Thank you Tri Students!

It is with a heavy heart, that I will be saying goodbye very soon. As many of you already know, I am leaving Tri. I need to spend more time with the family, with my daughter, and to get more focused on my own photography. But I will miss you guys. A lot. I have had an amazing 2 years with you. I have learned more from you then I could ever hope to teach, and for that I will be forever grateful. You are all amazing people, and I am proud to call many of you friends, peers. You have kept me on my toes, forced me to up my game, and I feel I am a better photographer, a better person for the experience.

I have really enjoyed watching you grow as photographers. Watching the wheels turning, seeing things click, witnessing the creativity. It is my hope that I may have played some small role in that growth, and that you continue to pursue this passion that we all share.

Welcome back students!

This is kind of bittersweet for me. I'm embarking on my last semester at Tri. I will miss you guys at school, but my priorities lay elsewhere. For those of you that don't know, my daughter was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes 6 weeks ago. Yes, I need to continue to take care of my daughter, and my family. But I also need to refocus on my own passion, my own craft. We teachers at Tri only have 6 weeks off from school per year, and I just didn't ever have enough time to do anything photographically for myself. So I will also be shooting a lot more.

With that said, we kicked off our first shooting class with a bang. 60 plus students, all shooting a good friend, fellow student, and Faded & Blurred member, Tammy.

Engagement Photography

Just a few images from my Monday night Engagement shooting class. We worked with 2 couples under various conditions in downtown Covina. While some were using the lighting set-up, others were shooting available light (as was I). In the alleway, I had them positioned under a tungsten light source, so I set the white balance in camera to tungsten which gave me proper skin tones on the couple, but allowed the alleyway to go a cool blue. They were shot at ISO 3200 with the Canon 5D MKII and the Canon 70-200 f/2.8L IS.



Hope everyone has a great rest of the week, it's going to be hot. And don't forget to bring images to class!

A man and his bike

On Thursday night in my Lighting on Location class, Herman was kind enough to agree to be subjected to our lenses. He rode in on his electric blue Ninja, and away we went. We lit Herman up with a speed light mounted in the Westcott Apollo 28"  softbox and balanced some ambient while we still had it.

As it was 7:30, the light was dropping fast, so we wound up with shot's like these after the sun set:

 And then we moved Herman and his bike into the elevator. Yep, an elevator...

This last 1 is my favorite of the night. I love the aggressive feel of it, and the hint of blue, with the brake lights glowing red in the background.

For my engagement class, I need a couple for Monday night. If you know of anyone, let me know.

On Wednesday for the wedding class, I will be lecturing on how to set up your equipment and make it work for you.

I also need models for Thursday night's class.

Lighting on location... or not

Had our first shoot last night in my "Lighting on Location" class, and our very own Tri-Community student Tiffany was our model. We busted out the Westcott Apollo 28" softbox and the wireless triggers in a parking lot and shot away. Our first set up was against an aluminum door:

After this set, we moved Tiffany to include some more ambient light and environment. While the students were using the flash set up, I was shooting available at ISO 6400, f/4, at 1/40 sec. Her face was lit with a torchlight mounted on a stand that the students were using to lock focus.

Just a couple of slight adjustments in Lightroom 3, essentially a light sharpening, a medium contrast curve, and a saturation/color adjustment brush on the face and hair. I like the way these came out.

The last week of school!

WooHoo! This is the last week of school!

For all my classes this week, we will be doing review, and having fun. For my Wednesday and Thursday classes, we will be having potluck. Please make sure you bring something. We need drinks, snacks, munchies, pizza, etc. If you bring soda, please make sure you bring some cups.

And it's your last chance to turn in images. Make sure you bring them in.

The last couple of days have not beeb great for shooting. We got a break today, And had some good light. I had the opportunity to work with Carmen again (my Thursday class knows Carmen). We went out to my not so secret anymore spot in Duarte. Got lucky too, the river was flowing. Carmen is a lot of fun to work with, and is game for wearing 4" heels, and standing on rocks in the middle of the lake. I haven't had a chance to go through all of them, but here are a few from today. All images were shot with the Canon 5D MKII and the 70-200 f/2.8 IS

This first shot was taken with the Westcott Apollo 28" softbox. All the rest of the images were available light, except where noted. Read more

Testing lights

Hey there everyone!

