of noisy birds who apparently don't believe in sleeping), we got up on Friday morning, hopped into a couple of their open air vehicles and headed off to explore the 400 acres.

I brought Canon DSLR cameras and various long lenses (between 200mm and 300mm) for the students to use, while I used my Canon 5D Mark II with a 100-400mm lens. The photo above was my example of shooting at a wide open aperture, keeping the face and eyes in perfect focus but having everything else go soft in the background.

The great thing about Safari West is that you can get up close and personal with so many different animals. These shots of the giraffes were taken when we drove right into the open area with them.

I swear...I get no respect...not even from the animals!

The rhinoceros are not the most active of animals, but they are pretty cool to look at. These two were at the lower area of the property, and then we drove up into the hills.

We came across a herd of cape buffalo who were lounging around, minding their own business. This guy was nice enough to look up at us to let us get a nice portrait.

I love the long curved horns on the Oryx. This image was an example of shooting in portrait mode (tall) vs. shooting all the images in landscape mode (wide).

I like this shot of an Eland who was walking behind one of the Zebras. The contrast between the Zebra's stripes and the Eland's brown hair, help make the photo more interesting.

This Gemsbok was hanging out underneath some tree cover when we came around the corner. He turned and looked right at us and I grabbed this shot.

After taking the two hour tour of the property, you can walk around the "base camp" area and see some really cool animals in there pens. They even have this beautiful Cheetah (obviously in a caged area). I was teaching the students how to shoot through a fence to try and make the foreground wires almost invisible.

These Ring-Tailed Lemurs were too cute. They were taking some time to clean each other when I stopped by for some photos.

Also on the property are some really interesting birds. And because you can walk around and get really close to them, this makes for an outstanding photo opportunity.

Not to be forgotten, there are numerous Tortoises cruising around the property. And they actually move faster than you might expect.

As we were finishing up our 3 hour tour of the property, we watched these two Giraffe as they bumped necks (a show of dominance). We all took a lot of images of these two animals and they performed this act for us.

If you are interested in visiting Safari West, you can check out their web site at: www.safariwest.com.

Kayaking with my wife and my camera

2011-08-29T14:40:00.000-07:00

A couple of weeks ago, my wife and I decided to get out of the house and go kayaking, by ourselves, with no kids. We headed up to Stevens Creek Reservoir, which is located near our house, and took off for a couple of hours. She told me that on a recent outing, they had seen some cool birds, and encouraged me to bring a camera. Nice! Not wanting to risk my 5D Mark II and L series lens in the kayak, I rigged up my Canon 40D with a 18-250 Tamron lens and off we went.

Here is a shot of my wife, Annette, as we headed away from the launch area.

And a rare shot of me (since I am usually on the other side of the camera).

We did see some cool birds as we paddled across the reservoir. I was focusing on this Double Crested Cormorant (identified by my friend Rob Aramayo - thanks Rob), who was sitting on a tree branch, when I saw it prepare to take off. I quickly repositioned myself in the kayak and followed him on his takeoff to grab this shot. (Photographer's note: Shooting images from a kayak is pretty limiting. Not only are you rocking from side to side, but you are also confined to a pretty small sitting area. You really need to position the boat to allow you to shoot in certain directions. This works much better than trying to twist your body in this confined space.)

A couple more shots of the local wildlife. This is a Black-crowned Night Heron (also identified by Rob).

It was fun to shoot photos of these birds from the kayak because you can paddle in very close (slowly) and get some tight shots.

Annette, paddling through the narrow passage at the back of the reservoir.

As always, I wanted to take some photos from a different perspective, so I put the DSLR low to the bow of my kayak and took this shot of my wife in the distance. I shot multiple images, trying to keep the camera straight and at the right height.

For this shot, I put the camera even lower than the previous image, and also pulled it back against my body. For the two shots above, I think that they help tell the story. If the images did not have my kayak in the frame, you might think that I shot the images from the shore. Having the front of my kayak in the frame tells the viewer that I am in a boat too. In this shot, I lined up my kayak directly up the cove and made sure that Annette's kayak was in the corner of the frame.

Cool photo opportunities traveling to / and at Disneyland in Anaheim, CA

2011-08-23T16:10:00.000-07:00

Before the summer was over and the kids went back to school, we made a week long trip down to Southern California. As you may have seen from a previous blog entry, I was shooting the U.S. Open Men's Water Polo tournament in that area, and it was right around the corner from Disneyland...so...off we went to combine the two.

We were heading east on Highway 152, only about 45 minutes into the trip, when we came across this beautiful field of flowers. Before I could plead my wife to pull over (since she was at the wheel), she was already pulling over. She knew that this was too much for me to resist! We were on the other side of the 2 lane freeway, so I had to play a game of Frogger (for those of you who remember the video game) to get to the other side, without becoming road kill. It was worth the mad scramble. :)

As you can see, the tough part was deciding where to shoot the images. Moving 10 feet in any direction, or shooting from different heights, gave a completely different look to this field.

It was early enough in the morning that the skies were still overcast, so I did not have to fight any harsh sunlight and shadows. I did shoot some images straight down the rows of flowers, but preferred the lines going diagonally across the frame.

And then, mid afternoon, we drove into Santa Monica, CA to stretch our legs and check out the beach. For this shot, I waited for many of the bike riders to intersect each other in the middle of my frame.

Two days later, after photographing the water polo tournament, we headed to the Magic Kingdom. As always, the place was crowded, but we had a great time on all the rides and avoided a lot of the congestion by having a good plan. To make the most of Disneyland, you need to make creative use of the fast passes and avoiding the park in the middle of the day. I took this image to show the congestion along Main Street. (Photographer's note: This is what we call a scene setter. Although I took many other images of the kids and the park, this one helps set the scene and give the viewer an idea of the location and the crowds. Make sure to capture these to help tell the whole story in images.)

As much as I love photography, I did not bring my camera on the first day of the trip. I wanted to give that day to the family without any distractions. This is not an easy thing to do when your brain is saying "Oh - look at that - that would be a cool shot!" On the second day I actually dragged my 5D Mark II with me. I am glad that I did. This is a shot of my daughter (3rd from the right) and her friends on a swing ride with the "California Screaming" roller coaster and the moon in the background.

This is probably my favorite photo from our vacation. I remember seeing this view on our last visit to "California Adventures", but did not have the right equipment for the shot. This time I went to the park with my 5D Mark II and a monopod. I went onto a nearby bridge, to get above the water line, rested my monopod against the railing to sturdy it, and grabbed this image. I love the colors of the rides and the reflections in the water. My wife looked at this shot and asked how much post-processing I had done to boost the colors. Believe it or not, I didn't have to modify this image, this is how it looked!

I really wanted to photograph the "World of Color" show from the best vantage point. Earlier in the day, I called the media relations group at Disney to see if I could get press access for the show. Being a last minute request, I was denied. But, I used other creative techniques (don't ask) to get a prime position and shot images of the show. For these images, I used the same technique as the shot from the bridge, with the monopod resting against a railing. Normally I would have brought a tripod, but the limited amount of standing room made that impossible.

This is another favorite image from the trip. What really makes this shot special isn't all the water and color in the background, it is the silhouette of the little girl presumably on her dad's shoulders. (You can click on the image to see it better.) I have a couple of different shots in this sequence, but in this shot, she was turned perfectly towards Mickey. I have to admit that I did modify this image. In the original shot, there were a couple of other tall people in front and a couple of outstretched hands with cameras, which I cloned out. I really wanted to draw attention to the little girl up front. (Photographer's note: It is very important for your image to have a subject, or a point of your image where you want to draw the attention of the viewer. This image really helps to show off that point. When I show this image to friends, even though there is a ton of color and action in the background, they immediately comment on the little girl high above the crowd.)

