DPP 0811, Day 8 – (Mama) Joy

I know I started out with the premise that I wasn’t going to shoot anyone I’ve already featured in my previous daily portrait projects. However, if you’ve been following this blog, you know all too well how rarely I get a chance to make a decent picture of my own mother. All too familiar with our shared ‘love’ of travel, this is probably one of the last times we’ll both be in a forested area with a scenic view, so I’m quite happy to have this serene moment preserved.

The Lab Affair Continues …

I’ve just gotten around to working on the images that I shot for ChemSA and I am proud to present the gems that I unearthed from the shoot. I haven’t worked on all the portraits yet, but I’m releasing this partial update to give the other officers their time in the spotlight.

Venz

More pictures after the jump …

DPP 0811, Day 7 – Chandy

Chandy, or formally Chanda, is Susan’s aunt. Due to a barely-there age difference, they treat each other more like sisters. For me, this picture is a perfect example of the sort of magic that  a small flash off the camera can do — the grid on the flash highlights the face of the subject, the shade of the canopy of trees allow me to easily control ambient light without overworking the strobe, and underexposing ambient by about a stop allows me to make my subject pop out of the frame. My sincere thanks to a gracious and graceful subject, and to Mama Gaia for the breathtaking background.

DPP 0811, Day 6 – Jeff

Jeff is Susan’s uncle. Too young? Let me clarify. He is Susan’s uncle by virtue of marriage to an aunt close to her age. This was shot at The Forest Camp in the town of Valencia. I was actually shooting his wife when we caught him looking on already ‘posed’ like this, so it was just a matter of turning the light around (Susan was kind enough to be my VAL) to make this picture of him. I have come to realize that guys are much easier to pose because there are a few basic poses that will work for most men. Hmm ... does this mean I'll be shooting more men throughout the month? :-)#

DPP 0811, Day 5 – Ian

Ian, also Susan’s cousin, was assisting me while I was shooting Lloyd (who is featured in the previous post). He was the one who informed me of the balcony overlooking the street below where I ultimately made this picture of him. I wished for more pronounced light trails from the cars below, but 1/5 s with my elbow perched on the ledge was the slowest I was willing to go. In the end, I got enough of the street to show to make the image work, so I was quite happy with how this turned out.

DPP 0811, Day 4 – Lloyd

I attended a wedding last Friday. I don’t especially like weddings (or any gathering where the head count of attendees exceeds five), so I was quite happy to have shared a table with my wife’s cousin, Lloyd, who kept things lively with his banter. As the reception wound down, I asked him for a quick photo because he looked so dashing in his barong, and I did bring a ‘light’ pack of gear with me. Plus, I was eyeing the piano in the corner the whole night. There were all sorts of artificial lights inside the reception area, so I used a relatively fast shutter speed to minimize their effect on the image; but, not fast enough to remove details from the shadows.

DPP 0811, Day 3 – Paolo

It would be quite the understatement to say that Paolo is a natural in front of the camera. He’s one of those people who looks good at nearly every angle and seems to have the different degrees of his smile down to a science. I’m glad I was able to find a complementary balance between the ambient and flash exposures; flicking a tiny bit of light on Pao’s face to make it pop without casting a potentially distracting shadow anywhere else.

DPP 0811, Day 2 – Joy

The young woman in the photo is probably one of the few Joy’s I know who actually does justice to her name. Although she prefers behind-the-scenes work during a shoot, I am happy that I was able to coax her in front of the lens and make this picture of her. 

DPP 0811, Day 1 – James

There are a number of things I’m not really happy with in this photo (all praises for James though) and to think it took me a while to make this shot. But, when I look at it, to me, the good far outweighs the bad, so I decided to start off my DPP for this month with this shot. Because in any endeavor, we all really just need to make that first step.

More to come …

Daily Portrait Project 0811

I’ve been feeling under the weather (miserable actually) for the past few days, but I’m committed to doing my first shoot for my DPP 0811. As the great philosopher Jon Bon Jovi once said, “I’ll sleep when I’m dead”.

This time around, I’ll adopt a looser interpretation of the word ‘daily’, since I won’t be shooting a portrait each day as my schedule simply would not allow it. Instead, I’ll be shooting twice or thrice a week, but will present a lit portrait for each day of the month.

To up the ante, I am going to present a different lighting theme for each week. For the first week, it’s going to be hard, ‘restricted’ light. I’m going to limit myself to one or two hot shoe flashes that will have either grids or snoots attached.

The picture below (which is one of my favorites) is an example of what restricting light coming from a flash can do for an image.

More to come … hopefully. Wish me luck!