Just a big thank you to all the great couples we worked with this year! You were great.
Here’s a slideshow of some of our favorite shots.
Looking forward to 2012 couples! We already weddings booked at Grand Superior Lodge in Two Harbors, MN and Watertown, SD. One at the Joy Ranch – be fun to work a new venue!
I’ve been wanting to do my version of various fairytales for several years. Thanks to Jeri Anderson a mom of a model that I worked with in the past at the Academie Agencie in Fargo, I’ve finally been able to realize one of these shoots.
The model is Heather and she fit the part perfectly! After searching the internet for costumes, we settled on one that was not too cartoony or “Disney-fied”.
I wanted to work in a dark and sort of creepy forest. One of my favorite locations – Sica Hollow State Park was ideal. We had a great day and walked away with a number of excellent images. I’m going to have a lot of fun continuing to edit these photos, but I thought I’d share a handful immediately.
If you’ve read my posts in the past, you know I have an appreciation for “toy camera” photography. I’ve seriously considered buying a Holga or a Lomo camera in the past, but I couldn’t really justify buying that and purchasing and developing the film.
However, I found a way to perhaps get the best of both worlds!
I bought a set of Holga lenses for my Nikon digital cameras. Sort of bizarre to be dumbing down these really expensive cameras, but I do love Holga photography. I haven't had more than a minute to play yet, but I shot a quick photo outside the door. Hard to see through the viewfinder as it is so dark, but I'm sure I'll get the hang of it.
I bought the Holga lenses here (the kitchen sink option): http://shop.holgadirect.com/collections/digital-ho
I wasn't sure I much liked this first image, but then I remembered that a lot of Holga photography is cross processed. A couple of quick steps in Lightroom and I like the end result a lot better.
Here they are side by side. The cross processed photo is on the right.
Hope to share more in the coming weeks!
I’ve always been interested in how different people see things differently. This holds true for my photographs.
The photo above introduced me to another artist. A writer attending Utah State University, Alex Baldwin. Alex wrote in an email:
Tonight I just found your beautiful photo from 2009 of a feather in a bottle and was wondering if I could use it on the Cover page of my project. My project is actually about the author Sherman Alexie but he addresses often the problem of alcoholism on reservations, so your photo would be perfect!
Alex was awarded USU’s Creative Writing Student of the Year and USU’s Overall Outstanding English Student of the Year. This email started a great dialogue with Alex about his work and my photography. I was more than happy to help out.
By the way, the photo above that Alex found was really just something I was using to demonstrate how I achieved the photo I was after. I was on a weekend outing with two wonderful friends. I was trying to figure out how to capture the texture and color of the feather. The beer bottle and the twist tie just happened to be convenient! How very interesting that my “example” made a completely different impression on Alex. Here is my finished product for comparison:
I was excited when Alex sent me a short piece so I could share it with you. I look forward to reading his creative portfolio that he turned in for graduation (where he is using the photograph.)
So, here is an example of Alex’s work. I hope you enjoy!
What is that Sound High in the Air
A mist, too thick for a waking sun,
slouches against mountains
east of Cache Valley,
and somehow turns January snow
blue: leftover scraps of sky
draping the view
beside campus.
Students, dozens, rush
by: cell phones flipped open,
ears clogged with iPods,
palms warm to the foam
touch of cups brim
with hot chocolate.
Cat Stevens hopes I have a lot
of nice things to wear,
a sideways smiley-face
buzzes in my right hand:
Sapphire’s in for lunch
at Quadside Café,
OJ from Einstein’s Bagels
sloshes almost empty to my stride.
Ten minutes away from a class
starting in five, I give ten seconds
of semester to the mist,
imagine my Faded Glory
treads climbing air.
Could I summit before losing myself
in absence of up and down?
Like a bluebird spreading
a shiver of feathers
between cloudlessness
and a lake of glacier run-off.