A beautiful Bat Mitzvah outside in the Santa Cruz Mountains (at Maison Du Lac)

2011-08-16T16:43:00.000-07:00

Many months ago, I was approached to see if I could shoot a young lady's Bat Mitzvah on August 13th. I talked with the family and their coordinator for quite a while to get all the details. One of my first questions is always, "Which Temple do you belong to?" This time the answer was totally different from the normal response. They told me that they were doing the service and party outside, up in the Santa Cruz Mountains. At this point, I almost insisted that I be their photographer! This was such a cool opportunity to shoot something totally different. If you know me, you know that I live for this type of opportunity.

A couple of weeks before the event, I drove up to this amazing private property called "Maison Du Lac" to scout the area. As I walked around the grounds, I realized that this place was so amazing that I would have to resist the temptation to shoot portrait shots at every great spot. There were too many!

We met at 8:45am to allow plenty of time for family portraits. I did this for two reasons. First, I knew that there were a lot of cool locations on the property which would make for great family pictures. Secondly, I never like shooting images right up to the start of the service. This causes too much stress on the family (and me to a certain extent).

I picked this location by the large redwood tree, because Emily wore this light colored dress which really popped against the dark background. I used my flash to help light her and separate her even more from the foliage. (Photographer's note: Most photographers do not use a flash when shooting outdoor, especially in the shade, but adding just a small amount of flash helps to even out the small shadows under the eyes and nose. I usually set my flash at -1 stop and stand back pretty far so that the added light is very subtle. You never want your images to look "flashed". )

A nice family portrait in the same location. I could have moved them back into solid shade, but I liked the patches of sunlight on the grass by their feet. It adds a bit of contrast to the image and also gives a hint to the viewer that the morning was progressing and the sun was rising above the trees.

The family had a quick rehearsal before the service started, which allowed me some time to shoot images directly in front of the makeshift bema. One of my favorite shots is to get low and shoot a detail shot of the torah and the child at a wide aperture. I usually shoot this in portrait format, but really liked the star of David in front of the scroll, so decided to do something different. (Photographer's note: If you click on the image to see it a little larger, you will notice that the focal point is very narrow and directly on the end of the yad (pointer). I do this to draw attention to the yad and torah, but allow enough detail in the foreground and background to keep the image in context.)

I have photographed many mitzvahs but never had a chance to take photos with a natural background like this. I stood in the back of the tent and used my 100-400 lens to get in nice and close. And...for the first time ever...I used a flash during the service, with permission of the Rabbi. (Photographer's note: Since my subjects were in front of a very bright background, without the use of a flash, they would appears as silhouettes. BUT, I really did not want to draw attention to myself or pop a flash directly at the participants. So, using the white ceiling of the tent as a giant reflector, I pointed my flash directly up and bounced the light from above. Since it was in the middle of the day, nobody could see the flash, but it really made a huge difference to the final images.)

At one point, I walked outside the tent with my other camera and took some shots from a different vantage point. I was really glad that I did this because it sets the scene.

In any Bar or Bat Mitzvah, there are certain critical moments which have to be captured. When the child reads from the torah, this is a key moment that can not be missed.

But...it is the unscripted moments which I REALLY love to capture. This is one of those shots. During the speech from the parents, something was said that cracked them all up, and I fired off a couple of shots (hoping that the flash would keep up) and grabbed a couple images which highlight this great moment. Yep - this is why I love being a photographer!

Once the service was over, it was time to break for hors douvres, lunch and party. It was during this time that I saw this gentleman shooting images and video with his iPad. Hey, I have seen countless people taking pictures with their point-and-shoot cameras and cell phones, but this was a first! I had to get a shot of this.

Another key moment during a mitzvah party is the horah, when they put the child (technically now an adult) on a chair and lift them high in the air. I have photographed this many times, but never with a grove of redwoods in the background.

There was a nice pond on the property, and I saw these two young girls off by themselves having a chat. Too priceless not to photograph this. :)

This image just proves that it does not have to be nighttime for the kids to dance and have fun.

At 4pm, the party had ended and I was packing up all my gear, when Max (the very awesome DJ) held up this centerpiece. I quickly unpacked one of my cameras and took some fun shots of him. This is why I never leave a party before it is over. There are always fun opportunities to photograph right up until the end...and somethings even after the party has ended.

Photographing the 2011 Men's U.S. Open of Water Polo in Costa Mesa, CA

2011-08-12T10:26:00.000-07:00

Last weekend was the 2011 Men's U.S. Open of Water Polo down in Costa Mesa, CA and I was down there to photograph this event for USA Water Polo. It was a perfect day in Southern California, with the sun high and the temperatures pretty mild.

The great thing about water polo is that there is always a lot of action to capture.

At this high level of play, it is amazing to see ho high these guys can propel themselves out of the water.

At the beginning of each of the medal matches, the teams would line up for introductions. I took the classic shot from across the pool, but then quickly moved to the side of the pool to shoot a photo down the line of athletes.

I like this shot, because the offensive player is setting up for a shot and the goalie is concentrating, but relaxed.

When shooting water polo, it is good to shoot a combination of wide shots like this, and also zoom in to isolate the action, like the shot below.

Here is a shot of the goalie in the right place at the right time.

It may not look like it from this photo, but the NYAC goalie (the MVP of the tournament) made an amazing stop on this shot. This image was captured after he deflected the ball with his left hand.

The New York Athletic Club won the tournament to match the win by their female counterparts two weeks before. This team was the favorite to win the tournament with half of the team being made up of silver medal winners from the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing.

Nashville, Tennessee: Jack Daniels Distillery, A Field of Sunflowers, Nightlife

2011-08-05T17:57:00.000-07:00

So...if you read the previous blog entry, you know that we saw some and heard some cool music while in Tennesee, but actually got out of the city and saw some other cool sites. Since we had some spare time after shooting corporate footage all day, we decided to make a short road trip to Lynchburg, TN to check out the Jack Daniels distillery.

The tours are free and it was very interesting to see how this whiskey is made. And...no...there is no tasting room since the distillery is located in a dry county. Funny...but true!

This is one of the older buildings on the premises, where JD is still made. There are large barrels (approximately 21 feet high, filled with 14 feet of charcoal) where the raw whiskey is poured in from the top and filtered through all of the charcoal. After the distilling process the whiskey is put into burnt barrels for 5 years.

The town of Lynchburg is really small. Most of the town's inhabitants either work for Jack Daniels or are somehow affiliated with the distillery in one form or another.

As we made the hour long drive out to Lynchburg, we passed an amazing field of sunflowers and thought "we need to photograph that on the way back", which we did. We parked the car on the side of the road and walked down into this field and basically shot images and video there until the last light of the day.

As I walked around and shot images of the sunflowers, I caught a glimpse of this beautiful butterfly out of the corner of my eye. I follow it until it landed and quickly grabbed images before it took off again. I was (and still am) very excited about the amazing brown and blue wings against the yellow pedals.

After getting some close shots, I zoomed out (using the Canon 100-400mm lens) to show the butterfly and more of the field in the background. I shot this at f4 to maintain a focal point on the butterfly but give a hint to what is behind my main subject.

