Here's one that I am not so much focused on the settings of the camera but more about being in the right place at the right time. Sure, if I hadn't exposed the image properly, this shot would have never came out. I will tell you that I helped about five other people get this shot too. I knew that this was going to be decent shot because of the content, so I was patient. The people in the picture didn't know which camera to look at because there was a paparazzi. If it had gone that way without intervention, no one would have gotten a good shot. I told the people in the photo to look at that camera, FLASH, ok now look at that camera, FLASH, ok now here, FLASH. Now everyone has a good shot with all all eyes focused on their camera. That's a little photogragher etiquette for you, for free! Ok fine, to all my millions of fans, here are the settings that I used: Nikon D90 with 18-200VR lens, SB-800 Flash. Flash was on Full Power bounced off of 15 ft ceiling with bounce card. 1/125s shutter, f7.1, ISO800, Focal Length 26mm.

Ok, I seriously didn't want to post a black and white photo because it is just too easy. But this one really struck me and I wanted to share it. This is the same boy from two days ago and I was finishing up their family photos. I generally like to process and gussy up my favy's first to send out in an email. I don't know if it is the angle or because I processed it B&W. It really has a good feel to it. When I process a photo to B&W I use photoshop CS3's IMAGE / ADJUSTMENTS / BLACK AND WHITE. You can adjust the colors to your liking. I found that the image usually looks a little dull after B&W'ing it. So I then go to IMAGE / ADJUSTMENTS / BRIGHTNESS-CONTRAST, and give the image a hair more brightness and some decent contrast. It is usually about 5-10% on the brightness and about 20-30% on the contrast, depending on your desired effect. The same settings on the camera as the one I posted 2 days ago as well as the additional photoshopping. You need to click on the image to see it larger to get the full effect. I hope it strikes you like it did me.

My oldest daughter Tennille has been wanting to get me out for a photo shoot. This past Fathers Day was the best day for it. I was lucky enough to have the day off! How about that! We were at my In-Laws house in Brownsville. We ventured across the street where there is a huge hill to climb. It was well worth it when you got to the top though. A beautiful large field of wildflowers. I would have liked to taken the photos closer to dusk but the only time we had was right after church. The sun was high in the sky and quite bright. Luckily, the D90 has the awesome D-Lighting feature that helps in just this type of situation! I wanted to get that soft, wildflower, country-ish, kind of look. I really lowered my depth of field to have most of the flowers out of focus to 5.6. Shutter speed 1/250. ISO 200. For white balance, I selected direct sunlight. In photoshop I did a little clone stamping for the light blemishes. Dodged the eyes to make 'em pop. I created a layer and Noise Ninja'd it to soften it up. I then erased through the eyes for definition. I cropped the photo vertically a little past the top, then used the marquee tool to encompass the whole picture and pulled it a little to stretch it up, and then recropped back to a 2:3 aspect ratio. Easy right?!?

I did family photos today. It was a fairly nice day so I took them outside. Living in SW PA, if it is not raining, you have to consider it to be a nice day. My hope was that the sky would be blue so there would be a nice contrast of the blue sky and the green leaves. It ended up being more overcast than I thought so I tried to use the foliage as much as possible. The photo today isn't of the typical structered "this is where you stand" family photos, but rather of the last shot I grabbed before everyone left. It was a family of about 20 and as it was over, everyone was kind of just socializing when I saw the youngest boy off by himself. I pointed the camera at him and he smiled. I thought "cool, he's gonna let me get a few shots". I directed him over to a tree and asked him to lean against it. I shot a few off and this was the result. I had to touch up the face a bit, under the eyes, etc, with the clone stamp in photoshop. I used the dodge tool on his eyes to make them stand out a bit more. Finally, I used the Noise Ninja plugin to soften up the photo a bit. Camera: Nikon D90 - 1/160s - 200mm - f6.3 - ISO 200 - Vivid Color - Used DGK white balance card to set white balance before the shoot began. About 10am.

I tried something new yesterday in the library. I usually take a photo in that area at an angle. I tried it straight on with the big green shutters behind it. I wanted to shoot OUT the window so I could bring the outside, in. My inside shutter speed has to be fast enough to not have blown out highlights from outside. Shutter speed 1/200. I set my aperture to f/8.0 so that I could get as much of them in focus as possible and create a good contrast. Since I had my 1000ws lighting kit I had enough light to do that and have my ISO at only 200. I put one light (with umbrella) about 8 feet to the left and away from the guy. I had it aimed between the 2 people about at their waist line and I had the power turned down to about half since it was fairly close to them. My other light (with umbrella) was about 15 feet away to the right and away of the girl with the power almost full. I had it facing in their general direction but pointed towards the ceiling to illuminate the area. Because I was shooting into a reflective surface I had to really space the lights apart or you would have seen them in the window. Another reason why the second light pointed towards the ceiling was almost at full blast. I used no other flash. You can see the two spots of light on their eyes. My focal length was 52mm. I did a test shot in the area before they came to get my white balance correct by calibrating the Pre-Set in the camera. I utilized the “Vivid” color setting. I have done NO PHOTOSHOPPING to this photo. This lady asked before I took the photo, “What’s my motivation?” I said “To take a good photo”. What the heck! Some people!