Every month I get a few photography magazines to read and examine. Each month I look at 90% of the photos and sneer at them with an "I could do that" attitude and then toss them out. A few of the photos are out of my league but most (I feel) are well within my range of ability.
This month I saw one of the most basic shots, "The Water Drop" in Digital SLR Photography and decided to try my hand at one of these "easy" shots.
There wasn't much to the set up: a dark paint tray, tripod, flash, macro lens, and off you go. The only problem was setting up the hanging bag where the water would drip from. After about 10 minutes of trial and error, I was able to get water to drop consistently in a single place.
After that it was timing. I have so many shots of the pan itself (too early) or just ripples (too late).
Really cool things started to happen when I anticipated the drop and was able to catch it before it flew upwards. I was excited to be able to move the flash all around the pan thanks to my pocket wizards and that gave me creative control over where the shadows would fall.
I attached a few different colored gels on the flash to get different looks, and after I was done I looked back at the original article in the magazine with a feeling that I did a pretty good job overall. This should be the start of a new habit of mine... trying to replicate shots I admire and like.
My friends came out from Toronto the other weekend and asked for a photo shoot with their 10-month-old. Sadly the whole weekend was spent with their baby in and out of clinics with a fever and an ear infection. Not the greatest way to get the baby in a good mood for a photo shoot. Needless to say when they arrived she was crying, angry at being woken up from the car ride, and just plain grumpy.
We did a quick photo shoot outside with the spring flowers in the background, but she didn't like nature much, so we moved inside and then downstairs to the basement where I could hang up a white backdrop. With my model on a soft cream blanket I put a single flash aiming up to the ceiling on the floor and the quickly dialed in the correct exposure. A few toys sprinkled around her allowed me to show a shallow depth of field rather than just her isolated on a white background.
I used a 50mm 1.4 lens for the shoot which gave me about 5' working area where I could move around and look for different angles. One of my favorite shots was with the flower we brought in from the garden. The color really pops and I loved watching her rip and tear apart this flower while handing out the pieces to anyone around.
Mom and Dad did a great job at keeping her anger at bay, giving her lots of attention without over-stimulating her and we had a lot of fun with the shots. I am starting to think I have a knack with babies. Perhaps I should go into baby photography full-time.
