Top Shots - Photography

Madison Fashion Friday 2/20/2009

2009-03-13T23:38:00.000-07:00

Madison Fashion Friday's event at the Cardinal bar. I was one of the official photographers. I also there fixing up the lighting equipment to make sure all the other photogs had even lighting.

It was a great time!
It took about an hour and got almost 1,000 photos from it. Yikes!!
Here are some of my favorites from the night.
More available here:

Musician Shoot!

2009-03-11T19:13:00.000-07:00

I had a chance to shoot my buddy Travis Ziegler and his vocalist today. We just did a few shots in the studio so they can start to book some gigs with their new press kit. Plain jane standard. But it gets the job done. Sometimes you can't worry about being overly creative and really have to focus on what the intent on the photographs are for.

Fortunately I did play around with an angle and a little colorization. I'll let you figure out which one that is. :)

Schettle 2008

2009-02-25T19:25:00.000-08:00

Another just fabulous wedding! These two were so nice and I had a great time taking photos. Quite the swanky place too. Just north of Milwaukee. I hope they are doing well!! A few months prior to this I did photos of their doggies as well. :)

Wedding

2008-07-23T16:38:00.000-07:00

Walmsley - 2008

2008-07-17T06:53:00.000-07:00

Not going to be typing as much from now on unless it is an article. This blog is to mainly feature some more of my wedding photography and other work.
Thanks!
(This was taken in the Capitol in Madison, WI)

Eli and Kat Wedding

2008-06-23T19:53:00.000-07:00

Perhaps my favorite image of the day. We'll start with it! There was a lot going on in the sky and I embellished it a little bit to make it really pop. Such a beautiful couple, helps me create real sharp images!

The brides father walking her down the isle. You can really how excited she is!

A snapshot of the ceremony. Because of the back lighting I decided to use some available light and capture the ambiance of the room. It turned out very well, especially in B&W. One of my little tricks! :)

The couple had a bag piper. It was really loud, but a very sweet touch. You can see them looking on and smiling at him, it was one of her cousins!

Just a quick snapshot of the bride. The formals were crammed into the reception hall so we had to make due. Fortunately with my lighting equipment we were able to have some great photos with minimal space.

Wow that bridesmaid sure is excited! :) What a great and fun wedding. Looking forward to the many left this season!

Northern Wisconsin Wedding

2008-06-17T20:59:00.000-07:00

Here is a wedding did a few weeks back up in northern Wisconsin. It was a lot of fun and everyone got along great. The bride and groom were a little bit late but we made due and just pushed everything back a bit.

I was asked to stay later, which is always a nice surprise. I was able to capture more of the dancing and festivities that was happening at the end of the night. Cool! Very cute couple!

We were able to take pictures in a huge hotel/convention hall. It was a pretty cool setup!

Was able to get up in the balcony in one of the aisles. They are so happy!

Just a quick snapshot of one of the servers. Cool motion!

An atmospheric shot of the couple in the convention center. Purposely very dark and light, provides a lot of contrast in B&W.

Part of the wedding party!

Grandmother walking the bride into the wedding!

Look how intent they are on each other!

Caught the groomsmen having a little fun during the formals. I always enjoy it when the wedding party can spruce things up a little bit. I really think it eases the tension of the day!

I can't pass up taking pictures of other people recording the day. Father of the bride! :)

Great wedding!

Madison Wedding

2008-06-04T07:51:00.000-07:00

This was one of the most comfortable and fun weddings I’ve had the pleasure of photographing. Everything went very well and the people were very laid back and enjoyed the time spent together. It was a cool vibe. And as such, we were able to capture a lot of great moments in the day. Most of these pictures were captured with just an on camera flash mounted with a camera bracket.

Even the more formal looking photos just utilized an on bracket flash. I did this for a few reasons. Firstly the couple just wanted a few quick snapshots against the sky. Secondly we were quickly losing the sunlight and that amazing sky since night was rapidly approaching; setting up all my gear would have just taken way (15 minutes) too long. Thirdly I was able to remove the flash from the camera because of the ETTL cord and get a few off bracket exposures as well.