For the last day of our trip, we headed towards Chattanooga, TN to shoot some more video, but the day was filled with lots of rain and thunder storms, which scrubbed those plans. So...we decided to check out a local cave in Lookout Mountain. You could not take tripods into the cave, so I set my Canon 5D Mark II to ISO 3200 and held still for shots like this one.

The most amazing part of this cave is Ruby Falls, which is the nation's largest and deepest underground waterfall (at 1120 feet below the surface). They have really cool LED lighting in this chamber, which changes color every couple of seconds. After getting my "safe" shots at ISO 3200, I turned the ISO to 800, wedged myself up against a rock on the wall, and while holding the camera very still, shot images like this one. The shutter speed slowed down to 1/4 second which helped create more drama in the waterfall.

After many hours of driving (in heavy rain) we returned to Nashville for a quick shower and dinner. After we ate, we were walking back to our hotel and I realized that I really had not taken any shot of Broadway, which is where a lot of the fun bars and restaurants are located. So, being the crazy photographer that I am, and the fact that sleep is overrated, I headed back to the hotel, grabbed my camera and tripod and walked back downtown to shoot some night shots.

Funny story: I wanted to shoot images from the middle of the street, but wasn't sure, even at midnight, how to avoid the traffic to get my shot. Well...as luck would have it... a concert had just gotten out and the police closed off the street to force traffic in other directions. Voila - I had the street to myself! There I was shooting images with the police blocking all traffic, and people assumed that they stopped traffic for me. I had all kinds of questions, like "which star is here?" or "what is happening tonight that is so special?", and I just laughed and let their imaginations run wild.

After shooting numerous images of the bars, I thought that the photos needed something more, so I started rolling the zoom during the long exposures. (Photographer's note: For most of these exposures, the shutter was open for approximately 4 seconds, with me rolling the zoom at various times during that time. You will notice on the image above, that the neon signs are visible at the beginning and end of the light trail. This is because I left the lens at 200mm for one second at the beginning of the shot, then zoomed for 2 seconds, and left the focal length at 45mm for the last second.)

Nashville, Tennessee: Local Music and the Grand Ole Opry (Charlie Daniels Band)

2011-07-30T15:41:00.000-07:00

I was in Nashville, TN a couple of weeks ago and made sure to check out the local music as much as possible. Trust me, there is a lot of music happening in this town! I flew into the city and landed at 9:30pm. I took a taxi straight to Broadway Street and met up with some friends at Rippys. It was one of the hottest days of the year and we were sitting in this open air restaurant melting, even at 10pm! The food was OK but the entertainment was great. We were sitting right by the small stage and decided to shoot images of the band that was playing, because...hey...that is what we do right?

This is an image of Anna LaPrad, who was singing that evening. She is a really pretty girl with a great voice. I purchased her CD from her and it is very good.

What is better than a full rack of ribs, a couple of beers, great music and a chance to shoot images? Other than the sweltering heat, this would have been darned near perfect. :)

I looked at the table next to us and saw Anna's mother (who was visiting from out of town) and shot this image of a proud mother watching her daughter performing. I know this because I went over to her and offered to send images to them. (Photographer's note: Whenever you happen to capture nice images of people, you should offer to send the images to them. It is a really nice gesture and always appreciated by the individuals.)

Her guitar player taking the lead while Anna took a break.

You can get more information on Anna LaPrad here. Check it out.

And then the next evening, we bought tickets and visited the Grand Ole Opry House. This was nothing like I expected. I was expecting a full concert, but not knowing much about the Grand Ole Opry, soon learned that this was a live radio show and featured numerous bands who played a couple of songs each. (Photographer's note: For those of you out there who want a chance to photograph live entertainers, this place is perfect! Not only do they let you bring in cameras, they also let you come right up to the front of the stage to shoot. Yep, it's true! The only restriction is that you have to return to your seats in between acts.)

We got lucky and happened to be in town for one of the better line ups. There were a total of 10 bands playing on that Tuesday night, with The Charlie Daniels Band as the headliner. Here is a shot of Karen Fairchild, performing with the band "Little Big Town".

Jimi Westbrook, also from the band Little Big Town, doin' his stuff.

The next performer was long time artist (so they tell me) George Hamilton IV. It is really strange that in between each act, there is an announcer who is pitching products. "This part of the show is sponsored by Cracker Barrel...blah blah blah."

Next up was the band "Gloriana". This is a shot of Rachel Reinert belting out a tune.

And another member of Gloriana performing.

Here is a shot of Craig Morgan working the crowd. You can see the crowd of people up at the front of the stage, mainly taking pictures with their cell phones.

Here is Little Jimmy Dickens who, at the ripe old age of 91, happens to be the oldest living member of the Grand Ole Opry. He performed a couple of songs and told some darned funny jokes along the way.

And then it was time for the headliner, The Charlie Daniels Band. I made sure to get to the front of the stage as soon as he came out.

And Charlie Daniels did not disappoint. At 75 years old, he still has it. He played for at least 30 minutes and still can work that fiddle like nobody else.

He finished his set with "The Devil Went Down to Georgia", which was awesome! This is a picture of him performing that number.

Overall it was a great night. Even though I am not the biggest country western fan, it was fun to be at the famed Grand Ole Opry and to see some really great musicians. Being able to photograph them up close was a real bonus!

Photographing the 2011 Women's U.S. Open of Water Polo 2011

2011-07-26T10:06:00.000-07:00

Yesterday was the final day of the Women's U.S. Open of Water Polo 2011 and I was there to capture the Bronze medal match and the Gold/Silver medal match for USA Water Polo. The tournament was held in Lafayette, CA on a beautiful sunny afternoon (but not too hot).

I got to the venue about an hour before the bronze medal match to meet my contact from USA Water Polo and to check out the pool, the light and get the lay of the land. I shot half of the preceding game, to check camera settings and prepare for the medal rounds.

I had a couple of different options for shooting this event. I could either put the camera in Aperture Priority and determine the optimum aperture for the event, or I could put the camera in Shutter Priority and dial in something like 1/1000 sec to freeze the action (letting the camera determine the aperture). I actually shot in both modes depending on my mood. Since the event was outside and it was a bright day with an abundance of light, I had a lot of choices. Of course, this also meant that I was dealing with harsh shadows on the athletes. (Photographers note: Whenever you shoot outdoor sports, make sure that you are sitting on the same side of the game as the sun so that you have more light on your subject's face.)

When shooting water polo matches, you need to be ready at any given moment, since the action is almost nonstop. And like any good photography, focus is key. I made sure to focus on both the offensive players and defensive players depending on what was happening in front of me. In the above image, you will notice that I focused on the eyes of the goalie to draw you into her concentration.

Most of the images that I captured during the day were tight shots using the Canon 100-400mm L Series lens mounted on a Canon 1d Mark IV. But, there were times when I would pull back and show a wider view of the action. In this case, it worked out perfectly with the shooter, defender and goalie actively involved in the play while the others watch on.

Having a camera that can burst at 10 frames per second really helps for shooting a fast sport like this. This allows me to frame the shot and burst images at the peak of action, freezing the action at that perfect moment.

These girls are amazingly powerful athletes, often lifting half of their bodies out of the water to take that blazing shot at the cage.

In the shots above and below, you will notice that the focus is on the eyes of the athletes.This is critical in sports photography. (Photographer's note: I find that it is best to use the center dot or a cluster close to the center and set the camera to servo focus for these types of events. Since I did not want every image to have the subject dead center, I would periodically move the focus point to the right or left of center. This is true for both of these images.)