Alex can be contacted at: alexbaldwin2@yahoo.com
I was fortunate enough to photograph a wedding last Friday at the Grand Superior Lodge in Caste Danger, Minnesota. It is a truly fantastic location for a wedding. Hard to go wrong with Lake Superior as your backdrop.
My wife and I decided to stay until Sunday and make it a mini-vacation. On Saturday, we drove up MN Highway 61 to Tettegouche State Park. If you know me, you know I was out shooting various wildflowers and chasing butterflies as much as photographing the standard attraction there (waterfalls).
After hiking up to the aptly named High Falls, we went in the opposite direction and made our way to the lake shore. We sat and took in the sun and poked around in the rocks for Lake Superior Agates – Minnesota’s state rock.
My wife pointed out to me some unusual formations on the horizon. At first I thought perhaps storm clouds, but then a light bulb went off in my head about an atmospheric phenomenon that I had read about, but had never seen. Of course, it had to wait until I had an internet connection to help me recall the name and the details. What we were seeing was a mirage from the Apostle Islands approximately 25 miles across Lake Superior. Below is a map from Google Maps giving you some perspective. Click here to see in Google Maps if you wish to see larger:
According to the Wikipedia article: A Fata Morgana is an unusual and very complex form of mirage, a form of superior mirage, which, like many other kinds of superior mirages, is seen in a narrow band right above the horizon. It is an Italian phrase derived from the vulgar Latin for "fairy" and the Arthurian sorcerer Morgan le Fay, from a belief that the mirage, often seen in the Strait of Messina, were fairy castles in the air or false land designed to lure sailors to their death created by her witchcraft. Although the term Fata Morgana is sometimes incorrectly applied to other, more common kinds of mirages, the true Fata Morgana is not the same as an ordinary superior mirage, and is certainly not the same as an inferior mirage.
I’d be the first to admit, perhaps these may be an “ordinary” superior mirage, but it was cool to see and I’m glad I finally had some kind of an idea of what it might be like.
I hope to post a few more photos from the trip soon and also a special post from a writer that used one of my photos in a recent project.
I learned about a neat tool for Photoshop and blogging from @Photoshop_ GU on Twitter. This tool is a Photoshop Extension that automates diptychs and triptychs creation, perfect for photoblogs. To me, this a nice alternative way to present photos – rather than just one single photo in the column. To read more about and download, go to http://lumens.se/tychpanel/
Here are a couple of example layouts. There are several to choose from:
A diptych featuring our cat, Pixel.
A triptych from photos underneath the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco.
I thought this was a nice, quick little tool that others might want to be aware of. Have fun with it!
Where to start!?
I had the extreme pleasure of doing event photography for the OTA Sessions in Sioux Falls on Friday. The OTA sessions are described as:
Creativity and originality of thought are critical to our success as a region, but without action and implementation it's all just idle chitchat. OTA challenges us to bring originality and action together. o + a
The OTA Sessions are a chance for all of us Midwesterners to shatter the perception that creativity and thought leadership in business, marketing, communications and education live solely on the east and west coasts.
I was blown away by the speakers: Sally Hogshead, Ellen McGirt, CC Chapman, Ann Handley, John Winsor, Ricardo Crespo, Rod Arnold, Jeff Slobotsky and Dusty Davidson.
All were very motivating and a pleasure to listen to. Sally Hogshead had me cracking up (while trying to be steady and focus), John motivated the heck out of me and Ellen and Rod moved me immensely. I was torn in some ways as I couldn’t be both focused on the presentations and focused with my camera. I was there to take photographs!
Working with Hugh Weber, the founder of OTA was fantastic. He’s put together a fantastic event and I really identified with his motivations for creating this event.
The venue for the OTA Sessions was the Orpheum Theater in Sioux Falls. What a fantastic place! I was so excited as soon as I got a look at it.
