Brittney and Clay: Engagement Portrait at the speed of light!

Brittney and Clay:  Engagement Portrait at the speed of light!

Fastest Engagement Session ever! He proposed on thanksgiving and 2 days later I took their portrait (ok so I going by anyway to pickup a flash that i left there earlier that week.. but it still counts!)

They make a cute couple, it was very nice to get a few photos of a newly engaged soon to be bride still in her euphoria, a bit horse from what she claims was a cold... but i suspect that it was from yelling in excitement and joy :)

Brittney is always happy to pose for me but Clay is more elusive, this is the first time I've got a pic of him since a wedding last year.

I think they work well together and I can't wait to see what they plan for the wedding.

http://truelightphoto.smugmug.com/Other/Brittney-and-Clay/20270139_LRKhjq

Happy Thanksgiving!

Happy Turkey Day Everyone!!

I hope everyone has a safe, filling, and happy holiday! Personally I'm going to enjoy my time off and try to get some productive photography stuff done between turkey induced comas :)

Food Photography 101

Food Photography 101

Around the Thanksgiving / Christmas Holiday if you are a photography nut like me, or just want to make your friends jealous you may find yourself wanting to try to get some good shots of your feast.

So I wanted to offer a few quick tips:

A Macro lenses are wonderful for food photos, but a nifty fifty (50mm) is a cheaper alternative .. If you are using a point and shoot I'd use the little flower symbol to go into "macro" mode (it's not really "macro" technically but if will basically make the camera focus faster close up)  what your looking for is a narrow depth of field so you can pull the eye in to what you want it to focus on.

(See how you can focus on just the spoon)

 A tripod it very useful to have on hand so that you can fix the camera in place and move food items in and out,  if you are really into it you can also setup a tethered laptop to display as you shoot, that way you can make little adjustments to get the best shot.

Natural Light is amazing; if you can get a little sunlight coming in it can make some really great photos, throw in a simple reflector on the side and you can get some wonderful images without much in gear.

If you do use a flash try to make it indirect or diffuse it, bounce it off a wall or shoot through a umbrella if yo can.

Try to make the background less distracting as possible, I've been using a solid grey lately;
I've been trying to improve the non food items in the picture; I find square white plates look much better, i'd like to get more props to lay around to create a sense of environment in my shots.

I haven't had a food stylist myself but having one on hand would be fantastic.

Video:

Kelby Training has a fantastic food photography video that shows alot of the little tricks that go into some of those really amazing product shots.  http://kelbytraining.com/course/glyda_food/ it really is a fantastic course (you can signup for a tree trial to view it when you have time.

Books:
I've heard this is a good book to get you started (also on kindle! :)



Food Photography: From Snapshots to Great Shots

Some of my favorite food shots:

PotD: Foundation of Knowledge

Foundation of Knowledge

Shot Info:  Digital Rebel XTi, f2.8, ISO 800 
June 28 2009

Probably one of the first HDRs that i really liked, I don't know why i always shoot at 2.8, i guess it's sunset and this was probably handheld so i couldn't shoot at f8 or f16 and get a stable enough image to work with.

This is one of our awesome downtown buildings, I love a view with giant columns.

Holiday Cards!

Holiday Cards!

So this year I'm going to try to get in as many holiday shots/cards as possible.

What I'm going to do is charge a $50 sitting fee price and give you a gift certificate to use on your first order of cards.

I'm going try fulfillment through my website; you can build your own through it's easy to use interface; it will only takes a few mins.  or if you'd like I can help you.

I guarantee our quality so if you have any issues just let me know.

Samples of Cards that will be available :  http://www.smugmug.com/cards/gallery/?category=2

A few ones I crated from prior years shots so you can see how the shopping cart will work:
http://truelightphoto.smugmug.com/My-SmugMug-Creations/Cards/20120890_mZzn7C


The Pricing for Glossy/Matt Cards:

20 4x8 Cards w/ Env.    $20

50 4x8 Cards w/ Env. $38

100 4x8 Cards w/ Env. $65

5x7 Folded 1   for $5
10 for $30
100 for $50


It takes 1-3 Days to ship so... be sure you check out and oder by this date:
* 6-10 Business Day shipping – December 9th
* 3-5 Business Day shipping – December 13th
* 2nd Business Day shipping – December 16th
* Next Business Day shipping – December 19th

Of course you are also free to order other prints from the session at regular price.

Contact me on Facebook, call/txt me at (843) 252-0001, or email me at phillip@truelightphoto.com
Reservations are first come first serve, I'll be doing a few every weekend till Xmas!

Portrait Session: Cowgirl Brittney

Portrait Session:  Cowgirl Brittney


Last weekend I had a good time with Brittney, gotta love a girl that will run grab a horse right out of the field for a prop! :)

We shot it out at her parent's ranch in Hartsville, wonderful idea for a location and a beautiful day.