This was one of my favorite shots of the day, highlighting the goal keeper, Emily Feher, who was also the MVP of the tournament. It captures her at the height of the action as she lunges to her left to stop this shot by the Santa Barbara team.

And then it was time for the medals to be given out. USA Water Polo wanted images of each of the winning teams, but the lighting was harsh and I had just a short amount of time to figure out where we would shoot the team photos. Since there was no shady area, I decided to set them up in front of the pool, with their backs to the sun and fill flash them. (Photographer's note: Never have your group facing directly into the sun, since they will end of squinting and you will have harsh shadows on their faces. Instead, turn them away from the sun, meter the background and use your flash in TTL mode to light them. I even had one of the girl's fathers come up to me and say "Uhhhh...don't you want them facing the sun?" and I politely said, "Don't worry - I am a photographer. I got this." That cracked me up.)

The Bronze medal team from Stanford.

The Silver medal team from Santa Barbara.

The Gold medal team from New York (NYAC).

And...today's home page of the USA Water Polo web site features my shot of the Gold medal team.

Camping at Patrick's Point - Amazingly clear night skies

2011-07-20T10:31:00.000-07:00

If you have been following my photography for a while, you know that I love shooting images at or after sunset. There is something special about capturing images when the light is low the world takes on a different look. (Photographers tip: Most people put there cameras away as soon as the sun goes down. Resist that temptation! As long as you have a tripod or a sturdy area to rest your camera, try taking some long exposures to see what you can come up with. It is well worth the effort, I assure you.)

It was towards the end of our trip and I wanted to get a nice shot of a sunset from Agate Beach. As I was walking down the trail to get to the beach, I saw that the sun was setting in a perfect position for me to shoot through this foliage. I set up the tripod and shot 4 exposures of the sunset, and then merged them into one HDR image using Photomatix Pro.

This shot was at the tail end of sunset on the fourth of July, as we prepared to shoot off (legal) fireworks on the beach with the kids. I set the camera so that I would have a nice long exposure, yielding some motion in the waves.

Speaking of long exposures, once it got dark, the kids pleaded with me to slow the shutter and capture fun images of them with their sparklers. I had taken these types of images of them years ago, and they remembered that, and wanted more. Who am I to refuse my kids and their friends? This is a picture of my daughter's best friend Danielle, who joined us for the week of camping. I asked her to move the sparkler to form the first letter of her name.

We had some small fireworks, which didn't do much to light up the night skies. But not far down the beach, another group was setting off these huge displays. I turned my camera (mounted on my tripod) to face the other fireworks, and grabbed some cool images using their heavy investment of explosives. :) (Photographers note: The best way to capture fireworks is to mount your camera on a tripod, set the camera to "bulb mode" and use a remote trigger so hold open the shutter to capture multiple bursts.)

On July 5th, we were lucky enough to have a beautiful clear night. This was perfect because, on our last night there, I really wanted to capture a "star trail" shot. But before I could capture that, I needed to wait for the sunlight to be completely gone and also wait for the moon to drop below the horizon. Myself and a couple of our friends were watching the moon going behind the trees and someone asked me if my 400mm lens was like a telescope. I answered "not really" but realized that I had my 1.4x teleadaptor in my bag, so I grabbed that, connected it to the 100-400mm lens to add some additional magnification. Combining this with the ability in live-view to zoom in 10x, we could see the craters of the moon. People were blown away with the clarity. And...of course, I was shooting images as we were watching the moon set. (If you click on these images, you will be able to see the craters even in these small images.)

I talked about framing in some of my other blog posts. I could have taken the picture above with just the moon in the frame, but chose to move my tripod so that I would have the tree to the left and the moon to the right. It makes the image much more interesting and gives it a sense of place.

Finally, both the sun and moon had left for the night and it was time for me to capture a star-trail shot. I looked for a location where I could see a lot of the sky, but also frame the image with some of the large trees which surrounded us. I then set my camera on my Gitzo tripod, aimed the camera straight up (using my 24-105mm lens), put it in bulb mode and locked the remote for a 10 minute exposure. It turned out that 10 minutes was not enough, so I tried a 20 minute exposure. Still not good enough. So...at 11pm, I decided to lock the shutter for an hour and see what happened. Actually, I was concerned that the Canon battery would not last that long, but there was plenty of power for this long exposure. So 62 minutes later, after sitting there and marveling at the clarity of the night sky, I closed the shutter and looked at the final image on the LCD of the camera. Pleased with the results, I slipped into my sleeping bag a happy camper (pun intended).

Camping at Patrick's Point - Wildlife in and around the park

2011-07-15T12:25:00.000-07:00

Patrick's Point State Park is now known for the abundance of wildlife, but they have their fair share of critters in the area. In the many times that we have visited the park in the past, we have never seen rabbits in the park. Well...this time we saw hundreds of them. You know what they say, if you see 2 rabbits, there are probably a lot more nearby.

This little guy was nice enough to pose for me right by some yellow flowers. Very nice indeed.

This black crow was a frequent visitor to our camp site and he really liked this particular moss covered perch.

Speaking of frequent visitors to our campsite, there were 3 or 4 of these guys that would visit every afternoon at approximately 3pm.My sister-in-law was trying to identify them, so I shot some pictures to help her figure out the correct species. This little guy came down out of the trees and landed on one of our camping chairs, in perfect range for my Canon 100-400 lens.

Just 20 miles North of Patrick's Point, you can find the largest herd of Roosevelt Elk in North America. I have photographed them before, but never seen them in the water, until this trip. We were getting ready to take a hike into Fern Canyon and I saw this big buck from the parking lot. I could not resist the temptation to photograph this big guy, so I asked my very patient family to wait for 15 minutes while I hiked into a better position and shot this photo.

Then...after our Fern Canyon hike, we returned back to the parking lot area and I made my way out to photograph a couple more of the Roosevelt Elk who were still grazing in the area.

All of these wildlife images were taken with my Canon 5D Mark II and 100-400 L Series lens, using Lexar 600x Professional CF cards of course!

The next blog (last from this trip) has some of my favorite images of sunsets and star-filled night skies. I guess I was saving the best for last. Stay tuned. :)

Camping at Patrick's Point - Seeing this area from a different perspective

2011-07-11T09:46:00.000-07:00

In the last blog post, I showed up-close images taken with my macro lens. In this blog post I am highlighting some images that were taken from a unique perspective, or taken with using a foreground or background to support the rest of the image.

I saw this photo opportunity right after arriving at our camp site. We had bright blue skies and the sun was lighting this great bloom of Queen Anne's Lace, and I just had to shoot some images of this. I wanted to shoot this from a unique perspective, so I got down low and shot straight up into the flower.

Later that evening, as the sun departed from Northern California, I grabbed this shot. I could have just shot a picture of just the sun going down into the ocean, but thought that I would frame the image with some of the local foliage and fallen tree branches.

The next day, we traveled into Ferndale, CA to have some lunch and see some old friends. I took a walk and saw this lone flower growing in front of these pretty purple flowers. I positioned myself so that the flower was towards the bottom of the image (using the rule of thirds) and shot at an aperture (f4) that would make it the only flower that was perfectly in focus.

When hiking through the giant redwood forest, I wanted to capture the majesty of these old growth trees. Pointing the camera straight up, I shot this image at f16 to create the star burst effect from the sun, which was barely visible through the canopy of trees. (Photographers note: Whenever you are taking pictures, especially in an area like this, it is always a good idea to look up, down and all around you to see what might be interesting. It never ceases to amaze me how many different images can be achieved from one spot, just by looking in all directions.)

