Pittsburgh Photographer's Headshot Meetup

I'm a member of a Pittsburgh Photographer's Group on Facebook.  There are people with a wide variety of backgrounds, interests, and skill levels there.  Members have started organizing periodic meetups, so people can meet each other face-to-face, and, of course, talk about photography.

I thought it would be interesting if instead of just talking about photography, we could meet up and actually do some photography.  To actually see how other people do things, what equipment they use, and how they go about solving problems (photography is often about overcoming limitations to make great photos).

So I decided to organize a headshot meetup event.  In the age of social media, everyone needs a good headshot.  Unfortunately it is really hard to do a good self-portrait with professional equipment.  Selfies don't count.  Besides, try holding 10 pounds of camera at arms length without shaking the camera.

I suggested the idea to the group, and enough people expressed interest to make it worth doing.   I wanted us to have the option of shooting by window light, so evenings were out of the question.  I decided to plan the meetup for a Saturday afternoon at the Panera Bread in Oakland.  Many Paneras have a meeting room you can use, and the one in Oakland has outside windows in their meeting room, so we had our windowlight.

The meetup was a great success.  We had multiple flash setups for people to try, and various reflectors and other light modifiers.  It was interesting to see how others did things, and offer suggestions to those who were new to headshots and portraiture.

Something Old, Something New, Part 2

Last year I shared an image that was taken using my oldest Nikon lens (a 1983 50mm f1.8 AI-S).  With today's post, I'm going one better.  This image was taken with the oldest lens that I still use, the exotic Sima 100mm f2 Soft Focus lens.  I purchased this lens in 1981, and it predates my 1983 switch to Nikon equipment.  Originally I used this lens with the Konica SLRs I was using at the time.  This lens uses a simple T-Mount adapter to attach to the camera, so when I switched to Nikon, I only needed to swap the Konica adapter for a Nikon one.

The Sima lens is a special-purpose soft-focus lens.  It consists of a single plastic lens element mounted at one end of a tube.  This tube slides back and forth inside a second tube that attaches to the camera.  Sliding the one tube inside the other is how the lens is focused.  The single element is why you end up with a soft image.  When I originally used the lens, I noticed my images had a distinct purple flare to them, so I glued a Cokin filer mount to the front of the lens.  A square UV filter in the holder reduces the purple tint and gives a more natural looking effect.

This isn't a lens you are going to use for every photo, but I find it a useful option for bridal portraits.  This lens gives a romantic, ethereal quality to the portraits.  Last month I was second-shooting a wedding for my friends at Platinum Fire Productions.  We had some extra time prior to the start of the ceremony, so I grabbed my soft-focus lens and asked the bride to stand by one of the large windows in the bridal room (soft window light is one of my "go-to" setups for portraits).  No need for any fill light, and no worries about the side lighting emphasizing imperfections.  A minute later I was done, with the lovely example above being one of my favorites.

Bettis 2015 Holiday Party

The first year I did these photos was 1983.  I worked at Bettis at the time, the Holiday Party was something new, and they decided it would be nice if every family would get a 4x6 print of their photo with Santa.  Since I was shooting film, my biggest concern was keeping track of which photos went to which employees.  I had a whole system of name cards, roll and frame numbers, and notations to keep things straight.  I needed two assistants just to keep the paperwork straight.  That first year, Santa and I were set up in one corner of the room.  About two hours into the day, I turned around and was shocked to see that the line of families waiting to see Santa wound around all four sides of the room, and almost back to where I was standing.  In the following years we added a numbering system to the name cards, with the numbers being announced in groups of 10, so no one had to stand in line too long.

Although there was a period when I took some time off, this is easily the longest running assignment I've had.  Long enough that for some of the children I'm photographing now, I also photographed their parents 20 or 30 years ago when THEY were kids.  For the last 13 years I've shot this with digital equipment.  With the advent of online galleries and social media, we no longer supply prints, but rather provide a digital file that parents can use as they wish.  They are in an online gallery for the parent to download, so it is no longer necessary to track the individual photos.  Overall, things are much more streamlined now.

I decided to try a few new wrinkles this year.  Rather than my previous years' setup of an on-camera flash mounted on a flash bracket, I decided to have two flashes firing into 33-inch white umbrellas, using the wireless trigger mounted on the camera.  The wireless trigger was the key to making this work, because I didn't want wires dangling where a child running around might trip on them.  This setup worked like a charm.  The lighting was very even, and the resulting images were very consistent, requiring a minimal amount of exposure correction from image to image.

The second change this year was to use the EyeFi card in the camera to send images directly to my iPad, so parents could get an idea what the images looked like.  This proved to be quite popular with parents, and gave them confidence that their kids looked good in the photos (other than the occasional screaming and crying toddler, of course...).

The photos can be found HERE.

