On the road again

It seems like I've been on the road a lot lately. Last weekend I was in Chicago, this past weekend, I went to the Northwest Suburbs and today I'm headed to Charleston.

I can't really complain a lot about it. Even though some of it was for work it usually turns into pleasure. Today I'm going to shoot Alpha Phi rush down at EIU. If that wasn't enough, I get to hangout with the guys at EIU.

I didn't get to make it down there for the first week of school this year, so this is my first trip of the year. I'm going to try and stop by the old office today to see everyone. I think I'm actually supposed to be down there for a golf tournament in two weeks as well, so it looks like the traveling has just begun.

Oh, and I shot volleyball last night, so check out my other blog.

I shot football again last night. I've apparently become recognizable. Well, among the skater kids at least. One of the guys that was skating when I took photos on Wednesday saw me and yelled out my name. I thought it was a little strange that anyone would know my name and then I recognized him.

His exact words, "Those skating photos were sick!" It made me feel really good. I can't wait to get back down and shoot some more. Hopefully they tell their friends and parents about them to create a buzz.

Feelin' young again

I've been spending a lot of time at the skate park lately. It's kind of nice to get out and get some skating in. I've probably been out more in the past week than I have in the past 4 years.
After a few days of hanging out and getting used to the park, I finally busted the camera out. If you want to see the other photos, click here.
Oh, and thanks to David Herrera for being my model letting me shoot photos while he was skating.
And thank for all the other solid dudes for letting me interrupt their sessions by taking up space with my equipment. Hopefully I'll get to shoot some more in the next few days.
Check out my other blog for lighting details.

Me and the giant Indian

Nothing much today. Went to Oregon (the town, not the state) to get my substitute teachers certification. Technically it was in Grand Detour, but I had to go to Oregon for my finger prints. When I got there, they told me they couldn't do it because the prisoners were out and it was a security issue. So instead of thinking it was a wasted trip I decided to spend a few minutes at the park. Only like 15, but I've always seen the giant statue of an Indian next to the Rock River, but never stopped.

I shot a few series of photos bracketed to put together an HDR photo, but I'm not good enough using the technique yet to show off that photo. Though I actually like the shot I took. I'll post it when I get it done and tell you what I did to it. That'll probably be saved for the other blog though.

I'm sure my buddy Bob would really appreciate this photo. He always has some good smart ass comment about me being Indian.

I actually learned a little history in the 15 minutes I was there. Makes a different when you actually WANT to read those signs in a park.

I also learned how to get that wierd surrealistic look. I'll post on the other blog exactly what I did to this photo. I still have some tweaking to do, but for my first photo like this I'm pleased.

Separating blogs

I updated my other blog with a freelancing workflow. It's a little long winded. As said before, I said I'm going to try and keep this as my personal blog and the other as my photo blog.

I'll update a little more tomorrow. Oh, and if you haven't check out Musictopia in a while, and I'm sure you haven't, check it out to see the review of a new band I found, White Lies. I'm loving their music right now.

Week 1 in the bag

I shot football for the Rochelle News-Leader last night. It's been about 8 or 9 months since I last shot football and probably longer since I shot night football. (Gotta love playoff Saturday games.) Either way, I wouldn't say it was my worst outing, but it certainly wasn't my best.

The combination of trying to learn to use a monopod and my overall rustiness was a challenge. And even though Rochelle built this really nice new field, they certainly weren't thinking of photographers when they did it. (The inconsiderateness of some people.)

The night didn't start off the greatest. The team they were playing was Chicago Corliss. Apparently they are a slapped together inner city team that hasn't even started classes yet. It actually reminded me of something from one of those Disney movies where the team is terrible and then a coach comes in and whips them into ship only to lead them to the state championship. Except they're still in that really awful part of the movie where the kids can't do anything right. I'm not trying to rag on the kids, they certainly put in a good effort and even scored more points than I would assumed. It just would have been nice if the coaches dressed like actual coaches and their kids wouldn't have taken several cheap shots after the whistle was blown. I can't tell you how many times the refs had to continually remind them to stop when the whistle was blown.

Then there was the huge amount of flags thrown. The first half didn't even end until almost 10 p.m. Oh, and did I mention the other team showed up an hour late. So then we were talking zero daylight shots. Throughout the game I struggled with whether I should be using my flash or not? At times it worked nicely for a little fill and others I was just really mad, like at the photo at the right. A nice reaction shot, but the flash made it look terrible.

I have another game tonight on the southside of Chicago. I might try no flash the first half and flash the second half and tweek my settings a bit. It'd be really nice if I had some 300 glass, but that's not going to happen anytime soon.

