Ok, so my friend Joey is not really a pin-up, or a girl, but the lighting and feel of this portrait just oozes 1950’s to me. He has this innocent baby face quality and combined with the textures of the shirt and background, the portrait just seems to travel back in time. Yes, I did do some editing to his skin to make it extra soft and flawless, but the lighting just screamed at me to have this look…. So I indulged my inner stylist.

Joey was in town for a few days this summer to see family and friends before heading back to graduate school, so like all my friends who live far away, I made him sit for portraits before he left again. Being an artist himself, Joey is a good subject cause he lets me indulge my creative side. I had him pose in the backyard with a garden hose and spray water around in a playful way with two speedlights 430’s to see what we could come up with.

While I dont have any specific use for these portraits, they were fun  experiments.  Thanks to Joey for being such a good sport.

WWE Larell, Minneapolis, MN

A friend of mine had an idea for some portraits using his friends “WWE” wrestling belt, and I wanted an excuse to practice using my strobe flashes for portraits. We were fortunate that the sun came out for us, so I could use the light from the sun as a fill light. It was also nice to use the big puffy clouds as a backdrop for our first set of shots. I had him climb up on a ladder and shot front an angle underneath while holding up the wrestling belt to make it look like he had just won a “battle” and was holding up the victory trophy. These turned out semi-decent, but we will be trying them again. We next moved to this beautiful stone wall underneath Lexington Ave. under the bridge that goes over a running path in Como Park. The model put on a puffy jacket and sunglasses to look more like a celebrity and slung the WWE belt over his shoulder. I set up a strobe on a tall light stand just above his head pointed down with a big bounce over the unit to spread light all around. I then pointed a strobe just off camera right directly at his midsection to fill in some highlights off the shiny material on the jacket. I then placed a strobe on the ground pointed up at him on the left to kick some light on the wall and to help define his right side apart from the shadow cast by the other two strobes on his left.

Overall I’m happy with the shots done under the bridge with the nice stone backdrop, and feel great about the lighting experimentation.  Every time I do one of these practice lighting sessions, I learn some new things, and solidify my understanding of using these small compact units. I’ve read the manual many times for the speedlight 430‘s and 580’s, but I’m a very hands on kind of person and don’t fully understand what I’ve read until I’ve physically practiced it in the real world.  Practice makes perfect, right?

Trio of Leah

My good friend just finished her nursing degree and got a great job opportunity in Seattle, WA. I’m immensely jealous and proud of her. She has worked very hard over the past few years to finish her nursing degree and just graduated this past spring. She was worried she wouldn’t find proper employment in this economy but I was confident she would. I’m jealous that she’s moving to Seattle tho, It’s been my long term goal to move out there. Something just draws me to that part of the country. I have an excuse to visit Seattle more often now.

Before she leaves town, I made her agree to pose for portraits so that I had pictures to look at when I miss her. She’s a stunningly beautiful girl and her inner strength just exudes through her skin in pictures. We went down to Lake of the Isle in the uptown area to do portraits on a beautiful sunny day. I again had a chance to practice using my speedlight strobes, while using the sun as my main fill light and set up our first shot on a park bench with the lake as the horizon line. I got a little creative with the speedlights and put one directly to her left 90 degrees on the bench. I was very pleased with the results and used the other two strobes to fill in her face and right side. We then moved on to a large elm tree as our second backdrop. Something about the position of the sun and the placement of the strobes really clicked. I popped off one of those portraits that just seems to “glow” perfectly off her skin, highlight all the right areas and looked practically perfect in the lens.

For the final set-up, I had her standing right by the waters edge on some stone steps the disappeared into the water. I had seen a few outdoor portraits on flickr that I wanted to replicate the look of. They all had a body of water, a blue sky with clouds, and a foreground subject bathed in artificial strobe light. The never looked garish or blown out, but you could tell there was a light source illuminating the front of them for the camera. The sun was at their back and it appeared to be a bright sunny afternoon. I essentially set up everything as I imagined it had taken place in my source material  and started playing with my cameras exposure ratios and strobe intensity. I’m somewhat pleased with my results, but I defiantly think I need more time to figure out the right balance of exposure and strobe intensity to get the exact effect I am envisioning in my mind.

I’ll just keep finding guinea pigs to practice my lighting effects on. I have another friend coming to town this week, and he was fore-warned of his mandatory portrait session. (*evil laughter*) At the end of August, I will be going on self-assignment to the Minnesota State Fair to photograph. Like the firework shoots, these will be  opportunities to broaden my skills in other styles of shooting.

During the summer, Minneapolis throws a 10-day festival called “Aquatennial” which culminates on the last night with a 30 minute long fireworks show. It is one of the largest fireworks display in the U.S. and was sponsored by Target corporate this year for the 70th anniversary. During the 10 days, there are parades, shows, concerts, contests, and a “milk carton boat” race on Lake Calhoun.

