Balls Falls

We went to Port Colborne for Thanks Giving to visit family and had a great time. We headed up to Jordan Ont. to Balls Falls Conservation Area to take photos of the Upper and Lower Balls Falls. Many people were asking if the Lower falls were worth the hike and I think they are as the water comes out from the wall of the cliff and you don't see the source of the water and where it's coming from. You can walk along flat rock above the falls safely and there is no water, it all runs below the rocks. The sun was very bright and made photography a challenge but I think the photos came out ok.

 

Fanshawe Pioneer Village

fanshawe 1812 - The Invasion of Upper Canada

This was cool, actually this was extremely cool. I did not know what to expect and with the weather in London Ont. we did not stay long. We did not get any photos of the actual reenactment of the battle, it was cold and it kept raining but, as you walk around everyone is living as they did in 1812. Clothes, tents, furnishings. Even the way they eat, they cook over a fire and for theses two days live in their tents. The coolest thing is everywhere you look there is a photo just waiting to be captured and i just love the realness of this.              I'm really hoping I get to this place next year, now knowing what to expect and if there's better weather, get all of the photos I would like. I never knew of this place and Matt a friend of Michele's at her work, told us about this. Matt has been doing this since the mid 80's and is one of the Soldiers. Matt gave us a tour and explained why they were doing the things we came across as we walked through the village. Matthew Drouillard is the one on the left in this first photo and Miles Whitney, Matts friend is on the right as a six Nations Native, Thanks guys, Michele and I had a great time.

  

Muskoka, Ontario

Went up to Muskoka area for vacation. I truly love this area and the highlight was Algonquin Provincial Park. We stayed at the Pines cottage resort, it was exactly what we were looking for. No one bothered us, it was so peaceful and we came and went as we pleased. As I am with photography our schedule is pretty messed up. I had planned to be up before sunrise every day and be back around 1:00pm take a nap then be out again in late afternoon light but, the first couple of days it rained so we stayed at the cottage, remember this was also a vacation so we just relaxed and did nothing. I only was up one morning before sunrise and was able to photograph the fog over Oxtongue Lake, So I was happy with that. We only seen two Moose, one was after dark so no photo and one I did get a shot of but was behind trees, still I managed a shot that wasn't the best of the moose but made for a nice artsy shot of the moose in it's environment. Did not see any bears and I was hoping to get a photo but maybe some where next year. I did get a shot of a beaver swimming up stream and of course we had chipmunks and red squirrels climbing all over me for peanuts at the cottage which I thought was cool but there are laws with feeding wild animals and with these little guys I was told they are there every year on the resort property and live there so do they still apply? I know everyone including the kids always do so I'm not sure on this one. The main purpose was to visit Algonquin park everyday and we did. We hiked the shorter trails, no more than 2 km and we drove from one end to the other and back on the #60 corridor and for the trails we purchased a summer pass so we could hike the trails. Aside from Algonquin park are also rapids and waterfalls around the Muskoka area, the waterfall I found to be fairly scenic was Muskoka High falls in Bracebridge. Ragged rapids were also pretty cool and fairly aggressive which made for nice photos. All in all we had an awesome time and found ourselves even looking at a cottage to buy but, the prices are just to high. Here's a few phots for now and as I edit I will ad more.

     

Full Length Portraits

This is Sara. I'd like to start off with how awesome this person is, such a great personality and I had a really good time doing this shoot with her. She wasn't feeling  100 % but still showed up as planned and made the best of it and for that i was very impressed with her keeping her word. To also ad to this, her boyfriend went fishing and she still came to the photo shoot and said she would join him later. Did I mention she really enjoys fishing and being outdoors. So I thank you Sara for your loyalty and for being involved in what i love doing (Photography). When someone is this beautiful you really can't take a bad photo so she made this so easy. Here I will post a couple of photos and post more later, she did say she wanted to do this again so hopefully I'll be posting even more soon. Here's the setup, Now I should mention that I don't use a flash meter, I used to in the film days but now just set up and find i'm usually good from the start. I don't use exact ratios either so can't tell you what they are, I've been doing this a long time and now just go by what i see. I will ad though that I've just started doing portraits again and it being new to me with digital meaning the editing is what i'm trying with new and different things and just looking for a good look that I'm happy with. Oh and of course my backgrounds I placed her in are HDR done in Potomatix Pro. Using the Sigma 10-20mm 4-5.6 at 10mm. I use all portable flash, yongnuo EX II for my lighting, Fill was at camera left, 40" shoot through umbrella, main light was 2 24" soft boxes stacked above one another used like a strip box at camera right, another was mounted to the ceiling aimed at a 9 foot white seamless paper background just above and behind the model. Camera, Sony alpha 580, 100 ISO, 1/125 sec, f8. 18-55 Sony lens.  