As my wife was scouring the beach for agates, I took this photo of the seagulls on the edge of the water line. I really like the complete calm of the gulls with the rough sea directly behind them. Again, the foreground and background work together to tell a story and create the image.

Just after shooting the seagull image, I thought that it would be cool to lay the 5D Mark II down on the rocks to get a totally different perspective of the beach. This placement of the camera really magnifies the rocks and helps the viewer understand that this is not your usual sandy beach. I shot this image at f13 because I wanted most everything to be in focus, with just a hint of blur in the foreground and background.

I also though that this would make a cool video from this spot, so I put the 5D Mark II into video mode, waited for a family to get into the frame, and shot this. Pretty cool stuff.

Look for wildlife photos and cool night shots in the next 2 blog posts.

Camping at Patrick's Point (very North in CA) - Macro photography

2011-07-07T21:44:00.000-07:00

We just returned from 5 days of camping in Patrick's Point State Park and had a great time. While my wife and kids were searching for agates on Agate Beach, I was searching for cool pictures along the trails of the state park. Having been to the park many times in the past, this time I decided to focus on macro photography for a portion of the trip. (Photographers note: There is nothing better than putting yourself on assignment. Think of an interesting topic and spend some time searching out those shots. Since I had photographed here before and already taken many of the "standard images", I wanted to try something different. This also forced me to walk much slower and look at details which I would never have seen in the past.)

This park is known for the abundance of banana slugs, much to my kids entertainment and disgust. Most people take images of these creatures from afar and avoid getting too close to these slimy guys. I used my Sigma 70mm macro lens (sometimes with an extension tube) to get right into their world up close and personal. (You can click on the images to see them larger.)

Our camp site was surrounded by flowering plants, which meant that I did not have to go far to key in on the bees which were hard at work collecting pollen. (Photographers note: When using a macro lens and shooting up close like this, you will want to choose an aperture of at least f11 to give you some wiggle room in your depth of field. This is especially true if you are using an extension tube with your macro lens. I find it easier to turn off auto focus and instead focus manually and slowly lean in and out of the shot to try and nail the focus.)

This macro shot captures the bumble bee with his tongue deep into the flower. It also looks like he is looking right into the lens of the camera.

I found this little guy hanging out on a leaf and was captivated by the iridescent colors showing on his wings.

As with any good photography, composition is very important. I saw this sprout which extended above the others and was perfectly framed by some green ferns in the background. I used the macro lens and set the aperture to blur the ferns while keeping the forground plant in perfect focus.

As I walked slowly along the hiking trail, I came across a banana slug on a tree trunk. I looked at it and determined that it was not photo worthy. But, then I looked up and saw this tiny little mushroom growing out of the trunk. Even though this mushroom was probably no more than one inch wide, the macro lens helps to get us up close to show the details that we might not ever see otherwise.

I saw these beautiful yellow flowers and thought that they might make a nice picture, but it needed a little more. Then I came across this fly who was hanging out, obviously waiting for a portrait session, so I obliged. The large red eyes and the colors in the wings really worked well against the bright yellow pedals of the flower.

This last macro shot is probably my favorite of the collection. Honestly, it was not my intention to get this insect in the shot. I was leaning down to take an image of the purple flower and then this little guy flew into the frame. I quickly repositioned and fired off some shots to try and get the insect in perfect focus. (Photographers note: Not all photos can be perfectly planned, and that is OK. Learn to adapt quickly to any situation and you will capture some really nice shots to add to your portfolio.)

Look for more images from this trip in the coming weeks. I gave myself some other assignements which included:

1. Capturing images from a different perspective
2. Wildlife in and around the park
3. Night shots (sunsets, the moon and star trails)

Having fun taking portraits on a rainy day

2011-06-30T11:00:00.000-07:00

It was a couple of weeks ago, on a Friday evening, when Maddie (a family friend) joined my son and I on a photo journey. Maddie is such a beautiful girl and I asked her if we could shoot some portrait shots of her around our town. She readily agreed, so off we went to find some cool locations. Before we took off from the house, we grabbed a couple of umbrellas. We did this for two reasons. First, the clouds were rolling in and it looked like rain was only minutes away, and secondly I thought that it would make for a cool prop.

We started out at the train tracks. If you have been reading the blog for the last couple of months, you know that I have shot here a couple of times in the last 3 months. Maddie had seen the other portraits that we took here and she really liked this locale. The rain had not started yet, but I liked the umbrella in the shot.

Upon returning to my home studio, and editing the images, we wondered if the red umbrella clashed with her purple shirt. So, using the "replace color" command in Photoshop CS5, I changed the color of the umbrella and also removed the text.

After shooting the images above, I asked Maddie to take a walk along the tracks and photographed her walking in both directions. I really like this shot, because unlike so many of the other shots, she is looking away from the camera. (Photographer's note: This image is made stronger by the fact that she is in perfect position on the train tracks - not too close and not too far - and right in mid stride. The fact that she is not looking directly at the camera, gives the impression that we caught her in the middle of a walk, and not part of a photo shoot. On this shot, instead of changing the color of the umbrella, I changed the color of her sweater to a deep shade of blue.)

And then the rain really did start coming down. If you look closely at this image (you can click on it to see it a bit larger), you can see the rain drops in the background.

To avoid the rain, we hopped into the car and decided to drive into new areas of Saratoga to see if we could find any new areas to shoot portraits. We came across this tiny little park, and since the rain had stopped, we hopped out to try some shots on a small bridge.

For this image, I edited the RAW file and then used NIK Color Efex Pro 3.0 to add a "glamour glow" to the final piece.

As I was shooting these images of Maddie on the bridge, my son walked along the nearby dry creek bed and found some cool mossy trees. After grabbing numerous shots on the bridge, we followed him to check it out. I came across this one area where the tree trunks came together and I asked Maddie to go behind the tree and rest on the mossy trunk. There was perfect light coming from behind Maddie, lighting her hair, and I added a hint of light from my flash.

As a gift to her, I made a 13"x19" print of this image on my new Epson R2000 printer. I printed this on Epson's Velvet Fine Art paper and it looked awesome. She now has this hanging in her room. (Photographer's note: Shooting images like this is a win/win for you and the "model". She gets some nice images for her Facebook page, her parents get some nice shots to print and use at home, and you get the satisfaction of capturing photos for friends. Oh, and we had a fun time during the process!)

A chance to photograph a very special event

2011-06-26T15:39:00.000-07:00

Over the last 6 years, I have photographed many Bar and Bat Mitzvahs, but yesterday was the first time photographing two sisters of different ages. Michelle is 13 and her older sister Nicole, who has down syndrome, is 16. I was honored to be able to capture images of the two of them as they celebrated their big day.

Last month, in preparation of the B'not Mitzvah (not called a Bat Mitzvah when there are two girls - yep, I just learned this too), I took portraits shots of the girls at their home.

Taking these portraits was a lot of fun for all of us and also allowed me to get to know the kids (and the parents), so that yesterday we all knew each other and everyone was at ease in front of the camera.

These images were taken at Temple Beth Am in Los Altos Hills, CA. It is an amazing Temple for photography since the synagogue is surrounded by clear windows and the colors are amazing! As you can tell from this shot, we were having some fun while taking the Torah pictures.

