Saturday, February 14, 2009

Finally Some Scenics!

I wouldn't ever quite my day job to become a tour guide! I met with Beau this morning to go out shooting photos together. It was a great time and if I hadn't taken any pictures, the trip would have been worthwhile, but the locations I selected were less than ideal. We started out at Pratt's Falls only to find out the park isn't open until 10am. We were there around 8am. So, we went out to Chittenango Falls State Park where the main trail through the gorge was closed. We weren't able to get down below the waterfalls for some good photos. We wandered around there for a little over an hour though and then decided to head over to Onondaga Lake Park.

Here are a few photos from the trip that I thought were at least decent.

Onondaga Lake Park (by John Brainard)

Chittenango Falls Sate Park (by John Brainard)

Chittenango Falls Sate Park (by John Brainard)


Next time, I'm letting Beau decide where to go!

Tuesday, February 10, 2009

52 Self Portraits: Week 5

Here we are on week 5 of my "52 Self Portraits" project and I'm still stuck on the black backdrop. I've been enjoying using it, but I'm hoping next week to get outside and do my portrait or switch to a white sheet for a while. We'll see how it goes... Now that I finally have both flashes off camera, I have a little more flexibility in my set ups.

This shot, I had a bare flash directed toward the black sheet from an angle in order to add some dimension to the backdrop. To my left is a silver reflector and my right is a flash bounced in a gold umbrella.



Feel free to leave your comments here or on Steve Paxton's forum.

Thursday, February 5, 2009

52 Self Portraits: Week 4

This was supposed to be a two light portrait. Unfortunately, I didn't read the red text on the hot shoe adapter when I added it to my cart! Oh well.. Hopefully I'll be able to find the right PC to Hot Shoe Adapter in town tomorrow.

The light is a 580ex II bounced out of a gold umbrella... I wanted to play with the gold umbrella and didn't feel like converting it to silver or putting my other umbrella on. I white balanced in UF Raw.

In processing, I decided I'd try the cross process look, so I found a tutorial online and saved my curve for future use. I also added a slight vignette.

52 Self Portraits: Week 4 (by John Brainard)


As always, the additional shots can be viewed on Steve Paxton's photography forum.