As most of you know by now, I was at Jerry Ghionis' seminar on Tuesday, and he taught this old dog some new tricks. As my class was shooting models on Thursday night, I was playing around with some tips that Jerry shared with us. As a wedding/event photographer, quite often I don't have the ability of using off camera flash. Due to moving around, drunk people, space, often times it's just not safe or reasonable to set a light on a stand. This first image of Matthew was taken using Jerry's helpful tip of just bouncing your "on camera" off a wall at 90 degrees from your subject, vs using a ceiling or a piece of tupperware. So of course I had to try it. And then I needed to test it at it's limits. You see, Matthew is standing on a sidewalk, and I bounced the light off a storefront 50 feet across the street. And it worked! My settings were ISO 1250, f/2.8, 1/50 sec, shot with my 5DMKII, 70-200 f/2.8IS, and the original 580EX.

Here is another shot using the same set-up with similar settings. Again, this isn't about the quality of the posing, this is about testing out a new technique.

I also worked with Virginia last night, again playing with some ideas I had. She was lit with a rechargable flash light I got at Home Depot for $20 similar to this...

For the next 2 shots, I added the 580EX hand held by Virginia's husband to add a little seperation. These were shot with a tungsten white balance also. Just going for something a little different, and to show that class that you don't need a bunch of lighting gear to get creative.

There will be a tutorial coming soon on Faded & Blurred soon about the technique used on the first image here.

This week in class

Hey everyone,

Sorry this is so late. Here is what is up in class this week:

Monday night, we will cover paperwork, and must get shots.

Wednesday night we have a new Jerry Ghionis piece to watch.

Thursday night I am looking for couples to shoot

Sunday we will be shooting at Encanto Park in Duarte, weather permitting. It is imperative that you be on time, as we will be heading down into the river bed to shoot, down below the pedestrian bridge across from the park. See the map below:


View Larger Map

Bridal shoot

Wow, what a weekend. It was all wedding, all the time, and surprisingly, there was very little rain to interfere.

Saturday was spent shooting a wedding, and I followed up by taking the class to Pasadena City Hall for a bridal shoot, with 3 brides. I was so geared up for rain this weekend, I must say that I'm disappointed I didn't get to shoot any brides in the rain.

I think the class was fantastic today, plenty to shoot, at a favorite location of mine, and as it was Superbowl Sunday, we had the place to ourselves. Even with all 60 of us. What a treat!

As I had shot a wedding the day before, I wanted to try some different things out for myself today, so 2 of my lesser used lenses were all that I brought. I used the 17-40 mm f4L, and the 135 f2. Both were a blast to use, all though with so many people around, the 135 was tough to avoid getting extra people in the shot from so far back.

Coming up this week in class:

Monday night we will cover Lightroom. I will bring in some shots from the Pasadena City Hall shoot, to show some editing and work flow.

Wednesday night we will have a mock wedding ceremony. Or at least that is how it started out. In Reality it will be a live, honest to goodness vow renewal ceremony, but with a twist. Stephanies husband doesn't know that. ;-) And the service will be performed by our very own Herman! Bring your cameras and speedlights, because we are heading to the church. The address is 4303 Maupin Ave, Baldwin Park. Only for Tri-Students! Map below, and parking is rough, so please carpool.

Thursday night we have models.

Sunday we will cover Lightroom and Photoshop for post process basics


View Larger Map

Coming up this week

Hi everyone!

I realize this is a few days late, but as often happens around here, it's been CRAZY busy. For those of you that missed it, we had a fantastic shoot in my Sunday class with our model J. Rose as our bride, and she just rocked. We learned how to saturate skies while shooting almost directly into the sun, and we did it with speed lights!



The rest of the images in this post were shot on location at Lower Arroyo Park in Pasadena, the location for Sundays shoot. I love this location, and have used it many times for many things. We will meet there, please do not go to Tri Community. This shoot is only open to students, expect it to be crowded. If you have mentioned bringing a model, please send me a confirmation email. This shoot should be fun!












Coming up for the rest of my classes:

Wednesday night we will be talking about pricing and packages for weddings. We didn't cover this last week, as it was storming and we had a small class.

On Thursday night we will be shooting, we will have at least 1 couple.

Obviously on Sunday we will be shooting. I have included a Google map to the location below.








View Larger Map

Descanso Gardens

Hey there everyone!

I am just finishing up an exhausting but fun photographic weekend. It started off with the Faded & Blurred Descanso Gardens photo walk, then this morning I did an engagement shoot, followed up by my wedding class at Tri-Community this afternoon. Does anyone want to do some editing for me? :-)




As you can see from the pictures, we had a great turnout at Descanso, and the weather was fantastic. A good time was had by all, and we finished it up with pizza and beer at Georgees in La Canada. You can see many of the images shot at the Faded & Blurred Events group on Flickr. It may be the last time we in California will see the sun until February. I shot most of the images here with my 5DMKII and the 70-200mm f/2.8L IS, a fantastic combination. I also used my new Canon S90 for the shot of the yellow flower. I love this new point and shoot camera.

