I worked as the Department Information Administrator (IT, HelpDesk and Network Admin) for the Chrysler Midwest Business Center from January of 2007 – September of 2008. While working there, I had the opportunity to showcase some of my design and photographic skills. I must have left some sort of impression because the marketing manager asked if I’d document the event for them.

The main objective of the shoot was to capture the layout of the event. All of the cars were lined up around the outside of Soldier Field. An aerial photograph would have been the best way to capture the scene, but renting a helicopter can get quite expensive (although I have done it and it’s super fun!) Besides taking to the sky, a panoramic image was the next best solution. Each panoramic image consists of 5-6 vertical images stitched together using Auto-Pano Pro. All the shots were taken with Nikon D90 and my 24-70 f/2.8 lens. My ISO was set to the minimum since it was bright and sunny, I also had the aperture pretty much wide open since it didn’t really matter much and I used the built in light meter to figure out the shutter speed which ended up being around 1/2000. Nice and bright! I touched up the levels a bit in Photoshop, upped the brightness and contrast a tad and there you have it!

 

Just like the seasons, fashion changes constantly and I got the opportunity to shoot Jackie’s summer line of crochet patterns. This time around I was lucky enough to have a second photographer shooting along with me (Jeff Lintz), and it proved to be a great experience as he captured some phenomenal shots from angles that I wouldn’t have been able to get to! If you can shoot with a second photographer, do it! You’ve got nothing to lose!

This was the third shoot for Made With Love By Jackie Moon and it’s obvious that Jackie is becoming a seasoned veteran when it comes to preparation. She had her clothing picked out ahead of time which made the photo shoot VERY efficient! The ladies were beautiful as always and they were working the camera like runway models. Mary seemed uncharacteristically comfortable posing (as you can see in the image on the right), she’s a true undercover top model!

Originally, I planned on shooting at the same place we did the last two photo shoots, but it turns out that the tree canopy blocked out too much light. So much that we would have had to shoot at ISO 600 – 800 just to keep our shutters at 1/125th with the aperture wide open. Yikes! Good thing I scouted the shoot location out beforehand. We ended up heading over to the Morton Arboretum and found a nice shady tree with some tall grass that provided a great backdrop for our photo shoot. Good times.

 

We headed back to the same neck-of-the-woods that we shot in last time, but this time conditions were quite different. Instead of overcast, we had direct sunlight and instead of leaves and lots of brown, we had snow and tons of white! Needless to say the camera was shooting really fast today! Again, I brought the reflector/diffuser, but I was very happy with the direct sunlight! They say that shooting in direct sunlight creates harsh shadows and poor results. I think this may not be as true in the winter. Something about the sun today was not as intense. The light was beautiful and the images turned out great!

Her best friend and my girlfriend Mary got in on the action today as well! You’ll see Mary all over this website as she is no stranger to modeling! She looked great as well! They are two peas in a pod!

The shots below we shot at ISO 100, f/3.5 at 1/400-1/1600 using a Nikon D80 and my Nikkor 70-200 f/2.8G  ED-IF  AF-S VR. All of the light was natural light, no diffusers or reflectors, just the sun! Everything was shot RAW and white balanced with a WhiBal!

Jackie currently sells her crochet patterns on Etsy.com and will eventually transition to http://www.madewithlovebyjm.com.

Image Gallery

 

We found an area in a forest that had a topography similar to something a meteor would create. A great flat base to stand on with an incline that made for beautiful background eye candy, especially shooting with a wide open aperture. All of these images were shot with my Nikkor 70-200 f/2.8G  ED-IF  AF-S VR at ISO 100, between f/3.2 – 3.5 at 1/50 – 1/200th. I brought a reflector but didn’t have to use it since the clouds created a brilliant softbox for me. Very soft and even light provided by mother nature is ideal for any type of photography! I shot everything RAW and used a Whibal for white balance. Check out my About page for a list of my equipment.

Jackie currently sells her crochet patterns on Etsy.com and will eventually transition to http://www.madewithlovebyjm.com.

Image Gallery

 

Anyways, I wanted to create this post to showcase some of my stock “in action”. The images below are snapshots or screenshots of my images used on various print and websites! This gallery will be constantly updated as I am starting to see more and more of my work used all around the world!

 

I don’t have much experience shooting children, but the few times I have, I ended up working with boys and I think they start to feel more comfortable in front of all the lights when I show them how good my fake fart noises sound (Thanks to my friend Kurt for teaching me). Some of the poses in the shots below are pretty much your standard portrait poses, while others were totally spur of the moment. During this photo shoot, I thought to myself, what if I told Kyle to tell me a story. Turns out that it really helped get some great shots. By telling a story, he forgot that he was being photographed and started acting more natural. In addition, some of the better laughing photos were  the result of fake flatulent sounds. I’m 26 and I still think farts are hilarious!

Like my other white background shoots, it is fairly straight forward. Two umbrellas bouncing Alien Bee 800′s at the seamless white background and one medium softbox for the key light. Whibal for white balancing roughly 5300K. Camera’s shutter set to sync speed 1/200th of a second and the aperture at around f/11, ISO 100.