Whenever I photograph these types of events, I am always looking for those moments where the kids (or other participants) show true emotion. This is one of those moments. I am not exactly sure what happened, but Michelle broke into a big smile when her parents were reading a Hebrew passage. Did they make a mistake? We will have to ask Michelle.

This is another one of those moments when the family was all having a good time. Capturing a big smile on one person is really nice, but getting a shot like this, with everyone showing that emotion, is just awesome! (Photographers note: It is very important to be at your camera, ready to shoot images, at all times during a mitzvah, wedding or whatever event you are shooting. You never know when a special moment will present itself, and it is your job to be there to capture that for the family. For this shot, I used a Canon 5D Mark II with a 100-400mm L Series lens mounted onto a Gitzo tripod. This was in the back of the synagogue at approximately 200 feet from the subjects. Settings: ISO 3200, Shutter speed of 1/80, and aperture of f5.6)

At almost every Mitzvah I get a picture of the person lifting the Torah, but I like this one because it was taken mid-way through the lift, and you can see the reflection of the Torah in his glasses.

This is another favorite of the day, because it shows both sisters having a good time. It was so touching to see the bond between these two, and I think that comes out in the photos.

The DJ (Alan Waltz Entertainment) was amazing as always, and had the kids all decked out in paraphernalia. I asked the girls if they wanted to take a fun shot with them all around me and it was their idea to don the glasses for the shot. (Photographer note: In order to get a shot like this, you need to use a wide lens, like a 16-35mm on a full frame camera, and an external flash with a diffuser. Then you lay down on the ground and shoot straight up, focusing on one of the kids faces, making sure that you light everyone evening. This is a great way to set yourself apart from all the other photographers, trying something new and fun.)

This last shot is special, because Nicole spent a lot of time hanging with friends but not dancing too often. Then, towards the end of the day, she got up and joined the fun. This was the perfect time to key in on her and get pictures of her breaking loose. Love that!

When I got home from this long day and started going through the 2234 images, I realized why I love doing this job. For one day I get to become a part of another family and experience the day along side them. I am there to help calm them in the morning, to share the relief and excitement when they have completed the service, and to celebrate with them afterwards. And celebrate they did. Congratualtions to Michelle and Nicole for being great sisters and now great adults.

Photographing a swim meet

2011-06-20T20:24:00.000-07:00

If you have been reading my blog for many years, you know that I have photographed many swim meets (and swimming at the Olympics in Beijing). Well...it is swim season again, so it was time to break out the camera and head to the club for some shots at the first swim meet. I wanted to post this blog at the beginning of the swim season to give some tips to those other parents and future photographers.

My favorite swim stroke to photograph is the butterfly. You can get some great wide shots of the kids with their arms outstretched, but more importantly, you can see their faces when they come out of the water to take a breath. I usually photograph the kids from the far side of the pool, straight on. (Photographer tip: To get the best images, set your camera to continuous shooting mode, set your camera to shutter priority and select a shutter speed of at least 1/500 to freeze the action. You also want to set the focus mode of your camera to "servo focus" which will follow the swimmer and keep them focused as they come towards you.)

It is always fun to shoot images of the older kids, because their strokes are more pefected and they provide better action shots. But, don't forget about the little kids. They can provide a whole bunch of fun moments for you to capture. In the shot above, you can see that this little girl makes the mistake that almost every young swimmer makes, she spends a lot of time looking to see where the other swimmers are, as opposed to swimming faster and beating her best time. I love that in the younger kids!

Here is another picture of the young swimmer who is just taking off from the wall to swim backstroke across the pool. For this shot, I stood on the starting block, right above her, and shot this photo right as she pushed off. Notice the way that the water envelopes her, and looks really cool. (Photographer tip: Try to find new and interesting views of the swimmers. Most every other parent will stand at the side of the pool and shoot images from their height. Try moving to unique vantage points and try getting images both from a low and high position.)

This is one of my favorite images from the day. Partly because I am a sucker for cute little kids, but also because it was this little 4 year-olds first time swimming in a meet and she gave everything she had to get across the pool (and she did). I got down to the water level and shot this image of her. This vantage point really brings the viewer right into this little girl's world.

The nice thing about the newer DSLR cameras is that they can take 3 or more pictures per second, thus making it easier to capture your subject at the height of the action. But, even with this advantage, it is still difficult to capture the exact moment that you might be looking for. I still find that the best way to get the peak of action is to hit the shutter at the exact point where you want the image. For this shot above, I purposely waited and shot this image to get the swimmer right before she came up for a breath. I like the fact that you can see her eyes (goggles) through the water.

Here is another favorite shot from the day. I shot this image of this boy doing the breast stroke and grabbed a couple of shots where his face is masked with water. What makes this so cool, is that, most people would never see this during the meet. Because the camera can freeze the action in a fraction of a second, you can expose the unseen moments. I love that! (Photographer note: This was shot at1/2000 sec on an overcast day, which is ideal weather for shooting outdoor swim meets. Overcast skies help you avoid the deep shadows, while still giving you ample light for fast action shots.)

As I mentioned before, I normally photograph the breast stroke from the end of the pool, straight on to the swimmer, but since I practice what I preach, I went for a different angle this time, and really liked it. Not only does this show my daughter from a nice perspective, but it also shows that she is ahead of another swimmer in the race, helping to tell the story.

One more tip. Don't just photograph the swimmers. There is a lot action happening around the pool deck. Keep your head up and look for the unexpected moments. In this picture, taken during the final relay, you see this girl's teammates encouraging her to finish strong. This shows real emotion and shows the team spirit. I hope that these tips will help someone out there get better pictures of their kids and their friends. Happy shooting

Goodbye to our dog Bailey - another sad day in the Cable family

2011-06-15T09:18:00.000-07:00

I will be the first to admit that back in 2005, I was not in favor of getting a dog. But my wife and kids convinced me that we needed a canine in the family. Reluctantly, I agreed, thinking about all of the added responsibilities, costs and chores that the kids would most likely not perform. And then...we found our little puppy, Bailey.

At the time, he was a cute little thing (but not little for long).

This is one of our all-time favorite images. Ali holding Bailey for the first time. Both of them were so small at the time.

Bailey quickly grew to a whopping 107 pounds. Yep - My wife wanted a medium sized dog that did not shed, and we got this big guy! He was our gentle giant. My friend came over to the house and said "Wow! That isn't a dog, he should have his own zip code!" That made us laugh. This is a picture of Bailey up in Mammoth, CA where he used to love burying his head in the snow. Photographing a big black dog is not very easy, since it is so hard to see his eyes. But, photographing a big black dog in the snow is ideal since all the white reflects in their eyes and makes them more visible.

Here is another family favorite image, with our three "kids" having fun with their eye glasses. Yep, Bailey would let us dress him up in all kinds of outfits, and he really didn't care.

Another outfit for Bailey. Guess what time of year this was? :)

Bailey was the subject of many of my images. Almost everyone who knew him would comment about there being something very human in his eyes. He was a cross between a Golden Retriever and a Standard Poodle, otherwise known as a Golden Doodle or Golden Poo (although I always refused to call him by those terms since they sounds too weird).

My wife taught Bailey all kinds of tricks. This was his "so embarrassed" posed where he would lay down and put his head on the ground and hide his eyes. This always made us laugh.

Now that Bailey has "crossed the fence" and gone to another yard somewhere in the sky, we hope that he is making other people as happy as he made us. Bailey had many other people who loved him, who are no longer with us today, and we hope that he is playing tug-o-war with them now. Bye buddy - we miss you a ton!