The Canon S90 has a 10mp sensor (the same chip in the G11), it's image stabilized, has a 3x lens which is f/2.0 at the wide end, and will shoot up to ISO 3200 (it is very usable at ISO 800). It also has a decent macro function that you can see in the yellow flower image. And the biggest selling point for me was it's pocketability.







Coming up this week in class:

Monday school is closed in observance of Martin Luther King

Wednesday night: We will discuss packages and pricing strategies

Thursday night: We will have our first engagement shoot. Weather permitting, we will be shooting in downtown Covina. We will meet at school first.

On Sunday, we will also have a model, and again we will be meeting at the school, so go there first. See you all soon!

This week at Tri

Hey everyone! Just a quickie here to keep you up to date on what's coming up this week at Tri.

Monday night, Beginning Wedding: More on equipment and techniques for shooting weddings

Wednesday night, Advanced Wedding: Come get inspired. Not by me of course... ;-)

Thursday night, Engagement Shooting: Get that flash off your camera

Sunday Afternoon, Wedding Photography: Practicing off camera flash

See you this week, and I promise, a more engaging blog post later this week. I have been very busy the last few days with this:


Frank

What do you want to learn?

Hey there everyone! I have talked to many of you about up coming classes at Tri, and many of you want to know what comes after Beginning and Advanced Wedding photography. Well, currently at Tri, there isn't anything after those. Consider those classes like Algebra 1 and Algebra 2. These classes are offered each semester, and they are always the same classes.

With this in mind, I spoke to Alan (our director at Tri) about the possibility of creating a NEW wedding photography class, and he thinks that would be great. My question to you would be "What haven't we covered in these classes that you would like to learn more about?" Leave me a message in the comments. I probably have until the end of the week to come up with a rough outline, but I am asking you, my students, to help design it with relevant information you would like to learn. Beginning Wedding and Advanced Wedding aren't going away, so this new class would need to have brand new content to be accepted. Is there more specific Photoshop/Lightroom that needs to be covered, shooting information? Or hell, does it even need to be wedding related? What do you want that you haven't gotten or seen offered from Tri?

Go!

Frank

What do you like to shoot?

My name is Frank, and I shoot people. It's what I enjoy, and have a little talent for. I don't shoot landscapes, architecture, macros, flowers, product, abstracts, the list goes on and on. Not for lack of trying, and some people may tell you differently, but I don't really have the knack for it. I have great admiration for photographers that shoot all of those other types of images, and am often awed and occasionally jealous of others work and talent.

Many non-photography related friends assume that if you take nice pictures, you must be able to take nice pictures of everything. I whole heartedly disagree with that assumption. I do believe that as a photographer, you will find your niche. Now is that to say that you shouldn't attempt any other subject matter? Absolutely not. Don't think for an instant that when I go on vacation with my family, that I am not snapping away at the beautiful vista or memorable landmark in front of me. And I also very frequently go on photo walks and safaris with other photographers to try and sharpen my skills in other arenas.

But most of that sharpening of the skills get's applied to my wedding photography. As a wedding photographer, you must at least be able to dabble in all different aspects of photography. Wedding at a beautiful 19th century church? Shooting architecture. Getting pictures of the rings? Product or macro imagery. Someone getting married on the beach or in a National Park? Landscape. Table settings, cake, dinner, shoes, the dress, lot's of details that do not directly relate to people photography. I do them all when on a wedding shoot, and try to do them as creatively as possible.

Now, most of my shots that are outside the people realm are "technically" good. As in properly exposed, but they lack that "punch" of a much more talented photographer working those types of images.

So what is the meaning of all of this? I know what I can do decent enough, so that tends to be what I specialize in, but I also like all other types of photography too. So I keep trying. And I think that this adds an interesting dimension to the people aspect of my photography.

What really got me thinking about all of this is a forum posting by a photographer whose work I really dig., Kevin May. He is an amazing photographer who has the opposite problem, (or perception), than I do. He can shoot everything but people. Specifically, this forum discussion was on a website dedicated to shooting pretty girls. Yet he continues to participate in discussions and the posting of images. Said posting is here:

http://www.supershoots.net/forums_topic

So while I don't think I am the next Ansel Adams, I certainly do have an appreciation for what he was able to do, and if anyone wants to go shoot in Yosemite, give me a call, and let's go. I am always up for trying to better my skills and my eye. Can we bring a model?

