New Blog and Website!!!

For those who follow my blog, please visit my new website/blog at:  www.vcimages.net .  It has been a long process putting this thing together, and I am proud to finally say it’s done!!!  I will no longer be posting here so make sure to add the new link!

Elaina’s First Birthday and Baptism

It’s seems like yesterday, when I first photographed little Elaina.  I couldn’t believe it was already a year, when her parents asked me cover her 1st birthday and baptism.  This kid is so photogentic.  She loves getting right up to the camera.  Congratulations Kelly and Dave for a healthy and happy 1st year!  The party was great, with the added bonus of a banana bread cake!  When it comes to desserts I am a sucker. 

On the photography  end of things, I have been taking a great liking to the Gary Fong lightsphere.  It seems to work wonders when bounced off ceilings, and the nice thing is you get that fill light from the front as well.  So far it was worked excellent for me.  I have used it on one wedding and a bunch of portraits.  I will give it a test with a live music shoot this Friday. 

Enough with the rambling, here are some of my favorites from the day:

She was full of expressions

Mother and daughter

Playing with daddy!

This was the most impressive cupcake/yoodle display I have ever seen!

Fixing her braclet

Those are some small shoes!

The baby looking at a photobook of herself with family.

A bachelor's of baptism!

Sharing a moment with grandma

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

"I am gonna huff, and puff..."

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

My personal favorite of the day!

Birds in the shower!

Our aviary, also known as "Our Shower"

For those of you that know Courtney or myself, you know about our 3 birds.  These guys while, they can be a pain, really do provide us with hours of entertainment.  Twice a week the 3 feathered creatures come into the shower with me for a bath.  They just love when I angle the shower head on them.  They sit and open up their wings and let the water fall on them.  Sometimes they even get lazy and fall asleep in the shower.  No point really to this post, just felt like posting something random.

 

From left to right: Simon, Alvin, and Theordore

Hummingbird Studio!

20090815-hummingbirdpanosetup, originally uploaded by craig.proulx.

I recently got the chance to setup and play with the hummingbird studio I have test out all summer. With the help of my father, we had a pivoting bracket madeup by a local metal shop. The beauty of the bracket is that it is fully adjustable! You can use it in many different ways, even as a macro light directly affixed to a camera body! I hate being stingy on info, but I don’t want to give away the details just yet, as he might decide to patten and market it in the near future! The studio itself is basically a bunch of speedlights (580ex, old 550’s, 540ez’s) setup in front of our muslim aka little piece of foamcore clamped to the side of a gazebo where there is a feeder setup. People think we are crazy for having over 12 flashes between the two of us, but surprisingly, you can find these perfectly older units that have been slightly used or sometimes even brand new for very cheap money. In most cases you don’t need to concern yourself with TTL because the best way to do a lot of this strobist stuff is on manual anyway. These older flashes, while they may not have the latest and greatest technology, can still act as slaves from masters such as 550’s or 580’s. We chose to use a 3 way sync cord, in comination with the wireless feature for this setup. As you can see, two of the flashes have battery packs, which are nothing more than 8 additional AA’s connected to the flash. It greatly increase the recycle time, and I swear by these things when doing weddings! For those of you wondering about the batteries themsleves, please note that I am relatively new to the rechargable battery world. However, I have been successfully using the duracell NI-MI AA’s and have no issues. You want to make sure you buy the pre-charged ones, though, because there are two different types of rechargables. One is a slow discharge and one is a fast discharge. In a nutshell, one type will stay charged for months at a time when not being used, while another type will only last a week or so before draining down. I found out the hard way, but luckily not on a paid job! The reason now for all those flashes is to freeze motion. I have to admit that I am not completely satisfied with my photos, but a lot is due to the fact that I believe I had some stray ambien light in the frame, that I failed to notice. These flashes have something that higher powered studio lights don’t…shorter flash durations! In fact, when I added an alien bee 800 to the background, the longer duration of the alien bee caused even more ghosting than I had without! When trying to freeze something like a hummingbird, the most important thing is flash duration. Keep all the power dialed down as much as possible. Even 1/128 power if you can! In this case, we wanted plenty of coverage to really bring out all angles and sides of the bird. Side lighting and backlighting, also provides separation from the background. The shutter only has to be set at your sync speed, and no faster! Some manual focus these shots, but I find the autofocus to work very well. Hummingbirds usually come into feed and then backoff a couple of inches from the feeder where they hover before going back in to feed. It is at this hover point where I will lock my focus and wait until they return to this postion before tripping the shutter. I must appologize for again not having the best example to show you, but I thought this was a fun experiement and now I know exactly where I want my improvements! Remember, you really need to watch any stray ambient light. Your exposure should be a nearly completely black frame without your flashes going off. Ambient light will cause ghosting. Set your shutter to near sync, and find an f stop that will kill this light. Position your lights, meter them, and wait! Below is my panorama of a hummingbird sequence. It is composed of 3 separate exposures. Next year, I will try and nail it in one. Don’t know if it’s possible but, I am sure gonna try!