Rochelle came out ahead 49-14 in the end, but they definitely need to tighten up. Hopefully week 1 jitters are gone by the 2nd or third week because any team with a reasonable amount of talent will certainly give them a challenge.

Anyway, I have a lot of photos to post, but it's going to take a little time to get them up. I'll go into detail about shooting on my other blog later today or tomorrow, but for now I gotta get ready to go.

First-ever tennis shoot

Daniel Williams/Lifeworks Imaging/www.lifeworksimaging.com
RTHS varsity tennis player Jessica Albers reaches for the ball during the team's match vs. Belvidere Monday in Rochelle.


I shot tennis for the first time practically ever today. I think I may have shot it once during my time at EIU, but not that I can really remember. I tried to go featurey with it, but found myself lacking any creativity. I think it was mostly the lack of a clean background. Chain link fences and buildings, poles and everything else behind them don't really inspire much. Regardless, I tried and will continue to try more.

If interested in seeing a few shots from today, check out the link here. I'm really looking forward to soccer, but I have football Friday night and if the rain holds off I'm going to try for some skating shots with lights tomorrow.

It's been a long night and hard day, so I'm headed to bed. Good night all!

Beauty only costs $5

Update: After posting this, I came across several similar versions. Somewhat similar, but everybod'ys always have their own techniques. Mine works great for what I need, but improvise with whatever you have laying around.

After researching a lot of information about beauty dishes, I realized there was absolutley no good reason I couldn't make my own for a fraction of the price of professionally developed ones. There were a lot of good ideas I picked from through diyphotography and various other sights.

I started out with a few goals in mind. I wanted to make one small and portable enough for a Nikon SB-80DX or my other SBs. I wanted it light as possible so as not to bend the strobe down on the light stand, but I wanted it versatile enough to withstand moving from location to location. After viewing a few with the turkey roaster approach I decided they were too flimsy and not professional looking at all. I realize many photographers would not be concerned with the professional look, but I shoot senior photos and kids can be cruel. Heck, if my photographer showed up with a turkey pan I'd have made fun of him too at 18 years old. So keeping it aesthetically pleasing was a small concern. Here is what I came up with. I labeled everything step by step with as many photos as I could. Sorry for the low-quality images, but I was so anxious to actually build it, that I didn't take much time to snap the photos.

Step 1 - Gather materials and tools
Supplies:
Large plastic mixing bowl. - Dollar General - $1.50
Standard pack of soup bowls - Dollar General - $1 for 3
Three bolts and six matching nuts - Local hardware store - $.93
Matte black spray paint- $??? Not sure, had it in the garage.
Tools:
Exacto knife
Drill (optional)
Marker
Old newspaper


Step 2 - Mark the hole
First take the large mixing bowl and flip it upside down so the bowl portion is facing the table or ground. Place the flash head you're going to use in the center. I just eyeballed it close. Next take you're marker and trace the outside of the flash. (You may want to use black so it blends in with the flash if it marks the head. I accidntally used silver and learned the hard way. I guess I could've used a pencil.)

Step 3 - Spray one standard bowl
You're going to need to spray the backside of one of the standard bowls at this point. My bowls were white and were reflecting all the light, leaving a solid circle in the middle, not a donut shape in the speculars. Technically I used a black bed liner spray, but I think matte black would work just fine. I personally like the bed liner spray though. It dried incredibly fast and made it textured as to reflect less light. Sorry, no photos of this.

Step 4 - Mark the bolt holes
You need to mark the holes you're going to drill in the lip of the standard bowl and the bottom of the mixing bowl. I placed the mixing bowl upside down on the floor again. Then I put the standard bowl upside down on top of it. Sort of like two igloos on top of each other. Then I just marked arbitrary holes. I eyballed it again and placed the holes equally apart. Then I lifted the standard bowl and put marks in about the same places on the mixing bowl. Because your bolts will have a little play in them, you don't have to be exact, just close.

Step 5 - Drill holes
Now drill all the holes out. Make sure to use a drill bit slightly smaller than your bolts. You want them to squeeze in the holes to stay in place. Then do the standard bowl. Same concept.

Step 6 - Add bolts
Place the bolts through the back of the mixing bowl. It should be a nice tight squeeze. Then remove them and put them through standard bowl. Put them through so the head of the bolt is on the bottom side of the bowl. Basically if you were to set it on a table to eat out of the bolts would be sticking up in the air.