Now here is what is up for next week. I originally thought I was going to have something super cool to announce for Monday nights class, but it looks like it will have to wait a week. Keep your fingers crossed, it will be awesome. Instead, we will be playing with multiple flashes, in large groups. Maybe we will even try a class picture with everyone holding speedlights.

On Wednesday we will be lecturing. I know several of you have upcoming weddings, so we will cover everything again. Bring your questions.

On Thursday, we will be doing another Engagement shoot in downtown Covina, with one of our own. Cue spooky music...

Please don't forget to bring images. We have done a lot of shooting, and our models are only working for prints and images on CD. I would also love to see some work and critique it for the class.

I am also including a before and after shot from our Thursday night engagement shoot. Remember, I only took 4 shots, as I was just testing the lights so I could get the students shooting, but here they are. The setup was 2 speedlights, set to TTL, the main was shot through a white umbrella, and the light on him was gridded. ISO 400, f5.6, 1/60 sec:

And don't forget to tell me what you think so far in the comments below. Maybe even tell us what you like to shoot, and why? Or what type of photography you wish you were better at, or admire? Let's get all interactive.

See you soon,

Frank

Happy Memorial Day!

Here is hoping everyone has a wonderful Memorial Day weekend. It looks like the weather will be fantastic for shooting all weekend, so, charge up the batteries, format the cards, slap on the lenses, and get out there!

Speaking of Memorial Day, remember school will be closed on Monday, but it is open all weekend, so make sure you get in there and make some prints for our fabulous models. They are only working for images, let's please make sure we provide them.


I can't tell you how happy I am to see how well everyone has been improving in our Monday night "Lighting on Location" class. I am blown away by the quality and creativity I am seeing. So much growth in such a short time. I hope you are noticing the improvement in your own work.


Coming up for this weeks class, we have no Monday night class :-(

I am working on getting a couple for Wednesday night, does anyone have a couple that is willing to model for us?

Thursday night we will definately have a couple, and we will be doing our "Engagement shoot". For Thursday night, we will be shooting 2 weeks in a row.

On Thursday night, we talked about back up solutions. Here is a link to a program I highly recommend, GoodSync. They have a free 30 day trial, give it a shot.

http://www.goodsync.com/

And for this weeks thought provoking take on photography, please read Vincent Versace's recent guest blog on Scott Kelby's site:

http://www.scottkelby.com/blog/2009/archives/4757s/4757

I have gotten a lot of inquiries about the lighting in a photoshoot I did with my wife awhile ago. Here is a sample image from that shoot:


The lighting in this is very simple. The image was shot at 2pm in May last year. All that is done here is to put the sun at the models back. Make sure that the light is even on the models front side, and meter the light on her face. In this particular case, the meter read F4, 1/100sec, ISO 100. Use the Manual mode, and apply those settings from the meter. This was shot with the Canon 5D and 70-200f2.8 IS, at 140mm.


Speaking of Canon, don't forget the instant rebates are still going on.

Another technique we talked about was using filtered window light, which led to using northern light in an open garage. For many examples of the technique, go look at Kevyn's site:

http://www.kevynmajorhoward.com/


And here is your weekly dose if inspiration (some images may not be work safe):

http://www.gormanphotography.com/gorman.html

Greg also has a great PDF tutorial on setting up an action for black and whites.

There are also many great links right over there------------>

See you all next week, and I am putting up a new challenge at the flickr site right now. Tri-students, come join or Flickr group.



Frank

First Post

Testing, testing, 1,2,3, Is this thing on?

Welcome everyone!

Welcome to day 1 of the blog. I will be using this blog to keep all my Tri-Community students updated on recent happenings and coming attractions for my classes. I will also be utilizing this space for miscellaneous ramblings and links to photography sites and information that I find interesting or relevant. Will it be updated daily? Hardly, but I will try and maintain at least 1 new post a week, so please check back often.

I hope that you will utilize the comments section of the blog, I get many emails from all of you that would probably be enjoyed by everyone, I just can't barrage all my students with 15 emails a day ;-)

If you have any ideas for information you would like to see posted, or possible topics for future posts, please comment below. I have also listed several links to sites I find interesting. This list is hardly complete, and will be added to on an on-going basis. I will also be ocassionally post images from students that were shot in my class, that I find exceptional. And posted at the bottom are just 2 such images, shot by none other than Vincent Miao.

Let me know what you think,

Frank