My plans for PJ Anderson Photography this year called for a new camera so that I had a solid backup for the spring/summer weddings. I also wanted to get up to the next level of pro cameras. As great as my workhorse Nikon D300 has been for years, I was more than ready to get up onto the Nikon D700. With the OTA event being held at the Orpheum, I knew I wanted to get the D700 in my hands immediately - to make sure that I could take advantage of the great high ISO results. I wanted to be able to walk away with photos that weren’t overly grainy in the dark light of a theater.
The D700 did NOT let me down. I am very pleased with the quality of the images! This is going to open up even more opportunities at weddings in darker churches. Should allow for some wonderful moody lighting situations!
I’m in the middle of editing/finishing four assignments, but while taking a break – I tossed together 7 or 8 photos in Photoshop that I shot “hand held” in the Orpheum to create an interesting panorama. This photograph is in no way to be considered a “finished” product. If I was going to shoot this in a serious fashion, I would have definitely set this up on a tripod and would have spent some serious time getting the shot down perfectly. I might have even took some time to try an HDR study. BUT, I do think this shows the power of the camera (and the beauty of the theater.) So, just for fun, here you go!
Nikon D700, ISO 2000, f/2.8, 1/60 second – multiple exposures stitched in Photoshop
I’ve seen videos online of people shooting with their camera tethered to their computer. It has often been one of those things I thought I’d try someday, but I really had no pressing desire to do so. I rarely shoot in a studio environment and when I do, I hate to be tied down with cables attached to my camera.
However, the other day I was stuck in my office waiting on an important call that I couldn’t miss and my camera and computer were just sitting here. The thought popped into my head to give it a shot.
I connected my camera to the laptop with the USB cable and fired up Lightroom. Once there, it was really a no-brainer to set this up. I work on a PC, so I opened the File menu and selected “Tethered Capture”. This opens the following window where I can name the session, set the location where the files to be saved and set my Metadata presets.
After clicking the OK button, a new toolbar opens in lightroom:
I could quickly see the camera attached and the settings currently set on it – ISO, shutter speed, aperture and white balance.
What really interested me was the ability to set the develop settings in Lightroom. These settings are applied as the file gets transferred to the computer and is then displayed in Lightroom. Being I was taking self portraits of myself (yikes!), I opted immediately for a black and white preset that I like.
Then, all I did was click the big grey button on the far right of the toolbar to trigger the shutter release. I had my camera set to autofocus and it did that first and then triggered the shutter.
In just a moment, the photo appeared on my screen. I’ll spare you the agony of looking at most of these captures – not easy taking a self portrait that I liked! However, here is one of the end results that my family and friends say best looks like me.
I really may think more on this – in particular when I am doing some product photography or working with models in a studio environment. It was worth playing with.
Hope to talk again soon!
Earlier this week, I was in Madison, South Dakota doing some commercial photography for J-Gable. The client was driving, so I was a passenger for this trip. On the way home that afternoon (about 60 miles) I was blown away by the light and the blowing snow creating a very moody look.
As soon as I made it back to Watertown, I turned my truck back south chasing that great light. The blowing snow had disappeared, but I still found several good shots as the sun was starting to go down.
Taking photos with snow is always a challenge. Getting the exposure right can be tricky. I’ve been shooting a lot of auto bracketed photos lately so that I can combine certain images into HDR shots. Being it was REALLY cold and windy, I thought I’d just continue to shoot that way to make sure I got the shot. So, I composed my shot, made my best choice on exposure and bracketed by 2 stops. This gave me one at the exposure I selected and two underexposed and two overexposed.
With the sun setting I had very bright highlights (sun and snow) and some dark shadows (tree line and farm). Turned out this was one of those great opportunities to use HDR pro in Photoshop CS5 to merge these different exposures.
I tweaked the final product using onOne’s Phototools and I think this image really reflects what it felt like on that day on a lakeshore beside the old Meridian Highway (US 81)!
ISO 200, 1/50 sec, f/13 – Nikon D300
Happy New Year (and stay warm!)