I had never been to the Aquatennial fireworks show before, and decided to make an event out of it with my photo buddies. Michael Hubbard ( *twitter ) and I went out  a few days before the show to scout out some locations. We were unsure of the exact location the fireworks would be shot from, but had a general idea. After walking a few miles around the site we settled on Gold Medal Park next to the new Guthrie Theatre. It happened to be a nice tall grassy hill that overlooks the mississippi and the Stone arch Bridge (where we thought they were firing them off from. It was unclear how many of the roads would be blocked the day of the fireworks but we decided to show up 3 hours early to ensure any problems could be accounted for.

I packed a cooler full of food, blanket, and my camera gear and found a perfect spot right next to the park. Only 5 people beat me to the hill, and they were not in our chosen spot. Michael showed up soon after and we watched the sun set over the river. Eventually the park filled up with lots of people, but no one really bothered us or tried to obstruct our view. Jason Gallus, also arrived for the show and we fidgeted around with our cameras, tripods, lenses before the event began.

I set my ISO to 100, f-4.5 to 8.0, and set the controls to B(ulb). With my cable release I simply pushed the shutter between 2-8 seconds trying to capture the explosions in some sort of composition. My only complaint with the location was the line of trees blocking the view to the 3rd Ave. bridge where the fireworks were shot from. We already knew we would not have a nice skyline view as a backdrop for the fireworks since the east side of the river was unaccessible to higher views, or was shrouded in tall trees and massive powerlines. I alternated between a wide angle 17-40, and a 28-70 lens. I’m happy with the shots from an experimental sense, but still don’t feel like I’ve found a perfect way to shoot them. It’s possible that more planning and access to premium locations will solve this feeling, but I’m sure it will just take more practice to have fireworks photography as a skill to put under my belt.

William’s Pose, Minneapolis, MN

So I attempted to tackle HDR’s. For those that don’t know, High Dynamic Range photos are processed photos that take 2 or more separate exposures merged into one “Super exposed” image. If done right, you are able to produce a photo that has a wider range of details in both the shadows and the highlight areas…. And some would say it produces an image thats beyond what we can see at one time. Most cameras are usually limited to a narrow dynamic range, but by taking 3 separate exposures, you can expand that range when you process it with HDR software.

So I’ve been seeing HDR’s on flickr, and other places and put off trying it myself until now. This portrait is my very first attempt. It’s “interesting”, but I don’t think i’ve really pushed the possibilities very far. I’m a tad disappointed actually with my results because I took far more exposures and alternate portraits, but I ran into a problem with lining up the subject. Essentially, I didn’t pay close enough attention to the movement of the subject and the HDR’s I created ended up looking blurry and fuzzy due to the model moving. This was only 2 exposures compiled into one. I will go out and try some straight landscape HDR’s like I’ve seen online, but I have aspirations to create HDR portraits.

As soon as I create some new ones, I’ll post them in a gallery online.

It’s taken me a few weeks to cull through the photos I took at the Gay Pride festival in Minneapolis in June, but I finally finished. I whipped up this slideshow to showcase the ones I picked along to the soundtrack of Diana Ross singing “I’m Coming Out”…. appropriate, right?

Again, here was an event that I had made plans to attend with friends, and have done so in the past always wishing I had taken pictures. I’ve brought my camera before, but I never take any. This year has a theme to it, and I’m going to name it “DO IT”. This year I simply planned on taking the photos as my main assignment, and fun was secondary… although I knew full well that I’d have plenty of fun. I had to choose the friends I hung out with wisely for the festival, people who would respect and understand my “photo-centric” focus for the day, but in the end I was able to enjoy the festivities AND take some great shots during the parade. The only flaw this year was not being brave enough to shoot photos in the park where the vendors, booths, concerts,  and drag shows were taking place…. but in my defense, the parade itself was almost 3 hours long and I was exhausted and over stimulated trying to compose shots in the hot sun that long. I had contemplated shooting the whole week long to get a wider breadth of imagery, but that can be next years assignment (I just needed better planning).

I took along only one lens (which is never enough), and settled on taking my Canon EF 17-40mm f/4L USM. My logic was that it would give me great wide views of the parade from my limited “spot”. I really was jealous of the official shooters walking around amongst the floats and parade walkers getting up close and personal with multiple viewpoints, but I knew that wasn’t available to me this year. I still think I was able to pull of some decent shots, nevertheless. I chose not to bring a tripod to reduce how much I had to carry, and how much space I took up, besides it was a bright sunny (windy) day and wouldn’t have to worry as much about low shutter speeds. Set my ISO to around 100, f-5.6, and just fired away. I filled up a 4gb and a 2gb CF card just during the parade. Next time I’ll have to plan better and bring more storage, but I managed to erase a few shots in camera to make room as I went. I hate deleting things before I’ve have a chance to view them on my computer, but sometimes you just know when something is way out of focus or you didn’t capture the right moment.

