Hey Everyone, I’m going to be a little behind on this week’s post. I’m traveling and have had no internet excess except for this one McDonald’s stop. I had a photo shoot at a diary farm in northeast Ohio. This is a new project I’m working on and this trip is the first part of that project. What an experience, it was wet, hot, sticky and not to mention smelly. I stayed with the farmer for a couple nights and he had no air conditioner therefore I was experiencing the same situation at night as I did throughout the day. I have slept very little over the last couple of nights. Open windows meant I heard every moo, meow, yap and what seemed like an 8 hour deafening thunderstorm. The thunderstorm was so damn loud the bed shook. I thought rural life was quiet and peaceful, boy was I wrong. That being said, what a great experience and wonderful people to work with throughout my stay.  I have never met anyone who worked harder than these farmers. Their day starts at 4:30 am everyday and doesn’t end until 11 pm. No holidays, no sick days and no vacation.

The shoot was difficult, as the rain made things very sloppy. I couldn’t tell the difference between the mud and the cow sh$#@*. It got to the point it didn’t matter. I am trying to capture the life of the American farm. I happened to pick a dairy farm first which was no doubt the toughest, so I hope. I will be back later in the summer to shoot again on the farm when it dries up and the fields are planted. I hope to come back for the fall harvest. I did get some shooting done but not much, I’ll post a few photos when I get home.

I am currently in Shenandoah National Park, Virginia. This has also proven to be a difficult shoot. Rain, wind, rain, wind, rain, wind, but still getting a few good shots. It beats sitting behind the computer in the office. I haven’t been in this direction in years and thought it might be fun to revisit and pick up a few shots of the area. The winds have been incredibly heavy and have made for some tough shooting. I did get a little fog but again the wind made it difficult to shoot. I had to push the iso up to 1600 at times and still wasn’t enough. These kind of conditions force you to be creative and shoot in unconventional ways or at the very least a little differently.  I’ll head over to Harpers Ferry on Monday and hope for a better shoot.

I’ll be back in the office on Wednesday, but will start an assignment as soon as I return. Looks like June has a few assignments in store.

Take care.

As each day passes, I watch beautiful weather escape me into the darkness of another day passing. A little frustrated I can’t seem to find just one day to get out of the office to do some personal shooting. That being said, I’m happy that I have assignments to keep me busy. This is not unusual this time of year because the beautiful sky’s and fresh new foliage make for some great exterior shooting for the buildings that were completed over the winter months. I will have, at least in most years, some down time June through August. It seems I get flooded with more assignments from September through October because all the architectural award competitions are due at the end of the year.

As you can see, neutral colors three light sources (fluorescent, incandescent and windows) A photographic nightmare.

I promised last month I would post a few photos from an assignment I did in April. I shot a design office, probably one of the harder projects I’ve shot in a long time. This space being a design studio and office there were lots of neutral colors and mixed light sources. The biggest problem I encountered was the huge windows surrounding the entire space, these threw lots of blue light in with the white ceiling and reflective floor catching it. One fix would have been to photograph it at night but this was impossible on this project, therefore I had to photograph during business hours and was dealt problems that had to be fixed in the computer. This project was being shot for the interior designers and they need exact color match on paint colors, fabric, carpets, etc… I was able to achieve this by making sure I got the white balance correct on location and a little Photoshop mastery in the computer. To see what I use to get my white balance check out a recent post, Getting Your Color Right at Time of Capture.

This is probably one of the more difficult of situations to pull off. Huge window with blue tinted glass, spot lights and cam lights all giving off a different color cast. The only way to I could pull this off was to take three different white balance readings and blend them all together in the computer.

Anyway, I’m looking forward to a photo trip in late May through early June. I will be spending time in Boston and New Hampshire. I have been wanting to photograph Boston for a long time and finally the time allows me to do it. I will be scouting both locations for a spring workshop next year. I have  been working on some new ideas for workshops that should be exciting for both myself and my participants. Unfortunately I can’t discuss these plans just yet but what I can tell you is, a couple of these workshops currently in the works are incredible opportunities that you won’t find anywhere else.

I am currently testing the new Canon 17mm and 24mm tilt shift lenses. I’ll post my thoughts as soon as I get them. The 17mm TS would be a great help for many of the interiors I shoot. This should be a fun test. Take care and hope you stay tuned in on my posts throughout the month of May.

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Behind me is a wall of windows with blue tinted glass. I also had lots of cam lights in the ceiling which posed a problem, there were no dimmers so with the f-stop I was using I was getting huge star bursts from the lights. To fix this problem I had to shoot the photo with the lights off and then reshoot it with the lights on and blend the two together in Photoshop.

Mother Nature has thrown her punches this year. The winter here in the midwest was one of the worst I’ve experienced since I was a kid or maybe it’s just the age factor catching up. I lead a photography workshop in Charleston the last week of March into the first few days of April and the blooms were no where to be found. They were late in their arrival and just heard yesterday the area had an incredible bloom a week after my departure. In most years you can expect the blooms to happen in mid to late March, but a bit different this year.

The so-called flower gods were expecting a banner year for blooms in the Texas Hill Country. I wanted to get down this this beautiful local but my schedule wouldn’t allow it to happen. I haven’t heard yet from anyone who was down that way but would like to hear from someone how things went. My good friend Adam Jones was in Corpus Christie for a workshop and did say the flowers were incredible in that part of the state, but saw fields of indian blankets rather than the bluebonnets and indian paintbrush which is what photographers go after in the hill country. The spring bloom in the Great Smoky Mountains looked good this year and is still happening. If anyone is heading down to the park anytime soon be aware of the closing of Cades Cove and Roaring Fork Motor Trail. Both these areas are being paved and will be closed until late May.

My April Plans

So much for the natural environment for April. I’ve been getting calls for assignments this month and probably into early May to photograph architectural projects. Spring is a great time to shoot exteriors with fresh new foliage and great looking sky’s. Most of these photo shots will take place in and around the Cincinnati area. The architectural market has taken a major hit all over the country over the last couple of years with the downturn of the economy, especially the private sector. Most of the new projects starting up now are government related. I’m optimistic things will pick up over the next year, at least thats my hopes.

For those photographers interested in architectural photography, I’ll be posting a lot of photo tips on how to shoot interiors with existing light. There really is little need to carry around a bunch of studio lights. All of my interiors are shot with existing light and put together in the computer. I use HDR to put these puzzles together. Many photographers when they think of HDR, visualize the illustrative look that has been popular over the last few years. My clients would never buy into such a thing. If you’re interested in getting a realistic look using HDR, it’s indeed possible but requires a lot of work and some skill in most cases. Take at look at my architectural gallery on my website and you’ll see what I’m talking about. Photomatix is the software program most photographers think about when doing HDR, but it’s only the first step and depending on the situation it may not work at all. I would be interested in hearing from photographers who are interested in learning how to shoot architecture. This is a love of mine and I have a great time shooting it. It’s both challenging and rewarding. Let me hear from you.

I will be testing the new Canon 17mm TS lens and the newly upgraded 24mm TS on one of my shoots coming up. I’m looking forward to testing these and see how they do. I’ll post my thoughts when the projects are complete.

Until next posting, have a great spring shoot where ever you go.

Bill