Sunday, December 23, 2007
Wednesday, December 19, 2007
Monday, December 17, 2007
Making the Best of a Winter Storm
Ann Arbor got dumped on pretty bad, and I took advantage of a lazy Sunday afternoon / evening to go shooting. Tis' good for the soul. Here are some of my favorite shots from the day.
Monday, December 3, 2007
New Lenses
Hi all. This past Saturday, Steve picked up our new lenses from Cord Camera in Columbus. We purchased a 70-200mm 2.8 VR and a 10.5 Fisheye. Both Nikkor lenses of course. We ended up testing them out at a local cemetary. We had a request from one of our friends for some photographs of Angels, so we took the opportunity to field test the lenses for the first time.
Thursday, November 15, 2007
The All Digital Generation
As the photography industry grows and evolves, we are going to start to see a generation of photographers who have never shot film professionally. There are marked differences between shooting film and digital, and I often consider what long term changes we will see in our industry, both in the technology and shooting styles of tomorrow's photographers.
I think one change we are seeing is the general willingness to take more risks in difficult exposure situations. The ability to check your shots and see if they worked out is huge. If I can instantly know that what I shot worked out, I will be more inclined to go after the more difficult shots. In my opinion, this makes shooting much more fun : )
Another difference in shooting style we are seeing is the increased reliance on in-camera metering and exposure modes (Ap, Sp, Prog.) Being able to rely on the camera to figure out a lot of the difficult exposure calculations helps photographers to work much quicker, especially when incorporating one or two speedlights into the mix. If I can count on the camera to determine the exposure (not all the time mind you...) I can turn more of my focus to my subject and placing them in good lighting situations.
Shooting digital allows me to have many more freedoms as a photographer. I don't have to develop film, I don't have to bring tons of film to a shoot, and I don't have to worry about the film being destroyed. The less time I can spend worrying about the medium I use to create, the more time I can devote to the creation of the photographs that mean so much to our clients.
Digital is fast, versatile, and constantly changing. I think that one of the key factors to being successful in today's photography industry is to be able to keep up on the latest photography styles, techniques, and the latest technology.
P.S. - I still think film is awesome. It has a certain "look" that is very hard to replicate. I am going to try to do some personal work with film in the future, but professionally, digital is where it's at.
I think one change we are seeing is the general willingness to take more risks in difficult exposure situations. The ability to check your shots and see if they worked out is huge. If I can instantly know that what I shot worked out, I will be more inclined to go after the more difficult shots. In my opinion, this makes shooting much more fun : )
Another difference in shooting style we are seeing is the increased reliance on in-camera metering and exposure modes (Ap, Sp, Prog.) Being able to rely on the camera to figure out a lot of the difficult exposure calculations helps photographers to work much quicker, especially when incorporating one or two speedlights into the mix. If I can count on the camera to determine the exposure (not all the time mind you...) I can turn more of my focus to my subject and placing them in good lighting situations.
Shooting digital allows me to have many more freedoms as a photographer. I don't have to develop film, I don't have to bring tons of film to a shoot, and I don't have to worry about the film being destroyed. The less time I can spend worrying about the medium I use to create, the more time I can devote to the creation of the photographs that mean so much to our clients.
Digital is fast, versatile, and constantly changing. I think that one of the key factors to being successful in today's photography industry is to be able to keep up on the latest photography styles, techniques, and the latest technology.
P.S. - I still think film is awesome. It has a certain "look" that is very hard to replicate. I am going to try to do some personal work with film in the future, but professionally, digital is where it's at.
Monday, November 12, 2007
Saturday, November 10, 2007
"Portrait Journalism"
I've often been asked what our "style" of photography is. Early on, we kicked around terms like "photo-journalistic", "portrait", "action", and "documentary", but we decided that none of these terms accurately reflected our style. We typically shoot with longer lenses to capture our clients' special day as it occurred. The question that many photographers struggle with is "how involved do I get" ?
We wound up having the opportunity to chat with Mike Colon on the Pictage forums the other night and asked him the same question. His response was:
"I've found that my best images are almost always when I gave no direction at all. I try to set myself up for success to capture a moment by finding a position which puts a great background behind my subject, getting my exposure/white balance right before hand, and anticipating the moment so I don't miss it. There are many times however, when I'll step in and adjust something or move my subject into better light if I feel the shot would be unusable without my intervention."
Mike makes a great point that Kaufman Kramer always strives to follow: Let the couple live the day, and only step in if the moment needs a little extra direction to happen. We have settled on using the term "portrait journalism" to best describe our style to our clients. We came across this term in a book written by Glen Johnson entitled "Digital Wedding Photography: Capturing Beautiful Memories".
Johnson defines portrait journalism as follows:
"...this style produces portrait images that range from traditional to ultramodern to fine art and anything in between."
It's a very informative book, and we highly reccomend giving it a read.
The idea is for our photographers to stay behind the scenes as much as possible and just let the day happen naturally. It can be hard as a photographer to resist the temptation of constantly giving direction, but trust us; the results of going with the flow yield far better photographs at the end of the day.
-Steve
We wound up having the opportunity to chat with Mike Colon on the Pictage forums the other night and asked him the same question. His response was:
"I've found that my best images are almost always when I gave no direction at all. I try to set myself up for success to capture a moment by finding a position which puts a great background behind my subject, getting my exposure/white balance right before hand, and anticipating the moment so I don't miss it. There are many times however, when I'll step in and adjust something or move my subject into better light if I feel the shot would be unusable without my intervention."
Mike makes a great point that Kaufman Kramer always strives to follow: Let the couple live the day, and only step in if the moment needs a little extra direction to happen. We have settled on using the term "portrait journalism" to best describe our style to our clients. We came across this term in a book written by Glen Johnson entitled "Digital Wedding Photography: Capturing Beautiful Memories".
Johnson defines portrait journalism as follows:
"...this style produces portrait images that range from traditional to ultramodern to fine art and anything in between."
It's a very informative book, and we highly reccomend giving it a read.
The idea is for our photographers to stay behind the scenes as much as possible and just let the day happen naturally. It can be hard as a photographer to resist the temptation of constantly giving direction, but trust us; the results of going with the flow yield far better photographs at the end of the day.
-Steve
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