I've now got her as both a blond and a brunette, not sure which looks better on her - she wears them both really well.

She did great, always ready with a smile, the tricky part is to get a serious look :)

For most of these I used a off camera flash to try to get rid of the shadows on her face (we were shooting in near midday light so I put the sun behind her or shot in shade.

She was a model model, willing to play around and have fun and try whatever silly thing I wanted; eager to try some other themes too which i'm very much looking forward to! :)

PotD: Van of Band of Oz

Van of Band of Oz

Shot info:  Canon 7D, f 5.6, ISO 200

This was a shot from the pecan festival of the "Band of Oz"'s bus, I though the color really worked well for a HDR - kinda wish the door shut but I think it still worked.  This was hand held and created in Nik's Color Efex.

PotD: All The World's

All The World's

Shot info:  Canon 7D, varible exposure, f/8 ISO 800
shot at the Preforming Arts Center in Florence SC


This is a HDR i created from 3 shots of the interior of the main stage at our new preforming arts center here in Florence, SC.  It's a really amazing building, they tell me that this stage was modeled in a computer to optimize the acoustics for the performers.

I used a tripod for this setup so i didn't have to worry as much about camera shake when creating the HDR, I've been to a few events now that used the lobby for parties but i haven't been to a even that uses the stage itself.  It's become one of my favorite subjects for photography here in Florence, our downtown now has several awesome architectural examples.

PotD: HDR of The Cathedral of Saint John the Baptist

HDR Cathedral

Shot Info:  Canon 7D, 1/160 (base this is a shot composite), F 2.8, ISO 1600


This is a HDR image I created of the The Cathedral of Saint John the Baptist in Savannah, GA.  I think it may be the most beautiful place i have ever been in; it really is a surreal feeling walking into it .  It was also my first trip to Savannah, it's a really wonderful city, the historic distract is amazing.

Looking back i probably should have increased the F stop a little, this was alot of ground to cover, but as a I recall I was concerned with it being so low light;  I don't think they allow tripods but i had to brace the camera to prevent camera shake.

Overall I was very happy with how it turned out.

Photography 101: HDR 101

Photography 101:  HDR 101



HDR stands for “high dynamic range”


you might think of it as creating a image that is more than what you can see (or more than your camera can see)



Most displays can’t show true HDR images; so when you picture HDR in your head you are really picturing tone mapped HDR images - tone mapping is picking what details you want from each portion of the image.



I usually explain it like this:  take your camera to somewhere near a window on a sunny day, you can shoot so that you’ll be able to see what is outside but the inside will be really dark OR you can shoot so that the inside looks great but the outside will be solid white... you can’t do both in 1 shot.  What you are doing with HDR is shooting both then merging them together so that you get 1 shot that you couldn’t normally get.



Alot of cameras will have a mode called “exposure bracketing” where it will automatically shoot in this way for you, usually 3-5 “stops”  ((a stop is a measure of how bright or dark a picture is))
in order words shot 1 = really dark, shot 2 = normal looking, shot 3 = super bright)



Once you’ve got your super dark, proper, and super light photos you toss them into a program that merges them together and helps you tone map them (I use Nik Softwards HDR Efex pro, photomatix is also very popular, and newer versions of photoshop can also do it); basically you get a bunch of sliders that do various things; bring out detail, enhance blacks, ect.


Here is an example of a 0 Exposure, a +1 and a -1 Exposure

 HDR (tone mapped)

If you look at the dark image you'll notice you can see out the window but inside looks far to dark, in the bright image inside looks great but outside it solid white.


By merging them you get 1 image that has good detail everywhere.


This image was shot with my Canon S96 with bracket mode, then I used Nik Software's HDR Efex pro to map out the combined image.



If you want to go the extra mile you can toss the 3 bracketed images into photoshop as layers and also toss the HDR image on top, then mask out areas that you want lighter or darker (or to remove the ghost looking images you’ll get of things that are moving)



You can end up with some really cool looking images.

My favorite HDR artist is Trey Ratcliff of www.stuckincustoms.com/
He offers lots of free tutorials, advice, and inspiration in the world of HDR.

Happy 11/11/11 !

I love numerology and weird dates/times;
This month has been great for them 11/2 was a palindrome :  the same forwards and backwards  (just like "A Man A Plan A Canal Panama" ) 11022011 , and today was 11/11/11 11:11:11 which I must say feels very cool to me! (and yes i did make a wish)

sadly i missed the big screen shot by 1 second, but at least i was watching and aware of it :)

Ashley And Hunter Engagement Shots

Had a Blast with these two Saturday Evening! This was a perfect weekend to get out and shoot they were my 2nd shoot of the day (the first is a secret gift for someone shhhhh....)  We used Timrod Park as our first stop, then the location of the beginning of their attraction, then a cotton field at a friend's house (with a quick stop by a signpost with their last future shared last name).

Overall a very fun day!