Studio Problem Solving

Somtimes when working with lighting, we reach a wall.  This product shoot involving a watch is a perfect example.  I was shooting this watch for my stock/commercial portfolio.  I shot it on black plexi-glass to utilize the reflection of the watch as part of the composition.  A simple monolight in a softbox and some fill and black cards made up the ingredients for this recipe.  A canon EOS 40d on a tripod, with a 150mm lens completed it.  I finally got the right combination of highlights and shadows that I wanted by manipulating the two cards.  The black card I used the control the reflection of the softbox and other stray highlights that were hitting the highly reflective black plexiglass.  The white card gave me just enough fill. 

Now for the challenge.  This watch happens to glow in the dark.  I wanted to get a shot of nicely lit watch with the face glowing. 

Ok, so first I need to get the watch to glow.  I pulled out my favorite tool:  the multiple exposure!  I knew I already had the original shot in the bag, so I simply shut off my studio room lights, and shot the exact same composition and angle exposing for the glow in the dark faceplate.  Pretty simple.  Later I would just brush it in using layers in photoshop.

Now I realized I had another issue.  I am so glad I realized this at the time an not when I got in photoshop and had the whole set broken down already.  The issue at hand was the glare on the watch’s glass face I was getting from the camera angle I was at.  In my original shot, it wasn’t a big deal.  The glare was manageable and I feel it didn’t distract to much from the watch itself.  In the case of the glow in the dark watch, it really would have hindered the effect.  I knew if I changed the camera angle, relative to the watch, it would solve the problem, however it would not work well trying to merge the two copies in photoshop.  I could maybe move the light around and fix the glare, but then the face would not be lit like I wanted and most importantly the same way the first exposure was.  So what did I do?  Pulled out a circular polarizer, screwed it on the lens, and rotated it until most of the harshess in the glare was gone.  I could tell when to stop rotating, by watching the reflecting of the whole watch on the plexiglass disappear.  So in the glow in the dark image you see below, I used a total of 3 separate exposures to create a glare free, glow in the dark, studio shot of a watch.  I haven’t been doing a lot of landscape photos lately, but it is a good thing I had that polarizer in my bag.  It saved me a lot of time in photoshop in the end.

Rob and Nicole

My wedding photography partner and I had the pleasure to shoot a wonderful wedding in Andover, MA recently.  The day provided for a fresh look at a wedding.  The couple had a wonderful ceremony.  When they exited the church (to the bride’s surprise), the groom had arranged for a bunch of Monarch butterflies to be released.  They came in these little paper triangles, which you will see below.  Unfortunately they were not too photogenic, as they all didn’t take off like we were hoping for.  It sure would have made for a nice photo, but things don’t always work out the way you hope, especially at weddings!  We then went over to a local cemetery which we had scouted out before hand for the formals.  This was the biggest wedding party I have ever seen!  A reception followed at the groom’s parents’ house.  They had tents set up in the backyard, and a wonderful barbecue chicken dinner was served.  The coolest thing was there was a pool and a bunch of kids swimming and running around.  Kids always make for interesting photos!  At one point the groom almost threw his beloved bride into the pool!  Below are some of the highlights from the day.  All shots taken with a Canon EOS40D and a gazillion lenses!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Why I love, but hate Canon right now!

Let me first start by saying, that I am not one to usually get involved with the rant about what is going to be the latest and greatest camera to come out on the market.  I must confess however, I do read these rants because I find them quite amusing.  The thing really pisses me off is how much these camera companies are ripping off consumers.  

