Quincy Gets Tired

Well, by the time it was my chance to take pictures of Quincy, he was getting pretty sleepy.  Which brought its own challenges, but also some great opportunities, especially once I asked his father to join him. 

Luckily, young Quincy and I have something in common - video games!  He was all about Mario & Luigi...  Mario is his favourtie of the 2... personally I'm a big fan of Luigi.  He's pretty awesome.  But talking about video games only held his attention for so long & that's when the eyelids started to drop.

Tomorrow we're back to adults.

:) Roon-bop

Maria & Devon

And now on to the second set up from last week's class. Here we have 2 large soft boxes focusing on the model and 2 umbrella lights bouncing on to the background. We used this set up with a white background and it was a very bright shoot.

Here are some of the images produced with this set up:





The only thing I had to be conscious of when shooting this was not to get in the way of the lighting while trying to get close to the subject. So, other than making sure I was aware of what was around me, it worked just fine.

In tonight's class we will be presenting 2-3 of the photo's we've taken so far in class. One needs to be a Gap-like ad, one of a person in their environment and the third a Rembrandt portrait, which I have yet to do, because I missed that class. There will be no photos taken this week in class.

:) Roon-bop

Devon & Maria

Alright, so as I mentioned last time, I'm going to be doing things a little differently this week. Instead of focusing each post on a person, I'm going to focus the post on the lighting set up and include a lighting map.

This week we had two set ups. To begin, I'll start with the simpler of the two.

Here you see that we had two lights, one on a stand in front of the subject with a large soft box, and the other on a boom stand with a large soft box to highlight the hair of the subject. For this set up we had a gray background.

Here are the results of this set up:






There were two major challenges with this set up.
1) The large soft box in front of the subject made it difficult to shoot the subject. All my photos were head shots or upper body shots. Also, the large light made it difficult to get a shot straight on.
2) The initial set up had the light in front on a short stand pointing upwards, however this created dark shadows under the subject's eyes, which obviously, is not flattering. So, we moved the light to a taller stand, however, I found that it didn't completely do away with the rings under the eyes. It was a MAJOR improvement, however if I were to use this set up again, I would tweak it a little more.

:) Roon-bop

A little studio fun - part 2

So, as I mentioned yesterday, Lisa decided to steal my camera and take some pictures. According to Lisa I was in need of a new facebook picture... so now my profile shows the last picture. I'm sure my husband is so proud of me!

In class last night, we started to get more complicated lighting, so I'm considering using a lighting map to keep track of everything, which I will also be placing in my blog for your viewing pleasure. Last night we took pictures of Devon, an actress and Maria, a make-up artist. And of course... Lisa and I got goofy again, and we even got someone to take pictures of us together. I'll have to wait a while for those ones, but I look forward to seeing them! And sharing them.

:) Roon-bop

Me explaining to Lisa that I am a quote: real photographer: end quote. Though, on closer inspection, I look more like an angry chipmunk with talons.

A little studio fun - part 1

So, Lisa and I had a few minutes alone in the studio while photographing Andrew and this is what happens when you leave the two of us alone with cameras, lighting and a model.

And tomorrow you will see the results of Lisa taking my camera and pointing it at me! The nerve of some people...

:) Roon-bop


Happy Happy Joy Joy

Lisa's dance moves are still haunting me!

Surprise!


Showing a little faux groupie love.

Natalie is Truly Truly Truly Outrageous

While taking some pictures of Natalie, it hit me. She looks like Gem! Awesome!! But with that eye make-up... maybe she looks more like the lead singer of The Misfits (from Gem)... either way - its pretty awesome because I loved that show growing up.

So if I remember correctly, the lighting for this was similar to what we had done in earlier weeks with a white reflector between me and the model. I was up on a bench shooting over it and the light bounced around it to light her face. We also had a light behind her with a red or I guess pink gel over it. Unfortunately in this picture you can't see it (the pink was what made her hair look pink and thus Gem-like). I suppose if you look very very closely you can see a bit of it in her hair at the bottom left hand side.