One of the things I struggle with in my photography is pointing the camera at people I don’t know. Candid shots. Part of my assignment during Pride was to explore taking those social “event” type shots that retained a bit of my personal style and perspective. I didn’t want to just take shots that looked like someone else’s shots, but rather develop my own skills at telling visual stories. It’s still a work in progress, but I’m pleased with my start.

Hope you enjoy the slideshow I put together, and the campy music I used.

In years past I’ve attended 4th of July fireworks displays to enjoy purely for fun, but this year I decided to make my focus about photographing the event instead. For me, this makes a big difference in how I approach it. If I don’t make the effort to “Be a Photographer”, then I usually don’t take any pictures and find a way to justify being lazy. I was a bit nervous about getting a good spot (vantage point) to see the fireworks and really wanted to have a skyline shot as a backdrop for the fireworks.

So, I tried my best to research the event before going by trying to find out where they would be shooting off the fireworks and what was available to view them. I settled on viewing them from the “West St. Paul” bluffs which are actually just south of Downtown and have a GREAT skyline view of downtown St. Paul with the river snaking alongside in the foreground. It just happens that the “Taste of Minnesota” festival was going on in the Harriet Island Park with a ferris wheel, tents and lots of glittery lights.

I ended up choosing a spot on the Smith Bridge and arrived at 9:15pm. I knew I had to get there early to claim a decent spot before the masses arrived, and plenty of fellow photographers were already set up when I arrived. Before I went I did some research online on shooting fireworks since I had never really done them before. I used both a 17-40 wide angle lens and a 70-300 zoom for shooting, set up my tripod and used my cable release. I set my ISO to 200, f-16, and set the shutter speed to “Bulb”. Once the fireworks started I simple pressed the cable release and counted between 3-10 seconds for each shot. I looked at the back a few times to see that I was getting a decent exposure, but mostly I just continued to press the shutter repeatedly and crossed my fingers that I was getting good shots.

I found that I was able to visualize the final shot in my head and got into a rhythm while shooting. One other thing I did was set the fine focus before the fireworks began and turned off the automatic focus so that I wouldn’t keep refocusing on the sky or have to deal with the delay waiting for it to find something to focus on.

Overall, I’m very pleased with the shots I got considering they were my first attempt. It helped that I had someone with me to help “defend” my spot and to hand me lenses when I switched between the Wide angle and the Zoom. Thank you Shad for being a great assistant. I hope to catch the larger fireworks display in Minneapolis in late July at the Aquatennial festival. Wish me luck.

JGlow, Minneapolis, MN

My friend Jairus is a good sport. He always lets me practice my experimental photo techniques on him and since he’s an actor, he knows how to “ham it up” for the lens. Here I was trying to use the zoom capability in the middle shooting a portrait. I would set up the shot, make sure I had a decently long exposure, and twist the barrel of the lens as I took the shot to create the sense of movement. I also tried pivoting the camera around in a circle on the center axis of the lens to get a spiral effect. Both were fun. I hope to apply these techniques to portraits in the future.

Mass Transit Gary, Minneapolis MN

I was recently contacted through facebook to do photos for a Minneapolis City Councilman’s re-election campaign. He saw portraits I had done for a journalist/blogger in the Twin Cities In late May, and liked my work. We met to discuss possible themes for the photos and settled on 4 main topics for the initial set of photos. Transit, Community, Small business development, and Environment were the four broad topics we settled on. This shot was my favorite “candid” moment though, since I hadn’t noticed the train conductor waving at the camera till after I developed the shot.

I am looking forward to doing more shots later this summer as the campaign progresses, but for now I’m very happy with my first foray into political portraits.

“Andy Birkey: BLOG THIS !!!”, Minneapolis MN

A local journalist/political reporter and friend of mine contacted me to have headshots done for a new online writing gig he had with the Star Tribune. I took some standard headshots for him to use on the official website, but took the opportunity to get creative with him for additional shots to use on his personal blog and other media ventures down the road.

Andy is a great writer, blogger, and gay rights activist and has built his reputation up over the years by covering the local Twin Cities, the State of MN, and our Upper Midwest Region with an every larger reach every year, but he has always related his coverage to the local community. I wanted to do a portrait of him that emphasized his “local” roots. Something that expressed his connection to neighborhood and community as well as evoked his personal style.

I decided to take his portrait on the roof of his garage in order to set the other houses as a backdrop in the shot to give a sense of “neighborhood”. Doing the shot in the front yard seemed too sterile since most people emphasize “curb appeal” instead of authenticity on the street. With the backyards and alley in the background, I was able to make the shot gritty and truthful (like a reporter digging for the backstory and behind the scenes details). I also love the telephone pole/wires behind Andy and lucked out with the cloud formations in the evening sky… They just add that little extra spark of visual interest to a nice portrait.