Can you tell I photoshopped out an entire house? :) I dont think I can even tell. Also In this picture I enhanced the sky a little bit and raised the colors a bit. They look so happy!

Managed to capture the last few minutes of daylight with the beautiful sunset. Did a little bit of editing but not all that much. Great couple! Off camera flash left- 580EXII

I don’t think that little girl was too happy of me snapping her photo. But I don’t mind, it is my duty to capture the day as the couple would like me too. I’m just happy she didn’t start crying.

SunSpot

2008-05-28T07:16:00.000-07:00

I just finished editing a few pictures for the band SunSpot. A really great band from the Madison Wisconsin area! You should check them out here!

Anyway, a really fun band to work with and we capture a lot of really cool shots. We were able to sneak into a UW building (well not really sneak because no one even stopped us or asked why we had a full setup of camera gear). From there we found a lab like location and were able to move a few tables and engine blocks around to create a nice little scene where we did a couple of these pictures.

This first one was the original idea that we were going for. Kind of a lab like setting with some beakers and science geek stuff. We had large number of different shots but I really like this one the best. Light with a single shoot through umbrella camera slightly left. Had two rim lights going on as well to help pop them out of the darkness. Sweet!

This next one was completely impromptu but I think may be our best shot of the whole shoot! We found a cool little backdrop and I just placed two lights slightly to the left and right.. and told them to kick and stick their feet out. I think it works well to help frame the image! Good job guys!

This last one.. well you have to have a jumping picture! The man in the middle (Mike) his expression was priceless and is why I chose this particular one. You can see a little blur on some of the legs because the shutter speed was a lower and not at the full 1/250^th. To speed lights, one on either side. Real simple lighting setup.. great expressions.

That shoot was a great success..and I have some great images to add to the portfolio. :)

Lena - Dance shoot

2008-05-20T20:05:00.000-07:00

I had a shoot with a local Model by the name of Lena. She and I wanted to do some different dancey style posed images. We were able to get a hold of her dance rehearsal studio to use which was really cool! It was nice and big. We could turn all the lights off, even had some available light from a bunch of windows. Except… It had mirrors.. oh yes mirrors. Not just on one side but on both sides. I don't know if I would ever choose to shoot under those conditions again! J There is almost no way to add back lighting without shooting at some ridiculous angles let me tell you.

You can A: shoot up(Didn’t work because the ceiling was ugly) and shoot down. B: Use the available lighting.. which wasn’t very good or enough of it to really get the shots I was looking at creating C: Hang lights from the ceiling.. stands don’t work so hot.. ceiling was 25 feet up and I had no ladder.. and only one super clamp.

So what does this all tell you? Always be fully prepared for each and every shoot that you do. Don’t go thinking you can wing it because you will get sub par results. Have a backup plan.. and as David Harrington have two backup plans. Something will go wrong.

Anyway I did manage to adapt quickly and was able to capture a number of good pictures. This first one being my favorite and is an example of shooting down to try and minimize any reflections of myself or the lights and ceiling. It worked out quite well. This was a standard tri-light. Front shoot through; two unmodified on each 120 degree angle out to try and light the hair a bit.

This next one is interesting. I had her twirl around and capture a decent shot. Then I made it a bit edgy and darkened her dress which is floating out and also turned it sepia. I really like the effect Back tri-light setup

And the last one here is a fun angle using her arms to create a different perspective. Worked out well. No back lighting here. Using my trusty 430ex, 580ex and 580exII on all these images. It's all I have needed thus far. Going strong. :) Oh my other equipment is a canon 40d with 17-55 IS lens and 70-200 IS L lens. RadioPoppers and ST-E2. :)

Radio Poppers

2008-05-14T18:52:00.000-07:00

Radio Poppers

I’ve been using these radio poppers three times a week for the past three weeks. I have no previous radio triggering devices to compare them. Prior to these little guys I was using the canon infrared system; what a frustration that was. Half the time one flash wouldn’t fire because I wasn’t in the correct position. Gone are those days.

