Turning the camera on myself

I've always said that I like behind the person behind the camera, because it keeps me out of the photo. Just never been fond of photos of myself. However, I've been reading a lot of photography blogs lately that all say every once in a while, you should turn the camera on yourself. For one, it's a good way to practice portrait lighting. For a second reason, it puts you in your subject's shoes so you get a sense of how they feel with lights and the camera pointed at them.

With that in mind, I thought I'd give it a try with a three-light setup. The main light is a gridded small soft box to camera left, and I have another gridded box as a rim light that's up high pointing down toward my back. The third light has a 10-degree grid spot to give a small circle of light on the wall behind me. I turned things around from normal by using a dark green wall as the backdrop, with the studio white backdrop at camera right providing a little bit of fill bounced from the main light.

Lastly, I converted the image to black and white, because I think that seems to be some unwritten rule that when photographers do self portraits, they have to be black and white. Here is the final result.

Just for Fun

Having a studio setup right there in the office provides a lot of good opportunities for goofy photos of co-workers, especially when testing lighting setups. These shots usually don't see the light of day, but for a goofy shot, I really liked the lighting on this one. Setup is two gridded 24" soft boxes, one just above to camera left as the main and a second slightly behind the subject as a rim light. There's a bounce card directly in front of and below camera to throw a little fill, and a blue-gelled backdrop light behind the subject. The main box is in close, which provides the good light falloff allowing the arms and lower body to go dark.

Surgeon portrait

Just because I haven't posted anything in a while...shot from earlier this week of a surgeon and the da Vinci Surgical System.

Animal Kingdom

Some scenery shots from Animal Kingdom at Disney World earlier this month.

Big Sandy Plant

Level Four

Just liked the way the light hit the sign

Sunrise, part 2

From same morning as the shot below.

Sunrise

Just because I haven't posted in a while. Shot this during a recent vacation to Folly Beach, S.C.

Yet another sunset

Survivor

Reece 07.17.11

Stargazer lily

Hay Field at Sunset

Blended from three exposures of the same shot. Click on the photo for a much larger version.

Perspective

Seemed appropriate for this weekend.

The Drive Home

Shot with iPhone using Instagram

The Big Picture

I was shooting a portrait of our new heart surgeon the other day, and thought it might look kinda cool if i zoomed out to a wide angle and captured the whole scene. It completely changes the feel of the photo, as you see the darkened operating room equipment pushed out to the sides, along with the lighting setup and the shadows it casts. Pretty different from the tightly cropped head and shoulders shot with a neat, clean blue background that we'll use for the final product. I'd love it if the opportunity arose to use this type of shot, but more than likely this blog is the only exposure it will get. Click on the photo for a larger version to see the detail better.

Morning trees

Infrared

Summer means a good time to drag out the old Nikon D100 and slap on my infrared filter. Shot this last night of some trees in my yard in the evening light. Black and white conversion done in Adobe Lightroom.

Mushrooms

Dogwood blooms