See the Light, Not the Camera

I just saw a really great quote about photography, and it really resonated with me, especially after the last session I just shot:

Beginning photographers think about cameras.
Intermediate photographers think about composition.
Advanced photographers think about light. 

The photography industry has been bombarded with new photographers in the last 5 or so years, now that digital cameras have come down in price, and produce such high quality results.  Now stop right there if you think this article is going to lambaste all those new photographers.  Let's get beyond that.

1-on-1 Training

I received an e-mail over a month ago from a photographer that attended an all-day seminar I gave during the May 2011 Super Monday program I put on sponsored by the PPA.  She enjoyed the class, and really wanted to get a little more education under her belt.  She was getting nowhere with other photographers in her area, so she wondered, if she drove the 2.5 hours to my studio, would I give her an all-day, 1-on-1 training.

The DoubleTree Hotel Knows Customer Service

I was in the middle leg of a three-part trip that took me from my home in Rochester to NYC for the day, then an evening flight to Chicago, where I was to meet a client the next day.

I had to wake at 4am to catch a 6am flight to LaGuardia.  I ate two bagels when I landed.  Breakfast accomplished.  I worked all day...skipping lunch...at a client's location, then proceeded on to what is normally a half-hour drive to the airport to catch my flight to Chicago.  After two hours in traffic, I got to the airport, ran through security, ran through the terminal, ran to my gate and was the last one to board the flight.  The plane pushed away from the gate at 7pm, and we didn't take off until 8pm.  For dinner, I had a wonderful can of ginger ale as I sat cramped in my seat, elbow-to-elbow with my seatmates, with my underwear giving me a screaming wedgie.

Free Generic Photos on Your Website Cost More Than You Think

Sure...using free or low-cost stock generic images on your web site can be quite a cost effective means of adding content to your website,  but like the old adage says, "You get what you pay for".

The New York Times published a recent study by Jakob Nielsen, a web site consultant and author of several books about web design and user interface.  The research showed that most people that browse web sites ignore royalty-free or generic images that were purchased from stock agencies.  Not only that, but the images only added clutter to the page and didn’t necessarily help from a business standpoint.

Just a Pinch of Light - DIY Grid Snoots

Chefs who cook without recipes go on instinct, knowing when to add a pinch of ‘this’, or a pinch of ‘that’.  If a newbie cook were learning from them, they’d ask: “how much is a pinch”?  Almost always, the answer would be: “it’s just the right amount, and you’ll know if it is too much.  Like the kid who gets his pudgy cheeks pinched by his scary Aunt Betty, too much is too much.

Photographers cook with light.  As you get better and better at it, you start realizing when and where you need a pinch of light to set your image apart from everything else out there.  Often, an umbrella or soft box over your light source will add too much light.  Like the kid with the pinched cheeks, you’ll get all irritated and run screaming into the other room.

Beauty and the Booth

 

I’ve been getting a lot of comments from the HS Seniors and their parents when they look at the images after the HS Senior portrait sessions:  “Wow! That looks like it should be in a magazine!”  Well, what is it about the images that say to them ‘it should be in a magazine’?

Well, it takes a nice looking model.  That’s a ginormous step in the right direction, but it is not always necessary.  But there is one thing that links all these images together: the lighting.  During high school senior sessions, I set up a Beauty Booth, which is a lighting set up used by…you guessed it....photographers that shoot magazine cover shots.  It’s not always an easy set up, seeing that I employ five different lights to get it to look the way I want it to.  However, instead of spending thousands of dollars on equipment, I’ve manufactured much of it myself…and that money instead stays in my pocket.  Here's how it's done.

Beach Photography Quiz – The Lightning Round

One of my recent high school seniors, Becky from Churchville-Chili, requested that we photograph part of her session on the beach at Lake Ontario, because she likes to spend time there with her friends.  I was happy to oblige, because I don’t get many requests to shoot on the beach.  We scheduled her session for later in the day, so we could finish at the beach near sundown.

As we were driving north to the beach, I could see some nasty-looking clouds ahead.  About 5 minutes from the beach, the clouds unleashed a new challenge in the form of lightning bolts out over the lake.  Several questions popped into my head:

       1.      Does she still want to hit the beach?

       2.      How desperate am I to please this client?

       3.      How many shots can I get in before the lighting gets in a shot of its own?

The Ladder to Success

I was faced with a dilemma recently: how do you photograph a tennis player differently than everyone else does?  Tennis takes place on the ground, on a standard sized court, in daylight.  Usually.  That is, unless you fly over Arthur Ashe Stadium in NY in the evening and get to see the US Open Tennis Championships from 800 feet in the air, like I did last night.  I swear I could hear Maria Sharapova grunting from that high up.

Kayla is a Rush-Henrietta high school senior who plays tennis.  When she came to my studio, and I felt like I owed her something different…something that no one else had.  It required a change of perspective…a different point of view.  After photographing her near the net in different standing and sitting poses, I brought out a new weapon: an 8 ft. step ladder.