I purchased these devices about three weeks ago and have definitely been able to focus more on the photography and less on the “Why aren’t my lights working consistently” which I must say is rather embarrassing for any photographer. Pocket wizards were never an option because of the need for ETTL for my army of strobes.

My setup: 40D with 17-55 or 70-200. I use a 430ex 580ex and 580exII. All I need.

Out of a total of five stars I would give these guys a solid four star rating. Let’s go over my criteria. Build quality, reliability, functionality, and fun factor. J

Build Quality: They feel pretty good, maybe a little on the light side... well of course that is because they are plastic.

One point taken off here are the removable fiber optic receiver. On one shoot my tape wasn’t 100% and the tip of the fiber optic cable removed from the shaft and I was wondering why it wasn’t working correctly.

I had to take another point taken off because of the Velcro attachment. I just have this terrible vision of one of my units crashing to the floor or ripping the fiber optic table out.

Other than those two points (which im sure will see improvements over time), the build quality is just fine. Haven’t had any falls or drops yet and the antennas come up as to prevent breakage. Good!

Reliability: After doing nine shoots with these guys I find that they are fairly reliable. I do get an occasional not fire, but that could be related to my fiber optic cable removing from the little white head or pulling out of the body of the receiver. Over all they are reliable and always find the transmitter. I couldn’t count the misfires because I am way to into taking pictures to keep track, but it wasn’t often enough to be a problem.

Functionality: ETTL which is why I purchased these guys. I can setup in 10 minutes, take a shot and perfect the lighting in 30 seconds. I can move on from there. Very quick and easy. Great!

Also has manual mode which I end up using with static environments because of the ETTL of the camera system can sometimes give me pretty wide variations of exposures (Bride, Groom, Brides maids, grooms men, white people black people, etc etc) Not sure what my deal is there, but no fault of the radio poppers. Good to have manual mode though!

Two little lights on each of the units show me what is going on and that is all I need. Simple and sweet!

Fun Factor: These make photography fun. I don’t find setting up gear for an hour fun. I don’t find spending oodles of time making lighting adjustments fun. I like to go and interact with the models and enjoy the time. For this rating the radio popper is hands down the best investment I have made to date. Go here to learn more about owning a few of these little guys!

Let the Weddings Begin!

2008-05-12T07:56:00.000-07:00

TopShots is starting off the wedding season right here. I had a great wedding last weekend. I just finished up editing the pictures this week. I sent out their email and they are very happy with the whole process! Here are some highlights from the day.

This first one is just a fun little playful photo; kind of an engagement session kind of thing. This one in particular was light with two flash 580ex and 580exII on stands at 7 feet with two shoot through umbrellas. Kind of a cool shot!

They were a very cute couple and had no trouble posing, even if they didn't want to do much of it. We only had time for about 20 minutes of posed shots and really were much more interested in candids and capturing the day as it unfolded. It was a shorter day for me, only four hours, but of course four hours on your feet with 10 pounds of camera gear on your neck is never short. :)

Great shot and I like it, one of my favorites of the day.

I managed to catch him slightly off guard but he threw a smile up right away. This is right before the wedding and I was going for a pensive and pondering look but it turned into a great smile and 3/4's shot of the groom. Sweet. :)

A very cute shot of the flower girl watching the bride. I took this picture almost by accident but saw the composition and decided to go for it! Glad I did. I turned it sepia and colorized the flower and bouquet. This had a flash on a flash bracket. Thanks flower girl!

Just a quick shot of the fountain. No flash, maybe 1/125th of a second or so. to capture the flowing water, very beautiful fountain they had in the middle of their hotel/convention hall. Lots of pennies in there.

During their first dance. A great shot! They look so happy it was easy to capture them having a great time and just really being in love.

All in all it was a very successful wedding and I am looking forward to the rest of the season!