 

It all started a few days ago when Canon announced their upgrade to the popular advanced compact camera the G10.  I, myself have not even had my camera for a year and all of a sudden…G11!?  I could post a photo here on my blog, but I refuse to give into the advertising of this camera!  I don’t want to sound piggheaded, it sounds like a great camera.  Basically, Canon decided to keep the same camera body, and simply lower the megapixel count.  By keeping the same Digic 4 processor, the new G11, promises better low light, low noise, functionality at higher ISO’s.  That’s the other thing that pisses me off!  I love the G10, but honestly, I don’t use this camera above ISO400.  This is fine by me, because the reason why I bought the camera in the first place was to have  a small, compact camera to take snapshots and for creative “on the go” oppurtunities.  So in my opinion, the camera serves me just fine.  But, why the the hell put these ridiculous ISO 1600’s and 3200’s on a compact, when they are absolutely unusable?  It’s almost as if they put it in there for the spec value only.  Now, don’t get me wrong, Canon has an excellent idea about the megpixel count.  In fact, I have never been impressed my megapixels, and would take a camera that has better low light quality over resolution any day!  In the case of the G10, I want the megapixels though.  I find myself constantly using this camera as a macro camera and always cropping in on certain things.  The 15 megpixels that is has allows me to do that.  That being said, I would not trade in my G10 for a G11 anyday of the week.  Where the frustration comes from my part, is the feeling that Canon is releasing these camera’s, knowing that their performance might be suffering because of higher megapixel count, with full intention of replacing them within the same year!  Again, I might be satisfied with my camera, but I can tell you that a lot of consumers are not going to be happy about this.  The G10 is a $500.00 compact camera.  Now comes the G11 with features some consumers might be attracted to for get this…the same fricken price as the G10 is selling for:  $500.00.  And all within a year’s time.  I don’t want for this rant to sound like I am switching from Canon.  They make an unbelievable product.  I am completely satisfied with my G10, 40D, and Rebel.  In fact, I wish Canon didn’t take the 40D off the market, because with all the portrait and wedding work I have coming up, I want another 40D.  But come on guys?  Put your money into a good product and leave it there.  Don’t try and fix what isn’t broken!  With the way the economy is, hard working people are forking over hard earned $$ and they don’t want to be hearing of their camera being obsolete 6 months after they walk out of the store with it.  It just isn’t a good feeling for any consumer.  Slow down, keep the camera’s you have, and here’s an idea…Maybe put it into some lenses which haven’t been upgrade in the last 10 years?  Now there’s a thought!  

Canon G10 in the studio.

The Bogen “Magic Arm”, it’s better than buying that new expensive camera!

We all dream of getting that camera which we think will completely revolutionize the way we take pictures.  You know the one.  It might be a full frame for some of us.  For others, it might be that 10 frame a sec machine that would enable us to capture that bird we have been after for months now.  I must thank some of the photographers out there who made me think differently about accessories.  Guys like Joe Mcnally use these things daily and the fact of the matter is, these accessories will allow you to create not only better photos, but different photos.  Show me a camera that out of the box, you can fasten to the side of a moving car!  That $8,000 DSRL might be nice, but you need something else to put that $8,000 DSLR in a place that will give you a truely different perspective.  I am talking about GRIP EQUIPMENT! 

I like to shoot a lot of creative type stock images for both my portfolio and hopefully for someone to pickup on the “micro stock market”.  It might pay pennies, but the reason why I shoot this stuff is for the pure fun and creativity that is involved.  One of the many aspects I love using in my images is motion.  Conveying motion is not a difficult aspect, but is one that can easily be captured in camera, without engineering it in photoshop.  Below is an image concept I borrowed and expanded on.  I wanted to make an image conveying the extreme sense of waste that americans have nowadays with money.  By taking a Bogen Magic Arm, fitted with a super clamp, I was able to mount my DSLR, a canon 40d, onto a corn broom handle. 

This stock image of a broom sweeping cash, couldn't have been possible to pull off in camera without the magic arm.

The bogen magic arm features multiple ball bearing joints that allow you to adjust and position anything from a flash to a camera.  The unit is rated to hold the weight of a DSLR.  There are 2 types.  One has a friction arm so that you can fine tune the position of your camera or flash, similar to the friction balheads used on tripods.  The one I use, locks into place solid.  I prefer this one, because I know it will not vibrate loose and move on me.   Since the end plate is equipped with 1/4″ or 3/8″ lighting studs, attaching a tripod plate is easy!  If you want to mount a flash, simply screw on one of the hotshoe mounts that come with your standard umbrella lightstand mounts.

