A Two-Year-Old and the Hottest Day of the Year

A friend of mine asked me to take a picture of him, his wife and their son for Grandma's 60th birthday. I had no idea Labor Day 2007 was going to prove to be the hottest day of the year.

We knew we'd need to keep the shoot brief as the toddler's attention span was good for about fifteen or twenty minutes, if we were lucky. Turns out, it was good for about ten minutes, but only in thirty second bursts, so I had to move fast. I had the lights set when they arrived and everything was ready for them to just step in and go. We tried for the traditional family portrait but the shot at top was the one that is hanging on Grandma's wall.

One thing I felt pretty bad about was how hot it was in my studio that day. I couldn't believe it. After about ten minutes of trying to pretend that we weren't all sweating like crazy, I brought a fan in to put low in front of the family, which made for quite a few fly-away hairs that needed to be cloned out, but the benefits of the airflow were very much worth it.

All in all it was a great session and they got a shot they love. I was told it made Grandma cry. It doesn't get much better than making grandma's cry, does it?

The Rare and Elusive Pacific Parrotlet

My girlfriend's bird, Chico, had his first birthday a few days ago and she asked me to fire up the lights, camera and the action to see if we could get some fun images of him outside in one of the trees around our house.

The odd thing about this picture is that it was taken during the day. Open shade provided most of the lighting here—you can see raw sun sneaking in on a branch about half way up the far right side of the frame—then, in an attempt to simulate the golden "magic hour" lighting sunset is so famous for, I placed a strobe behind and to the left of the tree. This produced a yellow line down the left side of Chico and added to the leaves a great combination of gold and green. The background went dark because I was working at a somewhat fast shutter speed (1/125) combined with a very closed down aperture (f/14) all at ISO 200....so the already dark ambient light in the deeply shaded porch was considerably underexposed.

Very little was done to this image in Photoshop: This was taken with a digital SLR, so I pumped the color saturation a bit to simulate the Fuji Velvia film popular with wildlife and landscape photographers.

This shot came together pretty quickly and actually ended up looking very close to exactly what I'd envisioned as I hurried to set up before Chico lost interest in the whole thing. Turns out, he was pretty mesmerized by my beeping camera and the flashing yellow light behind him.

Nydia got some shots she's quite happy with and it was a nice little exercise for me to see how quickly I could conceptualize a lighting scenario using the available light as my key and produce a great image. Success!

Thanks for reading.

A new hope...

Well, it's been quite a while since I staked my claim in this little corner of the blogosphere...and look at me with no content to speak of. For shame!

"Marty, don't you know everyone wants to know your deepest thoughts, poured out into cyberspace on a ritualistic basis? To blog is to live, yes?"

Yeah, not sure about all that. I've never been one to keep a journal but I definitely see the merits to doing such a thing. And, what better place to keep this journal than out there in public!?

So, here's my first official entry:

*tapping pencil on desk*

Yesterday, I reconnected with a friend I hadn't spoken to in several years. She recently divorced and was catching me up on what's been happening in her life the past three years or so since we last spoke. She's fun and energetic and a blast to talk to, and I was sharing with her a little self-analysis I've been doing lately.

I've known this young lady since high school, back in those carefree days when you could make seven thousand dollars a year and still be upbeat about things. Somewhere between then and today, I lost a step. I lost some of that come-what-may spirit I used to possess back in those days. It's got to be the weight of the world and the responsibilities that go along with being an adult that are clouding my view of who I was back in those days. In some big ways, I feel like a much different person than I was back then, but in some other very big ways I feel like the exact same person I was back then.

In light of all this, my goal of late is to get through this cloud obscuring my view of who I once was and tap into that youthful creative energy. Easier said than done, but I'm determined!