Sports Update

Had a nice break away from the hectic sports schedule due to schools being on spring break. Here are a few of the recent photos I've taken. Enjoy.

Modeling Update

Just a few of the recent modeling shoots I've done recently. Its starting to warm up so I've been trying to get outside and shoot more which has also given me the opportunity to put the Profoto B2 through its paces. Enjoy.

Back to Lacrosse

Finally been able to shoot some lacrosse lately. Unfortunately lacrosse isn't a huge sport here and its only played as an intramural sport for high school. Here are a few of the recent lacrosse games I've shot recently. Enjoy

High School Soccer

Been keeping pretty busy so far this season and wanted to share a few more photos that I've taken this week.

Spring Sports Are Here

Spring sports have officially started and its been great to be back outdoors for sports. Done a couple soccer games so far and here are some of the shots I got.

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Outdoor Shoot with Joanna

One of the problems with Virginia is it can never make up its mind if its going to be warm or cold outside. For weeks now the weather has been going from 70 degrees one day to 40 degrees the next. Well this doesn't work out too well when you're trying to plan outdoor shoots.

This past weekend was supposed to be pretty warm but ended up being about 40 degrees with 10mph winds. Despite all that Joanna braved the cold to do a shoot at Mt Trashmore. Here are a few of the photos.

MEAC Basketball Tournament

I covered the Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference Basketball Tournament at the Scope Arena in Norfolk last week. The games were pretty good and it was nice to shoot something at the Scope that wasn't ice hockey. One of the interesting things I learned was with the ice covered the scope arena is about 1 stop darker than with the ice out. Here are a few photos from the tournament.

White Balance and Color For Sports

I see a lot of comments and questions about white balance and colors in photos for sports. A lot of gyms and arenas have terrible lighting that causes a ton of color shift and problems in photos.

The easiest way I have found to "fix" this issue is by using a XRite Color Checker Passport. It has a grey card on one side and a color pallet on the other. I know I've talked about the colorchecker before but its hands down the best piece of gear I've ever purchased. 

When I get to a venue Im going to shoot at, before the game Ill walk out and set the color checker down and take a picture of both the grey card and the color pallet.

This way I can create a color profile in lightroom based on the lighting in the venue so all the colors and white balance look how it should. I honestly havent found a situation where the colorchecker hasn't helped out.

Here's a screen shot from a photo I took last night at the VHSL basketball tournament as well as the screen shot of the color checker passport.

The photo on the left is the straight out of camera photo. The photo on the right has been color and white balance matched using the color checker.

Ill also post one of the videos I've done before on how the colorchecker works. 

D500 w/ 70-200 f2.8, 1/1000, f3.2, ISO 6400

VHSL Wrestling State Championship

Went out and covered the Virginia High School League 5A/6A Wrestling Championship a few weeks ago. Wrestling has always been challenging to me because of how fast and random the movements are. Here are a few of the photos I took. Enjoy.

Studio Shoot with Emmy

Back in the studio with Emmy for some white seamless photos. Most were black and what but did a few color photos as well.  Enjoy.

Fitness Shoot

I've been working on using more creative lighting recently and tried some out recently on a fitness shoot I did with Jamie. Here are a few of the photos from the shoot.

Shoot with Emmy

Going along with the last blog here are a few more photos from the shoot I did with Emmy. Overall I was happy with the shoot other than the few issues I brought up in the last post.

Tip Of The Day

Tip of the day... If you want to do a shoot at sunset make sure you actually know when sunset is.

Here's one from a concept I've been working on. There's a lot of problems with the image but I still like where its heading. The idea was to do the same idea (her jumping) but with the sunset in the background.

I messed up because I thought the sunset was at a certain time but I was off and was about 2 hours early. On top of that it ended up being much colder (about 36 degrees) and very windy and she got way too cold for her to stay in the dress till sunset. The plan was to shoot with the sun setting (so it was darker) so I only brought a single Profoto B2 to freeze her in the air.

The problem arose because it was still so bright out I couldn't get a fast enough shutter speed to freeze the action (without flash) without the back of her dress being completely in shadow and dark. The second problem was (again since I thought it would be darker) I couldn't get enough power out of the single B2 head to fill in the shadows on her dress and leg and maintain a fast enough shutter to freeze the action (hints the movement in her feet) while keeping the exposure correct.

If I did this again during the day with the sun so bright, I would break out several of my bigger heads and just overpower the sun and use flash and HSS to freeze the action.

Studio Shoot with Corissa

Worked with a new model the other day and was really happy with the way the photos turned out. Here are a few of the photos from the shoot I did with Corissa. 

Hockey Update

The Norfolk Admirals season is still underway and with that I'm still covering many of the games. One of the challenges with shooting the Admirals is there is only one photo hole and it is barely big enough to fit the 70-200 f2.8. On top of that it is normally occupied by one of the other photographers. Luckily for me the other night it was open and I gave it a shot (pun intended). Here are a few photos from "ice level."

Studio Shoot with Jennifer

Did a studio shoot with Jennifer the other day. I've done a lot of white seamless in the past but since upgrade my lighting I have found the results are much better and much more consistent. Here are a few of the photos from the shoot.

Getting it Right In Camera

Fair warning, this is going to be more of a rant. Recently I have seen what I feel is a disturbing increase in photographers making comments along the lines of "Ill just fix it in [insert editing software]." This is a terrible mentality to have. As a photographer it is imperative to get the photo as close to "perfect" in camera as you can get. This includes everything from exposure to composition and lighting. 

Now you might be thinking to yourself "He's just anti-Lightroom." On the contrary Im the exact opposite. Im a huge fan of Lightroom, Photoshop and other editing programs. With that being said Im a huge believer of using editing software to spice up and enhance photos,.

You can always lean on LR and PS to save you and fix your mistakes, or you could learn the how the exposure triangle and the Sunny 16 rule work and how to apply them so you don't have to rely on LR and PS to fix your mistakes before you even get a chance to spice the photos up and make them even better.

For an example if you're in a low light situation no matter what you HAVE to expose the image correctly. Even if that means pushing your ISO. A properly exposed high ISO image will look cleaner than a low ISO image that is underexposed and recovered in LR or PS.

On the flip side if you overexpose and the area is white you wont be able to save it because there is no details to recover. 

Yes there are always situations where you don’t get everything right in camera and you have to save the image using LR or PS but that should be the exception not the rule.

Recent Photo Shoots

Another short post but wanted to share some photos from a few recent shoots I've done. Enjoy.