Nov 18th, Shoot the Moon

Tricks and tips. I haven't done many of these so I thought, as I was shooting this that maybe it would make a good little piece to post.

Okay, so we have all seen those amazing images of the moon, big bright and details, but how are they shot. If you go out side on a clear night and point your camera up into the sky the chances of getting anything better than a shaky white streak are slim. But, if you take a few things into account you can increase your odds of getting a better image.

1. Time of day. I shot this out my back door at 4:30 PM not the middle of the night.

2. Shutter Speed. If your want those details to be sharp the exposure needs to be fast. Think about it. Your standing on a big ball that is spinning and moving, and you are trying to shoot another moving ball that is spinning too. Right?. Because of this you don't need a tripod if everything else is taking into account.

3. Aperture. Its getting dark so you need as much light to enter your camera as possible and your available light is really really far.

4. Overall exposure. You already know what you need so, now its Ratio Times.

5. ISO the faster/higher you go the more digital noise happens in your file. No one wants that.

So I took all these requirements and set them into my camera. I started with an exposure of 1/60th for my shutter speed (That's as slow as it gets hand held), and my F-Stop at 8.0. just to start. It was a good first step. I got the moon and the sky still had blue in it, but there was no details in my highlights (Face of the Moon). Okay more math. I moved my F-Stop down to 5.6 (that's a full stop open) so I changed my Shutter speed faster to 1/250th to make the same exposure and take the same image. That doesn't mean I changed anything, the RATIO is the same so you'll get the same image. You Following?

To make changes, I was now only left with my Shutter Speed to change, because F-5.6 is as wide as my G11 will open, zoomed in as far as it will go. That's okay Shutter speed is the one thing I want to change. I want it as fast as I can with out loosing highlights. So I pushed it up faster and faster. The exposure's were getting darker and, the shadow detail was getting better. I ended up with an exposure of 1/450th @ F-5.6 at 200ISO.

So I didn't break any Photography rules for a change. I followed basic laws of light and exposure, I just pushed my ratio to make the small amount of light that was in the atmosphere (Blue sky) to go black and let me look at the Man in the Moon properly. There is no Photoshop here either, this is the RAW image.

This is the same rule that make dark blue sky's with the sun still in the frame or the silhouette's of the fire fighter's I posted earlier in the month.

If your out shooting, get OFF of manual and start changing up your exposures, you never know what you might end up with.

Nov 15 Super Views

I am always on the look out for anything that can help my portfolio. I need some shots that look across the core of Montreal so I can work some magic on some more Hero's I have lined up.
Here's tonight's scouting report. Top of the Montreal General Hospital Parking garage.


Yes it is a Panoramic, 10 Frames, shot at 4 sec @ F7.1 ISO 200, with an 80mm

Nov 9th, Learning from tests

Yesterday I tried out some ideas and today I made them better. I learned great deal of information from the last test. Clearly there is room for improvements, there always is. But taking steps along the way and learning more about your final goal is the rewarding part.
I stood in traffic for better lights, and squatted dangerously low for a better angle. I slid it behind yesterdays test file and turned things around a little, I like that to.
Touched an idea in Photoshop just to see what would happen.

Steps along the way. I'm enjoying the walk very much.
Back to work there's more TESTs to be done.

Nov 8th, Testing, Testing

Found some time to start designing my lighting for the next Portfolio Hero. Those crazy comic book ideas are flowing out of me. I have been meeting people that want to help and get in. Its devouring me like Spiderman's Black suit, I love it. Still working on getting ALL the things I need..
I am in need of a Joker. If anyone knows a crazy person. The scene is shot, Costume is more than 1/2 way ready and un-freaking-believable. Thanks to a basement sale at a costume house in Old Port, I spent 2 hours in a creepy basement picking through old cloths yuck. Next Make Up Test. those will be fun. Staying Positive things are working, even a deal on capes.
Got a meeting with Storm from the X-Men later this week to see what we can do for each other.
I love this Portfolio. It will be part of my schools final portfolio but I can already see that I wont be stopping when school ends, this is a corner I am turning.

