I recently published four more books on Photography:
They are great resource for those of you interested in photography. They will challenge your skills and help you to learn the fundamentals of photography. Enjoy!
I have just received notice that I passed the certification image review and I am now a Certified Professional Photographer! It was a long journey, including a difficult exam and multiple image submissions, but I am proud to have passed and to be considered a Professional Photographer by my peers.
There is only one other CPP in Erie County, and within 50 miles of Erie, there are only 5 CPP photographers…and I know two of the others personally, great people!
Many thanks to Dana Nordlund for providing the inspiration and support for me to pursue this journey. I think I’ll continue to try and advance in the art of Photography.
John
I spent my hour at the studio this Sunday working on high speed flash sync on the water drop experiment. I meant to revisit this test with water and flashes, and woke up motivated to try it.
My camera can sync with a flash at 1/250 second. My quest was to see if the flash would sync at speeds faster than 1/250. I set the camera at various speeds from 1/200 to 1/2000 and the results were very similar on the drops – the flash itself stops the motion well. But at least I know how to set HSS mode now, which will be valuable outside this summer!
This time around I captured some interesting images. Of the 270 images I captured, here are the 10 or 15 best. I can say that high speed sync is not required, but a close focus on the splash spot is mandatory. For most of these shots, I had a flash at 90 degrees left, providing strong side light. I used the “live view” magnification and manual focus on a tripod to lock in a tight focus on the point of drop impact, and varied the f-stop to control depth of field.
What I learned today:
Today I received my new lens. This is a great low-light lens which I’ll find very useful in my wedding photography.
Here are a couple of images straight out of the camera. Note the extremely shallow depth of field. These were all taken at f/1.4 to see how the camera performed in low light. They were all hand-held, in Aperture Priority mode inside my house.
I had a bit of time to kill today while my studio warmed up for a class. I tried the water drop experiment. I shot 40 frames and ended up with this keeper. This was in natural light. I’m interested to try some more with different lighting!
I’ve been photographing Meaghan and her family for many years. She asked for professional dance portraits to accompany her senior images. Here are a couple of neat images from our recent session.
Last week I photographed a unique event: The dance performance of Attack Theatre performing Stravinsky’s “A Soldier’s Tale”, accompanied by a small group from the Erie Philharmonic.
Photographing in a quiet yet packed Warner Theatre was an interesting challenge for me. I was photographing without flash of course, from the back of the theater. The sound of my camera’s shutter would have been distracting, so I muffled the clicks it by wrapping me and my camera in thick layers of black velvet. I was invisible in the dark!
I had nearly optimal settings on my camera for the conditions: Wide aperture, moderately high ISO, and a shutter speed sufficient to stop the motion of the dancers. I had my 70-200 IS lens set on f/2.8, and I switched to a 50mm f/1.8 for a couple of wide angle images.
Enjoy some of the images from this great performance. Erie does have a lot of cultural events!
Today I updated my website to a new site. It has an integrated blog, shopping cart/gallery, and great support for iPads and mobile phones. It’s a very clean look, and I’m so far delighted with the customer service. With my blog and other documents integrated into the website, I am certain that it will reflect favorably in my SEO results. Have a look and let me know what you think!
Congratulations Kristen and Michael! Best of luck to you both!
Nice images, Danielle!