“So the Man Says to the Duck…”

 

The greatest thing about having babies enrolled in my Lifetime of Memories program is that I get to photograph these children up to four times in the first year of their life.  Patrick Luke of Luke Photography, recently photographed one year old Zachary, who I’d photographed as a six-month old.  Between these two sessions, he had surgery to correct an issue with his eyes which caused double vision.  He was quiet and well-behaved during his six-month session with double vision, but he was downright giddy during his year-old session.  I’m guessing that he finally got a good look at what my face looked like…and he couldn’t stop laughing.

Next Generation Greatness

Pat Luke of Luke Photography recently photographed the athletic Coleston, from Pal-Mac's Class of 2012 at Pal-Mac in his Fairport studio.

Coleston is the son of one of my childhood friends, and next year graduates from the same high school his father, mother, and I went to.  His mother was a great high school athlete, and his dad and I grew up on the same street and played all sorts of sports together, often pitting ourselves against all the other kids in the neighborhood.  So when I was asked to photograph his son, who plays varsity basketball and baseball, I jumped at the chance to really work on the athletic angle.

Let There Be Light

 

Recently, Patrick Luke (Luke Photography) a Fairport, NY portrait photographer finished a two-phase Portrait session with Lesley, who is a pitcher on the Victor girls’ varsity softball team.  Being such a big part of her life, we wanted to make sure we included it as part of her session.  Not wanting run-of-the-mill photographs, we headed out on location her high school to shoot on the turf field that was equipped with stadium lights.  Yeah, I know this was not a softball field, but just go with me on this one.  I wanted to color of the mid-field graphics, her uniform, and the cloudy sky in the background in the frame.  And with the lighting that I was planning on using, all these colors were supposed to create impact and place nicely together.  And play they did.

Softballs and Racing Stripes

 This past weekend, I photographed one of my favorite subjects: a high school senior athlete.
Lesley came to the studio of Fairport Senior Portrait photographer Patrick Luke and brought a multitude of clothes, and we conducted the first part of a 4 hour session with her.  This first session lasted two-and-a-half hours and started in the studio, then stretched into a local parking garage when I heard she wanted to pose with her car, which happened to have a racing stripe that matched her pink prom dress.

Once Lesley changed into her pink prom dress, things really started clicking.  She's also on the school's color guard, and I thought the juxtaposition of her pink dress and her saber looked great together.  Things really took off when she changed into her softball uniform.  She's an excellent pitcher on her school's varsity softball team, and we wanted to make sure that this part of her life was represented well.  I love photographing athletes, making them look like they belong in the pages of Sports Illustrated.

Scamper Over to Something Different

This week I taught an all-day photography class sponsored by the Professional Photographers of America (PPA) as part of their nation-wide Super Monday educational series.  My class was entitled, "The MacGyver Method: Big Budget Photography with Low Budget Equipment".  One woman drove all the way from Massachusetts to Rochester to attend the class and learn how to create really interesting portraits with simple, inexpensive equipment that they may already have.  Hopefully the gas money that she spent getting here will be made up by the not having to purchase any new equipment for awhile.

Part of the thrill I get from teaching and sharing my photographic techniques is watching those "a-ha" moments appear, when the light bulb suddenly flashes above their heads.  My intent is not to teach people how to photograph like me...it's to get them to start thinking of things a little differently, and start the creative juices flowing.  I want them to realize that the most interesting path from A to D may not necessarily be through B and C.

The LukeSphere Light Modifier

The best inspiration comes from desperation and exasperation.  I was exasperated to see that photographers were paying $60 or more to buy a piece of Tupperware from a nationally-known photographer that they could put over their flashes to modify and soften their camera-mounted hot shoe flashes.  I know that real Tupperware cost a lot less than that, and I knew that there was an even better alternative that would do exactly the same thing for a lot less Andrew Jacksons donated from my wallet.

The Lion’s Share of Creativity Comes From….Everywhere

Last weekend, my family and I went to see the touring show of The Lion King.  If you haven’t gone, then you simply have to find a way of getting to this show.  It took all of 5 seconds into the first scene and I was hooked.   Those of you who have seen it will understand…when the giraffes enter the stage…you had me at “Hello”.  We first saw this show four years ago when it came to town, and I couldn’t wait to go back when the show came through this way again.

It’s not only the giraffes and the spectacular costumes and puppets that caught my eye.  The scenery was inspiring.  Looking at anything inspiring should…well, inspire you.  As a photographer and a slave to visual imagery, I find inspiration in all things around me.  Big or small, long or short, high or low.  Artists can and should be inspired by whatever they happen across.  By the way the light strikes a shape, or the way two objects interplay with each other.

Let's Try This Again

After numerous requests, I have put another blog on-line.  The old blog (Blog O'Luke v1.0) got hacked and spammed almost to death, and I made the hard decision to set it free on a farm out in the country.  At least, that's what I told my daughter.  No sense in getting into the gory details.

As before, this version will include postings from recent sessions, musings about photography, and much sharing from my out-of-the box thinking about photographic equipment. 

As many of you know, my peers have anointed me "MacGyver", and I have been speaking to professional photographers all over about getting great results with equipment they already have, or by making inexpensive versions of very expensive equipment...which often prompts the question: "How the &@^#%$ did you think of that?"  MacGyver's Corner will provide photographers with a little insight into the sometimes scary recesses of my brain and provide "how-to" tutorials and share my upcoming speaking engagements.


So, let's strap it on and have some fun.