2 guesses who's coming by the studio soon.
This would be the something like a first digital sketch. Its easier to work alone at this point I know what I'm looking for so I stand in. Makes for funny images.
I've pulled out many research images from goggle for the character and the background. Drawn, worked out a few angles, lighting diagrams blah blah. So tonight I headed into school and hurried to grab an hour alone in the studio. Popped some stands, Threw down some lights and played. Saw some stuff working and redrew how the lights ended up, measurements angles, light direction, type, exposures for each, camera distance blah blah blah.
I like the lens choose, I think the lights are getting there. The background will match better with both lanes of traffic full and moving in both directions, with me in the middle of the street. Last Tue Thomas and I shot the new ad for Safety Canada. Nothing safe about this shot.
Must reshoot BackGround just before it gets dark.
Pieces of the puzzles.

Next test, testing 1 2 3, testing.

Nov 6, FootBall

Every weekend in Parc Jeanne Mance several city wide football leagues of all ages get together to do battle on the Grid Iron. The youngest kids are smaller than there equipment and look like cute little bumper cars running into each other, but the older boys can play. Maybe its just me getting
old but kids these days are BIG. I stopped in to watch a quarter of a game and was impressed at the level of skill these young warriors were showcasing. The parents that filled the stands were not as impressive. Loud, foul mouthed parents yelling at the kids in an assortment of languages. For 20 minutes they were casting verbal tomato's at the blind reffs.
It was still fun.

Nov 2nd, FIRE

More roof top craziness, at the end of another day of assisting I popped my head out the window and to see what was shaking out over the city and to the north, FIRE.

So, we rapper and I split to go check out the action.

I thought it was an old abandoned warehouse that is a shooters paradise, fortunately it was not. Unfortunately it was the apartments of a few now displaced people. Bummer.

Nov 1st Mon Montreal

Boom, 14 frame Pano (you know how I do it.)
This lasted for less than 5 min but I was lucky enough to be finishing up a shoot on a roof top Studio. I have been doing a ton of Photo assisting with a Photographer named Thomas Konigsthal at his studio. I was keeping an eye on the sky all day because it was acting strange and when this was starting called out "Yo Tom we should be checking this out.'' So like a couple of die hard's we grabbed up our cameras and some lenses and took off outside, without our jackets. Less then ten min later we were inside arguing who was going to send there images to where. He picked Montreal Gazette, I countered with Environment Canada.
This one is going in the Panoramic Portfolio, for sure.
Do I get two pots of Gold for this one, or four.;)

Oct 22, Catching Up.

On 10 10 10 there was an amazing event in downtown Montreal. It was a fundraising event for the Steven Lewis Foundation to help combat the AIDS pandemic in Africa at the grass roots level. When Yasmin was doing her 32 hour Yoga marathon she was breaking the world record but more importantly raising funds for the SLF. Her goal was not reached by her yoga aloneso with the help of some wonderful people this event was organized. I shot the event and to help contribute my own skills I set up a Photo Booth for all the guests. It was great, everyone likes getting there picture taking by a pro, under pro lights with a fancy background. To continue to help raise more money I have offered to sell the images to those who posed for a small donation if they wanted. So far I have had a good response. Thanks everyone.

Oct 22, Ive been to busy to post

Hey Internet, how have you been? Me oh, I've been crazy busy thank you. To busy to post stuff like I said I would, but hey better busy then not, right. On top of that my Internet at home has been down for some time now and I think I'm going to smash my computer unless I can fix this problem. Dig this, turns out that MacBook Pro's like mine working with one type of modem/router that Bell provides, will at some point stop communicating. WTF? F#^$ing Bell.

The geeks at the Mac Store (Love those guys), knew exactly what the problem was. Now try to fix, if you have an extra 8 hours a day to wait on hold, no Problem, bastards. Okay I'm done.

So here's some stuff I've been working on, just some stuff.

Food on location.

Shot for Location class at the Forum Sports bar. They provide the food for the shoot and we intern give them copies of the final image and they are free to use it in there menu or how ever else they would like to. Its a good deal.

More Group Comp shots for Dawson. These are great gigs to have. This one took 14 min to shot 4 groups of people and 2 hours of Photoshop to stitch them together. I had another shoot last night and got the shooting time down to 9 min. Not to shabby

Oct 1, Super Foxes

From Super Heros to Super Foxes

This is a cool assignment I have been working on, Short story is, Take a kick ass image that has already been done, figure out how to light it the same way, and do it.

Catch, it was to be out on location and not in the studio.

Thank your for being so beautiful my love.

Big thanks to Massimo for the Hair and Make Up.