Holiday Shoot!

To put it plain and simple : not one single thing that I wanted went well. But love the outcome still.

I wanted to try the home-made beauty-dish to put up on the flash. I tried, but I wasnt happy with the results. The image quality wasnt bit close to what it was on the site.

Wanted to have shaped bokehs in the portrait. I know I was highly ambitious that too with my little model to do manual focusing with the shape making paper. Sadly I failed in cutting out a shape on first place. I tried several times but in vain. Not one try gave me the perfect size and shape.

Wanted to use the flash and not the light-scoop. Again, I couldnt put up the setting properly with flash to capture the background but only light-scoop  could do that.

Most of all, my ever-so co-operative little model, who was tired. Biggest mistake. Made me decide, no more evening sessions. Nothing after 2 pm. This time, begging wont work, bribing failed miserably and wish I had known a couple more tricks.

Some pictures (actually a lot of take-outs):

The 3 of the above pictures are when my tricks worked. And then...

... started the smile strike. She decided she was done smiling for the camera and then ...

... "I dont care what you do with your camera. I am not even looking at it anymore" ...

... and then with a little bit of success to lighten her mood, she wont stop talking...

... and eating up her prop ( candy cane). I now know that was a wrong choice of prop to give in her hand and ask her smile with it but not eat it! 

And then some more talking and then... HAPPY HOLIDAYS!!! 

5 Days of Exotica!

5 days of exclusive love affair with the weather, nature, camera and needless to say the family time. Sharing a bunch of pictures from a recent trip to Maui, Hawaii.

First off, thanks to my husband who did a small research and found out Maui is the scenic island loved most for photographies than other island and we narrowed down on this.

Second off, decided to borrow two lenses, for the trip and left back the basic lens, since I knew I wont be using it as much. Would never regret the decision. It was a little less burden on my shoulders.

Had a variety of subjects to shoot a wide variety, to learn, explore and practice. Had earlier made a list of "to try shots" , in which missed a bunch while I still was satisfied with the unplanned shots that I got.

New love: Lensbaby Composer. Definitely a hard one on my eyes. It is very hard to do manual focusing with my eyesight. And with lensbaby, I felt I dint utilize it to the best since it was all manual focus. But this was very great for longer aswell close up shots of a busy street or a flower. Loved it and would certainly borrow this one more time, provided I practice well and master the skill of manual focusing.

Some pictures that I like the most out of lensbaby composer:

Lensbaby when pointed on a crowded subject like the lavenders, it gives a scattered effect in place of the bokeh which looks lovely than the regular bokeh I would have gotten with my 50 mm lens.

It is also known for zoom burst effect and for producing miniature scenes. A couple of tries on that:

They were just a few yards away yet they appear like lego mini figures!

And some beach sunset shots didnot come with the actual sun since it was a cloudy day but with the beautiful hues of the sunset sky.

The sunset hues from beach with Lanai in the background; with longest allowed exposure to make the water look dreamy. Worth all the risk that we took - it was totally isolated beach on an isolated place and had not a lot of people except a handful who left well before sunset. My heart started racing as darkness started to grip in. But now, I feel it is totally worth. 

Bonus shots that I dint miss to get with the beach wedding that was going on and while the groom and the bride were posing for their photographer:

Used slow shutter speed at various points to get various results:

And few more:

It was a great place to play around with my camera, good that all the cribbing from me for carrying the camera bag + tripod all the way up and down the trails and everywhere else paid back. But again, I have always felt I could have done better and feel sorry for having missed the sunset/sunrise. 

My First Maternity Shoot

Getting back after a very long time.

Finally my camera focused on some one else other than my own family! Got to shoot some maternity pictures of the beautiful and heavily pregnant friend of my mine.

They are simple maternity pictures taken at home with brown and white backdrops. Had always dreamt of doing an outdoor shoot, but when the moment came, I was more than happy that the weather didnot co-operate much. Because, I had by that time started to panic about embarrassing myself with a new person in front of my camera and going outdoors is nothing but multiplying and risking myself with several other uncertainties. That is the same reason for having not gone for couple's shoot but only the mommy-to-be shoot. Again, I wanted to keep the audience minimal to view me getting embarrassed. 