Ryan and Georgia's Elopement Wedding

Over the 30-plus years that I have been photographing weddings, I've seen all sizes of weddings.  From a small group crammed into an car on the Duquesne Incline, to St. Paul's Cathedral, and everything in between.

A growing trend in weddings are  "Elopement Weddings".  Now, these aren't the "sneaking out the bedroom window in the middle of the night" elopements I used to think of.  These days, "Elopement Weddings" refer to much smaller weddings, usually held in beautiful locations.  Elopement weddings are less costly and less stressful than a standard big-budget wedding, but at the same time they are often more meaningful to the couple.  Social media also plays a role in this, because you get some great photos taken and you can share them with all your friends who weren't there.

Georgia and Ryan contacted me to shoot their elopement ceremony.  There were only going to be 5 people in attendance:  the couple, their five-year-old son, their mothers, and the officiant, Reverend Dina McGee.  I don't offer a separate "Elopement Package" (since I don't have packages), so I gave them a custom quote that met their needs.  The location that Georgia and Ryan chose is the Pittsburgh Botanic Garden, in Oakdale, Pennsylvania. It only opened this year, and it is AMAZING.  I arrived early to scout out the best angles and settings.  The Lotus Pond includes a footbridge, a wooden dock, and a set of stepping stones across one end of the pond.  The photographic possibilities are endless.

Shooting an elopement ceremony is different than a regular wedding.  Other than the 20 minute ceremony, the rest of our time was spent taking photos, and I had complete freedom.  In some ways, it is much more like photographing an engagement session than a wedding.  The couple (and their incredibly cute son) were a joy to work with, and we got some great shots.

Samantha's Bat Mitzvah

Last weekend I photographed Samantha's Bat Mitzvah at the Temple Sinai in Squirrel Hill.  Samantha's a tiny thing, and even the Rabbi joked that the Torah was as tall as she was.

The party was at Green Oaks Country Club.  A great place with a first-rate staff.  Music and entertainment was provided by The Party Crew from Soundtastic Enterprises, who have proven very popular with many of the Bar/Bat Mitzvahs that I have photographed this year.  Much of the decorating was done by one of Samantha's grandmothers, who did an incredible job with the centerpieces.

One of the things that was new for me was the use of the EverSnap app to share photos.  Samantha's parents set up an online album for Samantha's photos, and guests were given the name and password for the album.  They could then download the app (available for both iOS and Android) to upload photos from their phones.  There was a projector behind the DJ running a slideshow of the photos from the online album, updated in real time as new photos were uploaded.  In essence, this is the digital version of the film-era disposable cameras people would put on guest tables.  A cool idea, and I uploaded a few images from the Friday night and Saturday morning services, which got a lot of compliments.  There were a few issues with it.  Some folks apparently had a little trouble with the app, and accidentally uploaded other photos from their phones.  So there were some vacation photos and non-party selfies in the slide show.  These had all been deleted by the next day.  In addition, the plan was to set up a special wifi network at the party, to make it easier for people to upload photos, and there were problems getting that running.  Even when it was running, the signal was so weak that I couldn't upload from where my laptop was located.  Finally, the app allows people to order prints of any photo in the gallery.  I have an issue with this, because I own the copyright on all my images.  The solution was to upload low-res versions of the photos (800 pixels on the long edge), which is great for online viewing, but won't give you a good print.  This is what I do for any social media use of my images, and it worked out great in this case.

Carolina's Sweet 16 Party

Sweet 16 parties are not something we have often in the Pittsburgh area.  This was only the second Sweet 16 that I've shot, the first being Carolina's older sister's party a couple of years ago.  The party was at the Treesdale Country Club in Gibsonia, which is a wonderful venue with an awesome staff.

Cara was stunning in a white dress.  The weather was great, and before the party started I had a chance to take her out on the balcony for some quick portraits.

One think that was different for this event was that I set up my backdrop and flash umbrellas as a sort of photo booth.  As I shot the images, they were automatically transferred to my laptop via my Eye-Fi card and displayed as a slide show.  We had a table of props for the kids, and they had a lot of fun hamming it up in front of my camera.

Photos from the event can be found HERE.

Something Old, Something New

In the land of Nikon, we are blessed with the option of using old classic Nikon lenses with our shiny new DSLRs. For grins I decided to put my first Nikon lens (a manual-focus 50mm/1.8 AIS lens purchased new in 1983) with my newest body (a D800E). This is one of the resulting images. Using one of these lenses just feels different. These old lenses are all-metal, and focusing is very smooth. When you use one, you definitely feel you are using a finely crafted tool. The manual focusing also makes you slow down some, because there is no way you can focus as quickly as an autofocus lens. It is hard to believe that this simple lens was my go-to wedding lens (and just about everything else I shot) for 17 years. Now I depend on a quick autofocus wunder-zoom, but it is nice to break out this classic now and again.