 

For this shoot, I brought my 70-200 f/2.8, a medium reflector, a reflector stand/arm and my Whibal. The first shot shows the subject with semi filtered sunlight on her face, while the remainder of the shots have the sun to her back. In the latter shots, I had the reflector bouncing the sunlight onto the subject. I had to adjust the distance from the reflector to the subject a few times, until I felt it was just right. It was also very windy on the dock, so a small dumbell helped keep the reflector stand in place. (A person holding the reflector would be ideal, but not always possible.)

The makeup, white balance and exposures were pretty much perfect, so there was very little to do in post editing. Just a few touch ups to make some of the mid tones pop, a little more contrast and a slight vignette and that’s it!

You’ll also notice alot of blank space in my photography, especially when I shoot for iStock. For those that don’t know, that is called “CopySpace” and is great for designers! A nice out of focus (bokah) space for copy (words, ads, text, whatever you want to call it). I don’t always shoot this way, but I find that it helps sell the image. I always like to mix it up, some shots with copy space, some shots with no copy space. Cover all corners for maximum ROI.

 

You’ll never see me taking autumn pictures without my tripod. I don’t care if my 70-200 f/2.8 has vibration reduction, I really prefer having a stable platform for my camera where I can really take my time and frame a shot. If I think I have it, I can leave it in frame and step back for a second and re-evaluate without losing my shot. The Manfrotto tripod with panoramic head is heavy, but I feel naked without it. When buying a tripod, you get what you pay for and if you don’t pay for it, you’ll end up paying for it later. Got it? Good.

The images below are just a sampling of my Autumn collection. I will continue to add to this collection as I sift through my archives. The waterfall image below is a panoramic image even though it is sized to 5 x 7. I really love the high definition I get by shooting panoramic images.

 

This tutorial will be broken down into 3 parts.

1. Equipment Overview
2. Aperture and Shutter Speed
3. Shooting

Equipment Overview:

In order to continue with this tutorial, please make sure that your camera has a “manual” option. If you are not sure, please refer to your owner’s manual for more information.

Based on my experience and research, standard point and shoot cameras usually do not have a manual option. Most advanced point and shoot cameras and all digital SLR cameras have a manual option.

In addition to a camera with a manual setting, you will need a sturdy tripod. Using a tripod is 100% necessary and without one your images will turn out blurry.

Aperture and Shutter Speed

Note: Since this is not a photography website, I won’t go into too much detail on aperture and shutter speed, but rather give you just enough information so that you can apply the knowledge while you shoot.

Just like the iris in the human eye, every lens on every camera, no matter how big or small, cheap or expensive, has an iris diaphragm that regulates the amount of light that will enter the camera. The size of the hole created by the iris diaphragm is called the aperture (The Pupil is the hole in the iris that lets in the light). The aperture value on your camera will be a numeric value usually between 1.2 and 32 (Not all cameras and/or lenses have a full range of 1.2 thru 32). The lower the number, the more light the lens lets in. The higher the number, the less light the lens will let in. With this in mind, the first step in taking a successful night shot is setting your aperture to the lowest possible setting to allow in as much light as possible.

Next, comes shutter speed. The shutter speed on your camera regulates how long light enters the camera. Most if not all digital SLR cameras allow you to leave the shutter open for as long as 30 seconds and as short as 1/1000th of a second. Obviously a shutter speed of 1 second will allow in more light then a shutter speed of 1/1ooth of second.

Shooting:

Mount your camera on a tripod and frame your subject in the viewfinder on your camera. Set the camera to manual, adjust the aperture to the lowest possible setting, set the shutter speed to 1 second and snap the picture. Use the camera’s LCD display to determine if you like the picture? (The LCD is not 100% accurate and I would not rely on it for professional applications, but for this tutorial its fine!) Depending on the time of day and the amount of available light, the picture may be too dark or too light. If the picture is too dark, increase the shutter speed from 1 second to 2 seconds. If the picture is too light, decrease the shutter speed to 1/15th of a second. Keep making these adjustments until you are happy with the result.

I cannot recommend an exact setting because every situation is different so just experiment with the settings until you get it just right!

Happy Shooting and Happy Halloween!

As far as this shoot goes, I wanted to give a Christmas / Winter feeling, so we worked with the classic colors of the season, red, white and green. Mary (the model) and I wrapped a bunch of presents to use as props, and in some of the shots we stuffed a shopping bag with money to use as a prop. The winter cap and the scarf are great additions to these images as they really make the images pop. We tried without the hat and scarf and it just didn’t look the same. Accessories can be a huge!

As far as the shoot went, I used a standard lighting setup for the white background shots. Two Alien Bee 800′s on the left and right to blow out the background and a medium softbox for the key light. For the images of the red background, I simply used a medium softbox. It was more then enough to illuminate the red seamless paper. It also create a natural vignette look. All images were manually whitebalanced using a WhiBal at first and then setting the actual temperture on the camera.