More Pictures here

21st Century Jones

2008-05-07T06:26:00.000-07:00

I just had a shoot with another band last week, the 21st Century Jones. They were a fun group. The main man, Tom, had a lot of personality and made things interesting. You can tell which one he is in the photos. I'll leave it up to you to find.

I had to shoot at a diagonal (stand on chair, looking down) in order to reduce or eliminate all of the glare in the photos. We were shooting (for the most part) in front of a wall made from glass bricks.. and as you know glass and mirrors are photographers worst enemies (besides maybe the FBI or or some other nonsense) Anyway, I had to be creative in order to A. keep my reflections out of the photos and B. stop the umbrellas from showing up C. Stop the lights from leaving strange circles and fading the image, I think we
were successful! Awesome shoot I had a lot of fun.

This is my favorite shot of the group. I think it really expresses who they are. I toned it a little bit using some fun photoshop action. Basic light setup. Main shoot through on a 580EX. Fill/Rim light stage right(430ex) Unfortunately my new flash didn't come in in time so no Rim Stage Left. :( But still a cool effect.

This is my favorite individual photo. Tom gives us a great look and has his classy sunglasses on. He may not be in his 20's but he still has the rockstar vibe. Some people have it, a lot of people don't. Cool group, thanks guys. More pictures here.

Revolving Doors

2008-05-01T15:02:00.000-07:00

Revolving Doors: I did a photo shoot with them last Sunday at an interesting venue. The Nottingham co-op. Basically there are 21 different rooms in this giant house-like structure and the living room is filled with couches and chairs. Kind of a cool location except for the cat poop that was sitting all over one of the couches. Not sure if the cats are strays or if they are actually one of the tenants. Yuck…

Anyway. We did a real simple photoshoot because that is all that they were looking for; kind of a plain Jane with your typical poses, no instruments, very little smiling. But that’s ok, it was fun and we got out for about an hour. Shot with a 580EX, 430EX, and a canon 40D with 17-55 2.8 IS lens (My stable equipment, well that and a 70-200L 2.8 IS). (Radio Poppers are on the way, and I certainly can't wait for those)

We had a number of good shots and I really tried to apply a gritty urban feel to them.. at least some of them, like this one. Was really trying to make them stand out in some way because there was just so much stuff in the room it was difficult to isolate the band. More of the photos available here.

Odds and Ends

2008-04-29T12:17:00.001-07:00

If you have some free time and want to learn more about photography make sure to check out Strobist.com Basically he teaches a lot about off camera flash and how to utilize small flashes to not only improve your photos but also to take it to the next level. There are days and days of reading here.
Another great site I enjoy visiting is www.dpreview.com. This site is a great digital camera resource. If you have techie questions, need some new lenses, cameras, flashes, whatever, I Go here to get reviews first and foremost. It also reviews and previews all the latest camera tech conventions.. like CES.. Photokina, etc.

Another all linking site I just found out about is.. alltop. This site in particular links to strobist and dpreview and a whole ton of other photography related sites. Great for an overview.

I'll have some more images coming up soon. I had a band shoot Saturday and one on Wednesday. Looking forward to editing those for sure.

2008-04-27T17:25:00.000-07:00

This past Friday was Madison Wisconsins first ever Fashion week. It was a production put on by Kristy Moe. You can check out the event here. Madison Fashion Week I was able to do the runway for the men’s show on Friday the 25^th of April. It was a great opportunity for TopShots and hopefully I’ll be able to get some of these pictures into some promotional or advertising spots, my ultimate goal.

This was my first runway show but it turned out pretty well. The only big problem I ran into was the spot lighting. It was inconsistent and smaller than I expected. If the models leaned one way or the other way too much they would be out of the light and parts of them would be dark, which you will see in a couple of the photos. But no worries, I did get a lot of great shots and few of my personal favorites I’ll be sharing with you in this blog. The rest are available here

For most of these I did a little editing, there are version pretty much straight out of the camera on the link above. All I did for most of those was raise the exposure level a little because of the darkness of the venue and crop. Nothing real exciting. These more exciting. :) Oh and of course white balance modification.