:) Roon-bop

The Other Andrew

Here are some pictures of Andrew by himself. All these pictures were shot with the same set up as the shot of Andrew and Natalie in the last post.

Andrew himself is a budding photographer, and has been in a couple of my classes. It's always slightly more stressful taking pictures of a photographer, because they know what you're doing and what you may be doing wrong. Luckily, taking pictures is all about trial and error and trying new things in order to learn new things.

:) Roon-bop

Faux Hair Metal

Well, it has been WAY too long since my last blog and I'm so happy to be back. I've been very busy with my real job putting together a conference, but I'm back and ready to get back to photography and school and all that fun stuff.

So, as promised blogs ago, here are some pictures of Andrew and Natalie, our Faux Hair Metal models. They were pretty fun to shoot with. They certainly took on their roles with gusto.

The first pic is of the 2 of them in studio. Lighting was a boom right over top and if I remember correctly, another light in front, both in soft boxes.

Next up will be solos of the two and then a little more fun.

:) Roon-bop

Barbaro & Security

I am back from Ottawa!!! I had a great time visiting everyone, but I am very glad to be back home! Now I just need to find some food...

Until then, here are the last two pictures from the Sunday Centre Island trip. The last two models were a little late getting there, because they missed the ferry we took and then apparently they had some trouble with a grumpy ferry dock worker. The bad news is that because of that, I didn't get much time to take pictures of the two of them.

I feel really bad, because I have no idea how to spell his name and I'm too afraid to attempt to write it, so I'll refer to him as Security, because he is our wonderful night security guard at the school. I walked by him one class and asked him why he never modeled for us... and then when I get the chance, I have to go home. He brought with him a friend, Barbaro. They were both very, very sweet. But as I said, I didn't get enough time with them, and it started to rain pretty hard shortly after they got there. It would be nice if we had another opportunity with them. After I left, the class moved on to the animal farm. I'd love to see some pictures my classmates took from that portion.

:) Roon-bop

The Last of Fashion Class

Well, this is the last set of pictures from Fashion Photography @ GBC.

These pictures were taken at High Park in Toronto. A great location, very scenic. Make-up is done by the lovely Leslie Grey and the model, the very beautiful and reliable Ashley. I met a lot of very nice and talented people and am glad to have had the experience.

From now on I'll need to find my own models and location if I want to keep it up. For now... I think I do. Its fun working with all sorts of people to make a good picture.

My next class, People Photography starts in Sept and I'll be reunited with my girl Lisa for this one.

For now I think I will go back to basics. Take my camera for a walk, meet some nice people with some nice dogs and hopefully get a chance to do some beauty shots for friends.

:) Roon-bop

Queen Street Fur

At this point, I have finished up my fashion photography classes, but I'm way behind in posting the results.

In this week, we headed to Queen Street West to take some pictures of our beautiful models with some fur coats. One of my classmates was kind enough to pick up a couple coats from Value Village to help get the right look.

I'd say it worked. So thanks.

Stay tuned to see pictures from my last class photo shoot at High Park.

:) Roon-bop

Fashioin Photography - Goth

Hello,

So I've been very lazy lately with photography. Mostly because I went on a volunteer build two weekends ago, and it messed up my scheduled completely. But I think that I'm finally back on track ... except for the fact that I got the Sims 3 last Friday and now all I want to do in my spare time is play that .... but still.... I think I'm getting back to reality.

Here are some pictures from my class 2 weeks ago. The theme was Goth. Ellen and Leslie did great jobs with the make-up. It was a really stunning week for them both. And of course, the models - Ashley and Emily were fantastic as usual. I didn't get to shoot Emily as much as Ashley that week - there never seems to be enough time.

I hope you enjoy them.

:) Roon-bop