I finished up my meeting and made it back to Ferndale around 6, and by then the sky had cleared. I thought it would be a great opportunity to take some shots at night up on Bear River Ridge.

Since at the time only digital camera I had was my Kodak SLR which produces very noisy images from long exposures, I decided to shoot a roll of 120 film I still had. It happened to be 400 asa Portra, a film usually used for portraits as it doesn’t produce the saturated colors that something like Velvia would. Still it’s what I had on hand so I loaded it into the Pentax 645.

Lori and I then began the drive on up to Bear River Ridge. I was planning on taking several pictures in different locations, and so I didn’t immediately head to my favorite spot up there, Kinman Pond. I probably should have.

I calculated (ok, guessed) that I would need a 15 minute exposure. With the clear sky I was hoping to get some star trails in the sky. I set up for the first shot, opened up the shutter, and then climbed back in the truck to get warm. About 8 minutes into the exposure, I was dismayed to see clouds rolling in. Then about 13 minutes into the exposure it started snowing again. Not wanting to be one of these people who get stuck in the snow out in the boonies, we decided it was best to cut it short and head back down.

For four years that roll of 120 has sat in my Pentax 645. Every once in awhile I would think about getting it out to finish the roll of film, only to find the batteries had died. So I would put it on my list to get new batteries and a few weeks later I would actually remember to put them in. Then I would wait for another opportunity, at which point I would pull it out, only to find the batteries had gone dead again.

Finally, last weekend, I got new batteries and immediately took it down to the Avenue of the Giants and finished the roll. Then yesterday, I drove up to Eureka to drop the film off, and today drove back up again to pick up the developed roll. No wonder I switched to digital early on. Who wants to spend 2 hours driving just to see your pictures?

I still need to scan the entire roll of 15 pictures, but here is the first image from the roll, taken on that snowy night on February 27, 2007.

Alaina wanted to be photographed in the Redwoods, so we traveled down to one of my favorite groves along the Avenue of the Giants. Alaina is a spirited gal, and had fun jumping and climbing over trees. With the dim light available under the forest canopy, shutter speeds couldn’t capture her playfulness, but it was fun watching her have so much fun. It’s what I try to do the most on senior portraits, or actually most portraits in general, let the subject be themselves at a location where they can just go have fun.

After her session in the redwoods we stopped for blackberry popsicles which are in season right now. Yum! Then we found the big walnut tree and let her loose. I barely had my camera bag off my shoulder before Alaina was up in the tree scampering from branch to branch. Part squirrel that girl is.

I had a great morning, thanks for keeping me entertained Alaina. I’m looking forward to seeing The Brides of Dracula this weekend.

Lately I’ve been playing around in the studio doing some self portraits, mainly to have something fun to post on Facebook. I’ve done a hillbilly photo, several experiments using gels over the lights, and most recently, a pirate photo for Talk Like A Pirate day. Actually that one ended up not being a self portrait, because for the look I was trying to get, I was having trouble getting the right focus. So since Greg Rumney stopped by the studio I had him focus the camera and snap the pic.

But it got me to thinking there should be a way to carefully focus and frame the camera for self portraits. First let’s look at what doesn’t work.

1. Just use a small aperture and let the large depth of field (DOF) take care of it. Great unless you want to throw the background out of focus as I did in this shot.

2. Put the camera into auto focus mode. That works great if you’re there to put the focus point directly over the closest eye. But it’s very hard to do when you don’t know where that eye will end up in the frame. You might end up auto focusing on your nose, which is not a good thing when working with large apertures.

So after giving it some thought I looked around the studio to see what I could use as a placeholder for focusing purposes. My first attempt I used the head and torso of a mannequin. That didn’t work very well because she didn’t sit up properly.

The solution that I found that worked was to use a microphone boom stand. I set it so the knurled knob was directly in front of my eyes. Then I went to the camera and focused on that.

Next I set my cameras intervalometer so shoot 10 frames, just for good measure. With a ten second delay before the first exposure I had time to get back to the chair, get my pose adjusted just right and then swing the mike stand out of the way. For each of the pops, I moved my head forward just a fraction of an inch.

Then it was just a simple matter of opening the series in Bridge and checking to see which one had the absolute best focus on the eyes.

Another advantage to using this method is that it gave me a better target to frame in the camera. Usually I’d give myself lots of extra padding around the frame, figuring I could just crop into the photo since they were only going up on the web. But by doing it this way I could crop it correctly in the camera just as I would for a client.

The lighting set up I used can be seen in the first photo. It consists of the following:

Main Light: Photogenic 1250 DR with a 24″x32″ LiteDome soft box
Fill Light: 40″x80″ silver reflector
Background Light: Photogenic Studio Max III 160 with a 7″ reflector
Hair Light: Photogenic 300 DR with a 7″ reflector and barn doors
Kicker Light: Photogenic 1250 DR with a gridded 15″x50″ HalfDome softbox

Here is the finished self portrait:

On these walks I never fail to realize just how lucky we are to live in this beautiful town. I also usually curse myself because I don’t bring a camera. I need to get back in the habit of always carrying a camera with me, even if it’s just my little point and shoot Pentax.