All lighting was two or three overhead spot lights. I had no control over the lighting, which was alright and it worked out. One of my favorites here, great look by the model. I'll be showing another one with him because he did well. Many of the models were not experience and had not actually done a show before.

Another one with the same model. This one I etched it in a little bit I thought it looked really cool on the suit.

This guy did pretty well too, you can tell he was really determined and had a cool look on his face the whole time. I did some playing around with various photoshop actions and combined them for an urban, sharp look. Turned out alright! :)

All in all the fashion show was a success. I watched the womens show on Saturday night and that was stepped up a notch from the mens, of course right? Too bad there just wasn't the intensity Friday, but all of us had a good time and things went well. I look forward to shooting it next again and maybe doing a few more shows in the mean time!

Andrea - Madison Wisconson Fashion Week

2008-04-25T19:50:00.000-07:00

I did some promotional photography this week for Madison's Fashion Week. Basically April 23rd-26th. There are numerous events and showings going on. Very cool event and this year is the first year of its existence. Unfortunately in Madison Wisconsin there aren't so many of these neato events going on.. the population just doesn't support it (200,000-250,000).

Anyway I did some promotional photography for Headlines studios which is doing a lot of the hair and makeup. These are photos of Andrea just after she got down with her cut and dye. The first one was put in our Wisconsin State Journal. Yay me.

These were all shot in the back of the salon. The front area of the salon had a ton of directional lights which made the lighting color very ugly and it was difficult to shot under. I elected to find a place out of the direct lighting.. Utilizing a gray divider we setup. I had one main light in a shoot through umbrella and a fill light or background light (depending on the shot) without any modifiers. I didn't have any modifiers on the second light because I wanted to have more directional control.

All were shot with my trusty canon 40d, 17-55 IS Lens. I had a 580EX as the master and a 430ex as the slave. 580 with the shoot through umbrella. Used ETTL with various ratios. I wish I had another light, very very soon. And I can't wait until I get my radiopoppers. It will allow me huge control and huge distance for lighting. I'm excited. Should get them this week.. maybe!

The third light would have provided a fill light for some of the darker areas.. giving me a back light, and then one on either side of the model.. Andrea was a lovely model and we had some great shots to use for the paper. More shots from the actual mens runway will be coming shortly as well.

Beau - Head Shot Shoot

2008-04-23T09:19:00.000-07:00

Did a little photo shoot last night with an aspiring actor. We wanted to go for a real professional, standard, run of the mill photos, so no real crazy artistic stuff this time.. Although I did a little bit of retouching on a photo that I'll upload later that definitely stretched where we were going.

Since I exclusively shoot on location, often times my own apartment and surround areas, we had to make due with some creativity in the backgrounds and framing. We used part of my backyard for to add some green into the photograph.. almost framing the head with it. One off camera flash and using the sun as a backlight.

Next we went inside for a few... I used a chair to frame this next one.. Shot with two lights.. one on either side 6:1 ratio using ETTL a shoot through umbrella and a very small softbox. It was pretty dark on the right portion of his face so I brought up levels in photoshop.. he really liked it even though the shot was a flub. Expression makes the image!

Not too bad.. These are all full size images straight from the camera.. I haven't done any cropping yet..

And the last one.. I had a white reflector that I used as a backdrop. Worked well for having a gray / whitish background that is easily movable. I wish I had another light as a rim or hair light in this photo.. or even to up the light level on the background. Coming soon ! :)

All in all it was a successful shoot and he is very happy to have these photos for his resume. Good luck to you Beau!

I lied, here is the last one that I toned a lot. Looks almost like he has some kind of silver paint on. It was fun to mess around with. :)

Time to Start

2008-04-21T20:30:00.000-07:00

Now that I have my Photography business well on it's well and off the ground.. I am going to be joining the blogging community.

New shoots and information coming soon!