5/366

Fun portrait session

Several months ago I had the pleasure of working with these kids on a portrait session. The little kids were tricky but I finally got some images I like.  I think the parents will love these.

 

Photo Shoot

9/365

It was supposed to be sunny and beautiful that day.  Even the weather announcer on the radio seemed a little surprised that the clouds weren't cooperating by going away.  I was relieved though.  

Clouds mean the lighting is even (sometimes a little too even to be a little flat). They mean there's no need to squint. They mean slightly cooler temps.  They mean the photos can be taken in any direction.  So even though the lighting is not as creative as when the sun is shining, it makes the session a little more pleasant.

It turned out pretty well and everyone seems happy with the results.

Waikiki in Black & White

5/365

The other day my friend and I went to Waikiki with the intention of doing some street photography only in black & white.  We both LOVE black & white and I remember back in the day when the only  way to shoot b&w was to insert an entire roll of b&w film into the camera.

If you decided you wanted to switch to color halfway through the roll, you either had to stick it out and finish the roll or remove it which was pretty tricky to do.

Now....with digital, it's just a matter of switching functions. 

But shooting b&w is a different animal than shooting color.  You have to "see" differently and anticipate what will look good and what won't.  Sometimes it's easier to shoot in color and then convert to b&w on the computer.  Part of me thinks that's cheating.  Part of me thinks that's cool.

Shooting in a b&w function forces you to be more discerning--you know that the image has to stand on the merits of composition and contrast without the impact of beautiful color to grab the viewer's attention.  Of course, the digital darkroom can really enhance any image, as did the wet darkroom, so some images can be salvaged.

So we set our cameras on b&w and began shooting.

After we finished at the beach, we headed over to our favorite Starbucks.  We did a little practice with panning and slow shutter speed.  I didn't have my tripod and I was just trying to teach my friend how to do these techniques, so I really didn't anticipate having any keepers.  Most of the images I shot were deleted, but these next three appealed to me.  

(Although the camera was hand-held, I was resting the camera on a newspaper box)