 

                 And of course I had to shoot those gorgeous legs

April Songbirds

Well here we are another spring season, yet still quite cool in temperature. I've taken a few songbird photos. I wanted to get what I could without the vegetation on the trees. Sort of like different bird species in almost the setting or background. I find these photos look good paired together enlarged on my walls. Time has been so tight with building the in home studio and finding models, taking photos then editing everything, but I really love it and can't get enough, it's just taking longer than i expected especially with finding models.

  

Headshot Composites

Here are a few more comps that i did about a month ago. It's been really slow with getting models, they keep cancelling, so this past month has been driving me nuts! So anyway, 
This is Bree. I only did head shots of her and she was so relaxed and natural at it, she seems pretty excited to do more so hopefully i will be posting more soon. This was also a TFP shoot so i wanted to give her prints of just headshots to start off and not over whelm her, and she really does have an awesome look about her, very beautiful. I also wanted her to sign a model release before posting, even though i know it's not needed for this purpose but I like to make sure it's taken care of before moving on. I sure hope things pick up soon.

 

 

Composite Portrait of Lori

Thought I'd do another of Lori. I really need to find more people for portraits so, if anyone in the Windsor area likes getting their picture taken let me know at craigspics.tk@gmail.com and I'll write back with more details. So back to this post, not much more to say here. This is the same set up as the other post of Lori and her dog. Of course as you can see the background is of the Detroit river done in HDR and processed in photomatix pro.

Selfie Portrait

Ok this is one I did of myself. I usually don't like doing pics of myself but at the time I was bored and had no one to tie to a chair. This was taken a few months ago and I figure I'd post it. The background is in HDR and under Ouellette ave. in Jackson park, Windsor Ontario. This was three lights and don't ask me what I was trying to say with this one. Just thought a little attitude would look interesting.

3 and 4 edge light photos

This is my niece Lori. It's who we decided to spend new years eve with. So while everyone had a few drinks i set up my lights and took some photos. I use 2 small softboxes, one on each side and a little behind the subject and a umbrella, i think it's around 36 inches as a shoot through up above the camera and another smaller umbrella below aiming up from the floor, now this smaller umbrella I usually use for fill also but for under the chin like a butterfly lighting but here i used it for the lower half of her body since in this case i used a wide focal length lens (10mm) and aimed it down and above her. I did not bring my background stand, It would not fit to well in their living room. I also don't mind the lights in the photo because i remove the subject and place them in another background and in this photo of Lori i just made a white background in photoshop and placed her in it. The only thing i had to do was ad a little shadow near her feet also done in photoshop.
Now for her dog Gemma i used the same setup only my stands that i use will only go down so far so i had to aim them downwards and i only used the large umbrella in front for fill, then there's the fact that the dog did not want to stay still so having her in the exact spot was impossible, this was the best shot that worked ok with the lights. Then of course in photoshop i placed Gemma in an HDR background that i took last summer downtown Windsor and processed it in photmatix pro. I guess I should ad that i use Yongnuo YN-560 II portable flash units triggered from camera with a flashwave II wireless radio save to one flash unit and the others trigger from the built in optical slaves which work very well and have not misfired yet in about eight months i've had them.
The lens for Lori was the Sigma 10-20mm f4-5.6 lens and for Gemma was a Sony 18-55mm kit lens, Sony alpha 580 camera, both photos 1/125 sec. f8 100 ISO.

I would like to ad one more important fact, when usually I use a wide lens with someones face close to the lens which destorts and whatever is closest to the lens looks larger, I use the liquify tool in photoshop to shrink the nose back to a more normal look. Click on the photo and look at the unfinished and finished photos to see the difference.

   This is the original photo only with the skin retouching done.

Original photo

The background

Outdoor portrait

This is my daughter In law. Lea. She was kind enough to sit in for a photo. This was back in the summer when I got a few more of the Yongnuo YN-560II flash units. I was just playing with them in the backyard and asked Lea to model for me. I think she looks amazing and for something i didn't plan, this came out pretty good, She really should do more.
I used 2 20" softboxes for the main and fill lights and a bare flash for a backlight which created the smoke to show up so well and i love the way it lit her face. This is the way i love to use light, I can't get enough of the way it looks. I also used photoshop cs6 and a wacom tablet for post.

Composite portraits in HDR backgrounds

Here are a few of the neighbours daughter i took a month or so ago. Two photos that are of the same portrait i took in the studio and were placed in different backgrounds with a soccer theme, which she plays for her school and the other was of her in her everyday clothes on a background of stairs taken downtown Windsor, Ont.