Not a lot of picture details, since they are all straight forward, without a lot of complicated settings and minimal post processing. Just that the negative space around the subject has helped so much. So the pictures are coming out straight:

But by the end of session or to say, even when the session started, I didnot feel the anxiety anymore. Except I started getting greedy about not being able to go out for an out door shoot! 

The Golden Hour

Summer screams outdoor pictures. Starting from pretty flowers, bees to bugs and lot of travel pictures it also throws us abundant light to take great pictures. Love summer for this.

Staying outdoors late till the sun goes down brings joy in another way - the beautiful yellow hued portrait opportunities.

The last one hour of sunlight before it sets down is called the Golden Hour and this time is apt to take those yellow hued pictures. It doesnt give burnt spots, no washed out areas, no harsh shadows under the eyes, no squinty eyes on the portraits, but the beautiful golden yellow light filling the scene. And may be that is why it is called "the golden hour".

It infact it renders a lovely golden line outlining the frame of the subject. One can play with this light with a bit of creativity - you can create a silhouette or make the golden outlined portraits or make backlit portraits. There are so many possibilities. Some pictures I got to take with the golden lining.

Not a bad try in capturing the golden yellow line along side her face through her jacket. 

There is the subtle yellow line running throughout the outline of her little body. 

And those painless "Face the sun, get a click" moments and still not have to worry about the under eye raccoon effect created by shadows.

The above picture was taken on a fine sunny mid day and the over head sun has clearly shadowed her face leaving a portion of her arms well lit.

And how I wish the back lit pictures came out well. By that time, she started getting too busy playing and would not stay still for a second. Or even show her face. 

Hoping to make best use of the summer and late evenings to pull out some more portraits and back lit shots.

Jump start to great portraits

A lot of us donot think of limb chops during a portrait. A lovely portait on a carefully chosen background, for only that, arms from wrist is gone or legs from calves are gone or one arm is gone, or sometimes from elbow.

This seriously is not appealing particularly for a lovely portait.

Here is a picture from one of the forums that shows the limb chops that are permitted and not really appreciated. And as the saying - "A picture is worth a 10 pages of explanation", this is crisp and makes so much of sense.

This would be jump start to taking beautiful portraits.

Fun Shaped Bokehs

Its been quite a while I wrote a post. Things are keeping me busy. Not a lot happening on the hobby front.

To say, got a lovely Canon Speedlite 430ex ii as V'day gift and its sickening to my stomach to say this - I have not yet learnt to do it in manual mode.

But got to play with the camera and bokeh for the "attempted vday themed pictures". A couple of them turned out well.

The set up was like this: A dark colored background - preferably black, a bunch of natural light and some holiday lights over the backdrop.

The lens opening is circular and that is why we see circle bokehs of lights in the background. To get shaped bokehs it is simple - one needs to change the shape of the lens opening. For this, all I did was to change/modify the lens opening with a precut piece of paper.

To explain: cut desired shape in a piece of construction paper (not necessarily black). Let it be small - really small - a little smaller than a cent. Cutting it too big would let in too much of light and the result would not be as appealing .

With a piece of cellophane tape, tape it around the lens - nice and snug, that there would not be a gap for any light to enter from anywhere else, but only through the cut shape of the paper. Prime lens should keep things simple since with it you will not have to adjust the zoom at any point.

Now the settings part: by putting a paper in front of the lens and blocking in a lot of light, the images are prone to come out under-exposed. So pop up the ISO to the next level and decrease the shutter speed.  It is all set.

I just have the end result. The ones of the actual setup has gone missing. Means, one more victim due to my 11 pm editing and making copies of images. Also the picture showing the lens with the heart shaped cut out paper pasted to it, is gone too.

And the pictures after very mild editing like straightening and cropping:

 

The above pictures were taken very much next to a window on a nice and sunny day, with abundant sunlight coming in. The mug is lit by the natural light. And I kept the back drop far off - like atleast 3 ft away from the mug so that appears dark enough. Also getting close to the subject makes the bokeh bigger and makes the subject stand out.

The above set tells all about the shaped lens opening and the regular lens opening.

Will soon make a post on the pictures of the spring flowers and my trial and error pictures with the Speedlite on.