Step 7 - The nuts
Put one nut on each bolt about a half an inch up. Then put take the entire standard bowl and place it inside the mixing bowl so the bolts can suspend the standard bowl two or three inches away and reversed. (The bowls should now be facing each other and the black side facing out on the standard bowl. If the nuts were distributed evenly on the bolts, the standard bowl should be at about the same height all the way around. Now place the remaining nuts on the backside of the mixing bowl and tighten them down.

Steph 8 - Add to strobe, beautify
Now place the beauty dish on the flash head and beautify. You can see from the example You really get the donut hole shape.

I had a little trial and error with this. I originally left both bowls white, but didn't get the specular I wanted. I could've added another bolt and another series of nuts to keep the standard bowl from sliding down, but because I underdrilled the holes I didn't need to. I think it looks fairly professional works excellent. Plus it's nice and portable. If there's any questions let me know and I'll try to respond. Oh, and it helps to have velcro already attached to your flash and to cut that hole nice and tight so it squeezes onto the strobe head and stays in place. I will update with photos in a little bit.

Cheers!

The blog's back

So it's been a little while. Here's an update. Stephanie and I moved to Rochelle. I no longer work for a newspaper. In Rochelle we plan to start our photography studio. We're in the process of buying a house and she's back to work for Wills Chiropractic in Rochelle.

Other than that, not much has happened. I guess that's enough excitement for a few months. Anyway, now that I don't work for the paper I feel I can freely post whatever I want. Feels kind of nice. I'm really trying to learn a lot of new photography tips right now. It seems the more I learn the less I feel I know. Seems odd, but photography has really evolved in the past several years. Things that worked well in the past don't necessarily work any more. Digital has opened up the realm of possibilities so much too. The learning curve gets shorter each day and I feel I slip farther behind at a faster pace. Maybe one day I'll feel I'm at a comfortable medium. I'll update later tonight on more specifics, but just wanted to get a brief post about what's happened so far.

Wedding season

I'm done with the first wedding photos and should be done with the second by Thursday.




I had two weddings in the past two weeks. One of them was a friend of a friend, the other was one of my friends. Both weddings turned out great. Beautiful days to hold them. The first one I did was at the Illinois Beach Resort in Zion. The second was near Rockford.

I wish it would have been a little nicer day for the one in Zion, but it turned out to be a nice day in the end. Just a little wet on the beach.

Overall I was pleased with the photos. I really like this photo a lot. My favorite wedding photos usually have nothing to do with the actual wedding. It's usually during preparation, which is why I really push to do at least an hour of prep photos.

Kyler

Kyler is pretty cute.




Steph and I had to go home for a wedding this past week up near Rockford. Friday night we got the chance to spend some time with her family and Patty and her daughter Kyler. Kyler's just about 8 months old now and has some of the biggest eyes I've ever seen.

I shot a few more photos of her, but this was my favorite. I should be uploading some of the wedding photos either tonight or tomorrow.

I'll also be uploading photos from the weekend before at a different wedding I shot. I'll update the link when they're uploaded.

UPDATE - Here's the link to the wedding I did the weekend before.

Russert dies at 58

I'm deeply saddened after hearing of the death of Tim Russert. For those of you who don't know, Mr. Russert was the host of NBC's "Meet the Press."

Mr. Russert was an outstanding journalist with a reputation for remaining unflinchingly unbiased. (Except for his love of Buffalo sports teams.)

I am a huge fan of "Meet the Press," primarily because of Mr. Russert.

Most of my Sunday mornings consist of waking up around 8 a.m., coming downstairs to eat breakfast, followed by a small nap again until the show would come on.

It's a little nostalgic for me too because I can remember my dad watching the show each morning. I think it might have been where most of my interest in politics stemmed from.

The show certainly won't be the same without him.

Still got the (photoshop) skills

More wedding photos. I'm almost done.



I took a break from my normal editing to post this photo of Brenna and Stephanie. Carly wanted the photo with Stephanie's sasha colored red, so I triewd to see if I remembered how to do it. Turns out I haven't forgot everything I know.

In fact, the photo turned out pretty good. I like it a lot better this way. I'm excited to be done with the first editing round, but now I have to go back and decide what photos I need to re-edit for print.

Which then turns into buying frames. Which means more money...sigh! Oh well. As soon as I finish I'll post a link of all the photos.

Wedding photos part deux

After months, I'm back to editing wedding photos.



I started editing wedding photos again. I just wish I hadn't stopped because I can't remember my workflow now. To be honest, it's quite the cluster*$@&.

I'm going to wait to get things organized before I add too many more. That way I don't use up my space on flickr.

Hopefully I'll have some time this weekend to get some photos since Stephanie will be gone for a good portion of it.

From the Vault 1

My first Tuscola Review photo.



