Portraits....

I’m often asked to do portraits of people, however, typically I decline since I don’t feel I have all the equipment I’d like in order to do what I envision portraits to be. This morning however, I was asked by a friend in need to take a few head shots as his restaurant is being featured in an online article where they require a photo of the chef of Lardon Restaurant(him).

Luckily I was able to borrow his 2nd flash, and although I’d prefer to have 3 flashes to have a more variety of shots, I went ahead with 2 canon 530exII’s and a large reflector to achieve what I was hoping would be decent head shots that would please him. I had one flash (with a diffuser) on body pointing towards the subject along with a flash behind the subject pointing at the wall, also being diffused. I used a large circular white reflector to help reflect light from the flashes to eliminate as much shadow as possible. The result wasn't so shabby. I was able to at least able to achieve what my friend wanted. This was a set of black and white and colour head shots he could submit to be used and also have on file. Given this was my first attempt at doing this type of photography (I’m more of a candid/landscape shooter); I feel I did an adequate job given the situation. I of course would like to try some more flash and light techniques that are floating around in the back of my mind. Perhaps it’s time to buy a few extra flashes? I guess we’ll see ;)

Here are a few shots from the results of the shoot. I’ve touched them up, removing some blemishes however no air brushing was performed as my friend preferred not to have that done.

Whistler Blackcomb....

There are so many of these types of videos online that choosing one here and there to post isn't difficult. This one has a bit more sentimental value since I do hope to make it out to this ski village sometime this year, though realistically I probably will not until 2012. At first glance, it seems like this was done with a tilt shift lens, however, after reading an interview with the creator, I found out that it was actually done using various plug-ins and post processing techniques. Here’s a link to the interview dialog.

Whistler Blackcomb XXS from Whistler Blackcomb on Vimeo.

NYC Snowstorm....

I'm sure a number of people have seen this, whether it be on other blogs or on the news, however i just had to post it here as well. It's amazing how much snow fell in the course of 24 hours in the NY-NJ area. I believe NJ received the most however i may be mistaken. Either way this has just given me snow envy since I'm from the "great white north' and lately, it's just been lacking the white that i require.

December 2010 Blizzard Timelapse from Michael Black on Vimeo.

Mike Black has another angle of this snowstorm on various websites, here is his vimeo link:

http://vimeo.com/user4157263

NYC...Revisited....

I know it’s the Christmas season but given i didn’t have much to do today i decided to just sit down and look through some old photos. I never did finish going through all my NYC photos back in the summer so i decided that would be a good place to begin. I found a set of night photos in the multitude of shots when my friend Vincent and i decided to wander Lincoln Center on the way back home from a night of youthful revelry. The shots weren’t fantastic but they still brought be back to the day and helped me vividly remember what a great trip that was, after all isn’t that what taking photos is about? Here are some shots:

Lunar Eclipse 2010....

This past Tuesday, in the wee hours of the morning, something happened that hasn’t occurred in the last 400 or so years.  It was a lunar eclipse during the winter solstice!  Lunar eclipses are common enough but to have it line up such that it’s on the longest night of the year is quite the rarity.   Unfortunately I was working that night so I wasn’t able to capture as true a time sequence of the different phases; however I was able to get a few snaps in ever so often. 

I don’t do much sky/star photography so the settings are relatively foreign to me.  For the most part, I find myself just experimenting with settings, typically switching between long exposures and large apertures to short exposures and small apertures.  Working with a dark sky and a very bright moon proved challenging but I found that a quick shutter was my friend for this evening.  Given I was in a commercial area I also had to deal with buildings getting in the way as the moon moved across the sky, I found myself moving myself and tripod to a different location each time I ventured outside to take a shot or few.   As the moon moved into the peak of its eclipse and was a nice shade of red/orange, I generally stuck with longer exposures and medium aperture values hovering around 5.6.  Throughout the evening, I’d find myself manually focusing only because I found that to be an efficient way of getting the moon in focus.  It’s during times like these where I’d have a lens with a bit more reach. My equipment only allows me to go as far as 105 on a full frame, which isn’t very much when wanting to shoot something such as the moon, so the level of detail on the surface of the moon is definitely lacking. Something along the lines of a 200+ would’ve been excellent. I suppose it’s during these times I miss a crop frame body, however, I was able to make the most of it. 

Like I had mentioned before I was working that night so I wasn’t able to capture all phases but I was able to capture a few and I’ve compiled a set of images into one composite showing the phases that I witnessed.  I’ll let your imagination do the rest.

I’ve taken the above shots from several images I took throughout the night which will be displayed below.