Photographing a graduation

2011-06-11T21:59:00.000-07:00

For our family, the last 4 days were all about graduations. Tis the season for graduations and my daughter joined the throngs of kids who graduated from middle school and are heading to high school. Her school had a 45 minute ceremony on Thursday afternoon at 4pm. The sun was out (which has not been a normal occurrence this summer) and it was pretty warm. All this direct sunlight made it tough to take pictures of the kids during this outdoor ceremony.

The sun was to our backs and the poor kids had to look into the direct sunlight for the hour.

I took this picture of my daughter using a 70-200mm lens with a 1.4x adapter, giving me a 300mm equivalent on the Canon 5D Mark II. Not the greatest of shots, but the best that could be had, given the tough environment.

I had the advantage of using a good camera and knowing how to control the light (as much as I could). Most of the people who attended did not have this luxury. As a matter of fact, as you can see, many of them were using their cell phones to take pictures and video. So I decided to write this blog to help others take good pictures of their loved ones during this special day.

First tip: Take a lot of photos to ensure that you get great expressions. If you have enough memory in your camera (and I was armed with a Lexar 32GB 600x Professional CF card), take a lot of images to capture your subject at their best. There was numerous kids who had the self confidence and composure to stand up and sing in front of everyone. I took at least 15 pictures of this young girl so that I could get that perfect expression on her face.

Tip 2: Make sure to capture the key moments. Just like a wedding has the exchange of the rings and the first kiss, the graduation has the handover of the diploma. This is a moment that you do not want to miss.

Tip 3: Make sure to take pictures of your child with their favorite teachers (and principles). Most of us have the one or two teachers who not only inspired us, but also made our school time more enjoyable. Make sure to document that in your family history.

Tip 4: Look for those un-posed moments. After the graduation ceremony, I saw everyone posing their children with their friends and family. Sure, you want to get some posed images, but don't forget to take pictures of your child and their friends showing "real" emotion. You will not get these same reactions in a posed shot!

Tip 5: This might be the most important tip for your posed shots - know where your light is coming from and use it to your advantage. Most novice picture takers do not think about the lighting situation and often take pictures in the worst possible environments. If you really want a nice keepsake, take the time to move your subjects or yourself to use the sunlight to your advantage. In the shot above, our friends asked me to shoot this picture of father and daughter. I took the image quickly and then asked them if they would turn around so that the sun would be at their backs and not directly in their faces.

This second shot was taken about 10 seconds after the first shot. You will notice how much nicer this shot is! In the first shot, both father and daughter have raccoon eyes (with deep shadows) and they are squinting due to the blinding light coming directly into their eyes. I moved behind them, they turned around, I framed the shot...and voila... Not only do I have nice lighting on their faces, but I also have beautiful hair light coming from the sunlight behind them. So much better!

Tip 6: Make sure to get a family picture. Since I am the family photographer, it is rare for me to be in the pictures. But, I really wanted to have a picture of the family to remember this day. Luckily my daughter's photography teacher was talking with us (she actually became teacher's assistant - making dad very proud) and I asked him if he would take my camera and grab some images of the four of us.
Thanks Mr. Lozano!

Tip 7: Make sure to take lots of pictures of your child and their classmates. This will likely be the last time that they are all together in the same school, and it is a nice way to remember the tight-knit group.

Tip 8: Be proud of the accomplishments of your child. I am!

A Long Hot Walk In New York City

2011-06-03T16:21:00.000-07:00

It was late Wednesday morning in New York City and the weather was turning from hot to hotter. The humidity was increasing by the minute. Not exactly the best time to take a long walk...but any time that I get free time in NYC, I take advantage of it. So, while most New Yorkers were hiding in their air conditioned buildings, I took a cab to Battery Park at the very Southern tip of Manhattan.

This was one of those days when I was walking around with thousands of other tourists, camera hanging off my neck, snapping away. My first photo opportunity was the Statue of Liberty, since she is just to the South of the city. The weather was hazy and overcast, which has it's advantages if I was shooting portraits, but not great for cityscapes. As I watched all the tourists taking pictures of the statue, I realized the importance of finding a unique perspective. I found this area with plants and flowers and crouched down to allow them to be in the frame. I positioned myself so that the statue was right in the middle of the pylons and took my shot.

I love the old lights in the park.

After walking through Battery Park, I followed the path along the water (partly to get some of the breeze blowing in) and found this cool "pier" area. What drew my attention to this area was the multiple curves in the frame. You can see the curve of the wood overhang, the curve of the bridge, and the curve at the top of the building in the background.

As I made my way towards the World Trade Center area, I came across this memorial for the NY Police officers who have died while serving the public. Since it was only a couple of days after Memorial Day, their were fresh wreaths placed for them. I took numerous shots of this memorial, trying to find a unique view, but really did not like any of them. And then as I was walking away, I saw that I could shoot an image with the name of the memorial and the wreaths and wall in the background.

I then walked by ground zero to see how the new construction was coming. It was weird to be back in this area, since the last time that I photographed this area was ten years ago, only a month after the tragedy. I took this image to show the classic crowds in the city.

I shot about ten images of the crowd scene, and when going through them back at my hotel, I noticed this shot with this nice looking woman standing out of the crowd. (Photographer note: For a shot like this to work best, you really need to have a "subject" that draws the viewer's eye to one spot. I wish that the older gentleman in the foreground was a foot or two to the right, so that this lady in her red dress would really stand out, but...of well.)

Next stop on my 6 mile walk was Union Square. In the 30 or more trips that I have made to NYC, I have never been to this park. I really liked this perspective with George Washington in the foreground with the Empire State Building in the background. In this case, the hazy skies made this image more interesting. (Photographers note: Since you can not control the weather, take advantage of what you have. Do not let hazy or rainy days stop you from shooting photos. Many times, the overcast skies, puffy clouds, or rain puddles will bring you more opportunities than a bright sunny day.)

As I continued my walk towards Central Park, I saw this man cleaning windows above a busy street. So I crossed the street to get a better view and took some shots of him at work. Why? Not sure, but it is different than most people see everyday. :)

An hour passed and I really did not see any subjects that interested me, so I decided to slow the shutter of the camera and get some shots of the streets. Panning along with the taxi bike, I grabbed this shot to show a typical New York street scene. (Settings for this shot: ISO 100, f10, 1/10 sec, 24-105mm lens set to 24mm)

After 5 and a half hours of walking, I decided to go up to the top of the Rockefeller Building, otherwise known as the Top Of The Rock. I knew that the weather was not ideal for this type of view, but figured that it would be worth the $22 to see what view was offered at the top. I used this excursion as a scouting trip to plan a future visit to this location when the weather is better. Since my feet and legs were hurting, I took the time to sit up at the top of the building for an hour. I waited for this big cumulus cloud to cross behind the Empire State Building and grabbed this shot before heading back to the hotel to get cleaned up for my dinner meeting. Next time I think I will head up there at sunset (and hopefully with the fall colors in Central Park, which is the view from the other side of the building).

A High-Tech Bar Mitzvah

2011-05-29T14:45:00.000-07:00

Yesterday was another Bar Mitzvah here in the South Bay Area. It started like so many others, with individual portrait shots and family pictures. But, it did not take long to figure out that this family is not like most others. They like to let loose and have fun. Both kids are truly unique and they fully embrace their independence.

This is one of the more "typical family portraits" from the morning.