 

This is how I attached my camera to the broom handle.

Sometimes you need to put a speedlight in a place that is just not feasible for a lightstand.  How about a shower?!  Below is the setup image for an image I made in a shower.

This shows the super clamp and how easily it can be fastened to a shower head!

 

Why would I want to put a speedlight in a shower you ask?

How else do you back light a subject while taking a shower?

The image below shows the mounting system of a speedlight to the magic arm.  The amazing thing is, all three joints are locked by 1 lever.

A simple hotshoe mount from an umbrella mount is all you need to mount a speedlight to the magic arm.

Off To Ossipee!

Friday, I decided to take a day off for a change and head up to our friends Kelley and Dave’s camp.  It was in north Ossipee.  Ossipee is part of the Lakes region of New Hampshire, a popular destination for summer vacations.  Their RV was located on a nice seasonal lot at Danforth Bay.  Danforth Bay has both RV’s and small cottages (they are actually fully furnished houses).  I have been traveling fairly lightly lately as far as camera gear goes when we travel.  Between shooting portraits, weddings, and working on the never ending commercial portfolio, the last thing I have been wanting to do is lug around a heavy DSLR and lens.  I have been lucky to find everything I need in the G10.  I can make simple snapshots into decent images with extreme ease.  I can shoot RAW when I want, and with the 14 megapixels, I know that if I have to crop in later, so be it!  Well, I promised myself and Courtney that I wouldn’t be shooting photos the entire weekend, so I stuck to toying around when she was enjoying a book on the porch.  I wanted to make some motion abstracts, which I haven’t had the oppurtunity to do in a while.  Just when I though my little compact would give me a hard time, it spit out exactly what I was looking for:

here’s another giving her a little twist:

 

Being the sucker for a good closeup, I couldn’t resist:

 

 

 

The next day we decided to drive up to North Conway, home to the outlets, and Cathedral Ledge, a popular rock climbing spot.  We took the lazy way up (car to the top), and were greated by a breath taking view. 

 

Looking over the edge gave me a little vertigo!  What was more impressive was seeing human beings climbing over the top of this shear verticle drop.  If I had to guess I would say that the drop was well over a hundred and fifty feet.

 

Not just one, but several climbers were beneath this guy.  What a big responsibility he has!  He tied off to the saftey fence post at the top and belayed the rest of the climbers that followed.

 

Finally, who could pass up this beautiful backdrop?  Portrait time!

 

Sights Of Hampton Beach

I haven’t had much time lately to post, but I figured I would share some images from Courtney and I’s recent vacation at Hampton Beach, New Hampshire.  Hampton is a familiar place for me.  As a kid, my family would rent a summer cottage every year.  Though they don’t change much, the sights and sounds are always exciting!  It is a fairly busy place, with plenty of novelty shops, restaurants, and arcades.  I, usually get a bit restless after a few days, because I am not a huge beach person, and I don’t play video games.  The one thing I do appreciate is good food!  I am now back on my strict diet which I have been doing great at, but for the week I am at Hampton every year, it’s nothing but junk food for me.  Don’t hate me for not including any photos of fried dough though, I am not a fan.  These photos are all brought to you courtesy of my G10.  Such a handy little camera to take with you.  It does video too, but I haven’t really played with that yet.

 

The Hampton Strip is all about one way streets. Can make for a pain when trying to park!

 

You know your at the beach when every little nook and cranny is filled with sand!

 

The view from my towel!

 

Steamed Clams! Taken at Sea Catch Restaurant. By far the best at Hampton!

 

Couldn't resist a little sand/towel macro shot!

 

The famous "skee-ball". This is the only game I play at the arcade.

 

Lobster Raviloi. I have never seen it stripped like that.

 

Courtney hit it big at the arcade! We're almost there to getting that food processor they have there!

 

1500 Tickets!!! I never have that luck. Jackpot!

 

This was the biggest portion of Chicken Parmesean I have ever seen!

 

I got this idea from one of my contacts Ashleigh. I am sure she will comment. Check out her blog!