Here's my first installment of "From the Vault." I can't guarantee how often I'll put up photos from it, but I'll try to keep going until I run out of them.

The reason I chose this photo over so many others, besides the fact it was my first in Tuscola, is because I actually like the photo.

I've been told it should have been cropped tighter, but I think if you cropped it tighter you lose the story. That being, that Mrs. Cottle is teaching a parenting class to high school students.

My argument says, tighter loses the teenager on the right. You would also lose the banannas which I think add to the foreground. The pots and pans add to the idea that you're in a home economics classroom. Some might say it's messy, but you're working in a classroom with very few clean backgrounds, so I decided to use it to my advantage.

Plus, the look on Mrs. Cottle's face and the look on the girl's face portrayed her personality perfectly. She really had a way with children.

Certainly not a profile picture, but one I like nonetheless.

Your thoughts?

You're face is gonna stick that way

Little kids are the best.



Minus the fact that you get an onslaught of requests to 'put me in the paper' from little kids, they rock. Mainly because they will do anything to get in the paper. Plus, after a few minutes, they completely forget you're there.

It's kind of funny how little kids really look up to grown ups. It's even more funny I'm calling myself a grown up.

I've apparently got a little bit of a cult following in town. I imagine when the town only has 4,500 and you're one of the few people who shows up at everything, it's bound to happen.

I've just noticed a lot of kids who I don't know saying hello to me by name. Must mean I'm doing something right.

I'm going through my archives tonight, so hopefully I'll be able to post a few photos 'From the Vault.'

Dry as a bone

Stephen came prepared.


Stephen got a new nickname after Friday. Pancho Gurerro. His long pancho looked funny to me. Unfortunately, you can't see the length from the photo. Trust me, it looked funny.

And I uploaded the photos as I said I would.

State Finals

Mike Adams (top) sits with an umbrella during the rain delay while fans and players wait during the first game of IHSA state baseball finals Friday in Joliet. The rain delay lasted three hours and three minutes Friday. Tuscola lost 10-2. They will play for third and fourth place Saturday morning.
Well, it's been a real-long time. But I have been busy, and it's not like anyone was knocking my door down wondering where my posts were.

I covered baseball this weekend. I've got a lot of photos to share. I'll be posting even more later today on my flickr account.

Oh, and if you didn't know already, you can check out the Tuscola Review's blog site we set up a little while ago.

I'm going to start going through a bunch of old files, so don't be surprised to see some old archived photos starting to pop up here. Maybe I'll try to do like one a week or something. No promises though.

2008 IPPA Conference

Judges pine over who will be crowned the 2008 Miss Tuscola.

I got to go to the IPPA conference this past weekend. There were so many ideas rolling around my head after seeing Rod Mar speak Saturday morning.

I had gone out with a group of Illinois photographer's Friday night and didn't get home until 4 a.m. I was seriously considering not even going to the conference because I had only a few hours of sleep, but luckily Max and Stephen were there to make me go. It helps that my car was still in Champaign from the night before.

I'm so glad I went though. I haven't seen a speaker that's motivated me so much. I've really needed it. I became so complacent over the past few weeks I put some photos I'm not proud of in the paper. I think that needs to be the goal for the most part. To always be proud of what I've done.

So many of the things Rod said hit close to home and I'm glad to have found his blog. I wish I could remember some of the specific things he said, but unfortunately I don't. The basis for everything though, was to always be thinking about smart photos. He laid a lot of his success on his ability to think while he's shooting instead of just shooting wildly.

I got this photo during last night's Miss Tuscola pageant. I really like it. I think it tells part of the story most people never really think about. And the lighting is dramatic, so that helps. I'm not sure if I would have shot this photo if I hadn't gone to the conference.

The other thing I've done to try and keep myself motivated is to put little notes on my camera and lenses to myself. They're more like motivators than notes I guess. The one I have on the back of my camera says "Is this your best?" I think it's something I need to continually remind myself of.

I'll probably change it up a bit later, but I'll stick to that one until I'm always doing my best.

Happy Easter

I wish I had a web cam on my computer.



I've had to use Dana's computer while at Steph's because my battery is dead on mine. I forgot the charger too. I really need a new battery because mine suddenly dies on me all the time now. The thing that really sucks now is that it's going to cost me $120 for a new one. I can't wait until we get a new laptop too. Mostly because it will come with a built in web cam and a copy of photo booth. The effects are well worth it. I spent a good 20 minutes taking photos with it.

It's amazing how different you can make yourself look. I had to keep myself from laughing in most of the photos. Good stuff all around. Can't think of a better way to waste spend my Easter.