Today’s walk I grabbed the D80 on the way out the door and took a few pictures of two of my favorite local barns.

The first one is the Becker’s barn, which is still in use. It is very distinctive for it’s roof (which sorry to say, I don’t know the architectural term for this style of roof) and of course the barn red color makes it stand out from the green of the pasture and forested hills.

Becker's Barn

The costumes, some of which were designed and constructed by my wife Lori, were also excellent. (Yep, totally unbiased review)

You have one more weekend to catch this entertaining musical. The songs brought back a lot of memories of my dad singing them. Man of La Mancha was one of my parents favorite musicals, and I grew up listening to my dad dreaming the impossible dream.

Photos from Man of La Mancha can be ordered from our web site.

I love photographing babies because they are so expressive but you have to be quick. Talk about mood swings. You also have to be ready for the unexpected, especially when the diapers come off. Becki was a great sport even though Kaden used every opportunity to soil her clothing.

But the best thing about photographing babies, is that you don’t have to worry about retouching double chins, and winkles.

I was pleasantly surprised when she called me up a few weeks ago and inquired about having a large family portrait made on their dairy. I met with Nicole at the studio and went over some basic ideas but I wanted to see the ranch first so we scheduled a pre-shoot visit, during which I met Nicole’s grandfather, Albert. On meeting Albert I instantly thought that with his full beard and 80+ years of character, that he would be an interesting subject to photograph.

Nicole and I walked around their ranch and we selected an area that would provide a nice view of the hills behind the cows in the field.

Two weeks later I returned for the portrait and was surprised to find a clean shaven Albert! Seems his family didn’t like his beard as much as I did. Oh well, it’ll grow back and then I can take another portrait of him.

Ghidinelli Family

We first started out in the field with a group shot of Albert, his three children, Tom, Marjorie and Mike and all the spouses and grandkids. That was followed with different subgroup portraits. While photographing the different groups, I loved listening to the banter going back and forth. The cows also provided a lot of entertainment, and it appears that even cow communities have divas.

Albert Ghidinelli

After we finished with those portraits I wanted to get some photos of Albert over by the barn. There are things you can do photographing a man in his eighties that you can’t do with a woman of any age, such as accentuating every wrinkle. Albert was a fun subject and even with the serious expression I asked for there was still that twinkle in his eyes that revealed his pleasant nature. I’m not sure if living on Pleasant Point makes you pleasant, or if it got that name because pleasant people live there, but I can say I had a pleasant morning at the Ghidinelli dairy.

When I went back Friday night to take photos for the production, I was pleasantly surprised that even though I was busy taking the photos, I enjoyed the production quite a bit.

Of course the best part was the costumes, since Lori was the designer for several of the women’s outfits.

She wanted to have her photos taken in the forest, so we headed down to the Avenue of the Giants. I was hoping to catch some fog in the morning but just a mile from our target the sun burst from the fog. I’m pretty used to working with the changing weather in Humboldt county though, so I knew we’d still have opportunities for good pictures.

She brought along a few of her favorite outfits, including her prom dress, and we brought along a vintage skirt from Lori’s collection. We enjoyed a leisurely walk through the forest, and it’s times like this that really reinforce my love of what I do. It’s not too bad working on a Saturday when your office is a redwood forest.

After we finished the shoot in the grove, we headed back up the Avenue. In Pepperwood we passed a fruit stand that had a sign in front advertising blackberry popsicles. Knowing how much Lori loves popsicles and blackberries, I glanced over to her to see if she had seen the sign. Her expression told me she had spotted the sign as well, so I quickly did a u-turn. The popsicles were delicious, and if you’re heading by Pepperwood, do yourself a favor and stop for some.

The proprietor of the stand also pointed us towards a great old walnut tree that I’ll have to use for a shoot someday.

If you are a graduating in 2010, now is a great time to have your senior portraits taken while the weather is so nice.

It was actually that plain white background that landed the job, as I had photographed Trevor Harper’s family last year on a white background and he remembered it when it came time to film his commercials.

While I was expecting to just be there while they filmed I ended up getting put to use in one commercial as a VAL (Voice Actuated Lightstand). I almost got my voice in the commercial but I think I’m going to end up on the cutting room floor because they decided it would be easier to add it post. There go my hopes of huge royalties to fund my retirement.

My studio is available for rent for both photographers and videographers. Rates vary depending on whether you just want to rent the space or the equipment as well. I’m also available to assist or coach. Please contact me if you’d like to find out more about the rates and specs for the studio and equipment.