I was taking pictures of Max reading from the Torah and then he showed me his special yad (pointer). I focused on the Hebrew words and Max added the personality in the background.

As I mentioned, there is no shortage of personality in this family. Towards the end of the service, Max turned towards his friends and family and gave them a wave. Love that!

I am always looking around me when I am shooting an event. At one point, I turned towards the back of the synagogue and saw this father and son who were trying to stay quiet in the foyer of the Temple. The little guy (Josh) had his nose pressed against the glass and I was able to fire off a couple of shots to capture this moment. You just have to love little kids!

Most 13 year old kids choose to have sports themes or Hollywood themes for their parties, but since Max is a total techie (and even runs his own technology blog - "Good Morning Geek"), he chose technology as his theme for last nights party. Each of the centerpieces incorporated old technology parts and a silicon valley company name.

Standard place cards? Nope - not at this party. They created CD's for each person (and they even had some for Steve Wozniak, Steve Jobs, Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg who rudely did not show up).

At the entrance to the party, they had a wall of colorful balloons and all I could think of was, "wow - what a killer place to take portraits of the kids." Setting the camera to a wide aperture between f1.4 and f2.0, I was able to diffuse the background and create a really dynamic setting for the kids.

One of the DJs had an amazing afro (and yes I am jealous). I reached the camera high above him and shot this image of the MC working his magic, with the afro in the foreground. Yeah - I crack myself up. :)

The hora "traditional Jewish dance" is a big deal at the party. I love capturing the great expressions on the kids when they get lifted in the chair. I was not disappointed last night.

Both son and father embraced this to the fullest!

Later in the evening, it was time for the family to surprise Max with a montage of images and video of his first 13 years. (Photographers note: This is a perfect time to capture images of the family without them knowing that they are on camera. Even though the family had never seen the montage, because it was put together by another family member, I had watched it in advance to determine key moments that might draw the best reactions from the family. Use a fast lens and key in on each of the family members as their attention is on the screen, and not you.)

I am not sure if this little boy decked himself out in all this paraphernalia or if he was outfitted by some of the other kids, but I could not pass up this shot. Did I mention that I love photographing kids being kids? :)

A view into a hummingbord nest (with two baby birds)

2011-05-22T15:04:00.000-07:00

Last week I got a call from my wife saying that one of our friends had spotted a hummingbird nest at their home. I grabbed my camera, a long lens and some extension tubes (thank goodness I brought those) and we went for a visit.

I started by shooting images through their living room window since I was not sure if the mother bird would mind me being outside and closer to the nest. You can see from the image above, that there are two babies in the nest, waiting for mom to come back with some food.

After a couple of minutes, the mother came back with some goodies for the kids and I went outside to see if I could get a clearer shot. She sat there and did not seem to mind that I was 3 or 4 feet from her.

You might not be able to tell from the size of the image on the blog post, but I was able to get a nice clear shot of one of the babies in this image. When I grabbed my lenses to go over to their house, I was thinking that the nest would be bigger. The total size of this next was probably about an inch and half in diameter. If I have another chance to shoot images of the nest, I would choose a 150mm macro lens and shoot at f10 and not f4 to get more in focus.

Shooting ducks in the front yard

2011-05-15T14:40:00.000-07:00

It isn't very often that we get any sort of wildlife in our neighborhood. Sure, we have your run of the mill birds and squirrels, but nothing too exciting to photograph. Last week, my daughter was out in front of the house and came running back in to let me know that we had some visitors. There were a couple of mallards, that must be living in the nearby creek, and they decided to make a journey into the neighborhood. She wanted me to take some pictures of the ducks, so I grabbed the camera with my 100-400mm lens and went out shooting.

I got very low to the ground and shot images from the height of the mallards. I guess you could call this a ducks eye view.

It was just before sunset and I was able to get some images with the golden light from the last rays of the sun.

For this shot, I moved my position so that I could be in a position to line up the male and female ducks to have them face to face.

As with photographing any subject, it is always good to look for images that are not the obvious shots. As I was shooting images of their heads, I noticed the curly tail feathers on the male. When he sat in one position, I framed my shot to highlight the tail. I used a wide aperture to draw attention to the feathers and not the foreground or background.

I have been framed! Or...at least...my photos were shot that way.

2011-05-07T19:00:00.000-07:00

On the last blog entry, I purposely held back images from the recent trip to Boston. I wanted to focus this blog post specifically on the framing of an image. As many photographers will profess, a good image needs a strong foreground, mid-ground and background. It is also important to frame your images to make an image stronger and to draw attention to your main subject.

Prints can be framed, criminals can be framed, doors can be framed, and using your camera and your eyes, your photos can be framed.

This image, which I did include in the previous post, is a good example of image framing. I could have shot the same image without the arch at the top of the image. But, the curve of the arch and the addition of the staircase adds a frame of darker shadows, which draws the viewers attention to the middle of the image.

I shot this image through a glass window which was inset into a beautiful door. I could have easily opened the door and taken an image of these people studying, but I wanted to use the shape of the window and the surrounding pattern to frame my main subject.

And again, in this shot, instead of just showing the main reading room in the library, I backed up behind one of the entries and took this shot of the book cases and clock. As much as I liked this shot, I thought that it might be nice to shoot it a little tighter.

So...again...I backed up a little more, and this time framed the shot horizontally and a little lower. I really like the way that the book case creates a natural frame of the main reading room.

A couple of hours in Boston - The Boston Public Library

2011-05-02T08:15:00.000-07:00

I just returned from a quick trip to the Boston area. Knowing that I would have very limited time to shoot images, I got off the plane at 5:30pm, grabbed my rental car, and high-tailed it into downtown Boston while I still had some daylight.

The first thing that I noticed were these beautiful tulips. I got down low to the ground so that I could get a shot of the flowers without showing the dirt underneath them. (Photographers note: It is always important to have a main subject in any image, so in this image I made sure that the focal point was on the tall purple tulip to the left of this image. I also made sure that the image used the rule of thirds, with the main subject off center of the image.)

Here is a wider shot of the tulips in Copley Square, in front of the main library (left) and the Old South Church. As you can tell, it was a cloudy day, so the skies were rather dull, but at least I did not have to worry about shadows in my images.

Just like my trip to New York a couple of weeks ago, my primary destination was the main public library. Why? Because, like the main library in NYC, Boston has a beautiful reading room and I wanted to capture images in this historic building. This is an image of the entrance to the old library.

Funny thing is, after returning home from the recent trip to NY, I saw an article in the San Jose Mercury News highlighting the most beautiful libraries in the U.S.

Now I can say that I have photographed in two of the most amazing public libraries in the United States.

Just like in NY, I wanted to capture images of the reading room, keying in on some of the people who were studying.

Then I got back in the rental car and drove to Fanueil Hall to shoot some images during my favorite time of day. The light was fading quickly, so it was time to mount the camera to my tripod and go search for shooting locations.

As I mentioned, it was really cloudy, but you can't let that stop you from shooting photos. In this case, I used the cloudy sky to my advantage, showing how Fanueil Hall was clearer than the tower in the background.

I came across this cool intersection, with great lighting and nice cobble stone roads. Even though the skies were overcast, the evening light still came through, giving the images a really nice purple background.

This is probably my favorite image from the trip. (Photographer’s note: This image really works due to the combination of colors and lines. Notice how the lights and the curve of the alley draw your eye deeper into the image. I even like the fact that the neon “O” is broken in the sign, giving this image a little more character.)