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One of my favorite kinds of portraiture is outdoors in Available Light. Not because it is easy but because it makes the most sense. I too learned in photography school that the best time to do this is early in the morning or late in the evening in what some call the “GOLDEN HOUR”. To my surprise, I was in a local park doing a sight survey, when I notice a photographer taking pictures of young lady. The photographer had nice camera with a good lens and flash mounted on-top on his camera pointed toward the sky. “Man, his must have a very powerful flash to bounce off the clouds to illuminate his subject. I don’t mean to pick on any photographer, but I just wanted you to think about why we do some of the things we do.

When I shoot outdoors, I seldom shoot outdoors with a flash unless sun dips down below the horizon. I am a reflector kind of guy. We spend countless money on studio strobes and small flashes to recreate what the SUN does when we should really think about using what’s already available. That’s why they call it available light, because it’s always available and free.

This ideal frees me up to shoot my clients almost any time of day. I don’t have to wait to shoot early morning or late afternoon. I simply look for a large shade area. Next, I look for an interesting background with a natural frame to place my subject. I look for a background with depth and this always leads me to shooting into the sun. Why?

Imagine is: You’re in a park and you find a large area of tree covered shade. If you know where the sun is and you place your subject with their back to the sun, this will give you filter light through the trees and maybe streaks of sunlight falling to the ground to add depth. Also, backlit leaves give you very nice variation of color. Okay, once you found your location and the filter sun is facing you… all you have to do is bring your subject about 3 to 6 feet from the shade line (The tree shadow on the ground). Have your assistant stand about six feet into the sun and walk up slowly with the reflector until you get the quaintly of light that you are looking for. Your control of the light, you determine the quality of light by how you shape the light from your reflector. You do this by feathering the light. If you have another assistant, you do lighting ratios too but we will talk about that in another post.

Sun Wranglers don’t be afraid of the sun. Grab your camera and your reflector and go outside and play.

Send me your name, location and 2 of your best sun wrangler images to (dennis@drhphotography.com) and I will post them next week?

All images are copywrite of © drH Photography 2012

Every third month of the year ten or so friends and fellow photographers get together to do something crazy…I mean…different. We try to get out of our comfort zone. Take my friend Randy who shoots allot of Weddings. One time we dragged him out to and to an old factory smoke stack out on the edge of town and he had the time of his life.

Our adventure starts here at the “No Trespassing” sign. After we find our way in, we shoot for about an hour if we’re luckily… but most of the time we have run from security and occasionally a guard dog or two.

Since, we’re getting a little old for that kind of stuff we now look for legitimate photo shoots.  Recently we asked for permission and were granted all access to a local junkyard.

We only have a few rules:

• You can’t touch, move or stage anything.  
• You can only shoot 30 frames.
• You have 2 hours to shoot your images.

This is a junkyard, and like other shoots in the past, we encourage safety first. Remember, no shot is worth getting hurt or dying over.

Most time we start early as we can to beat the Florida sun. Record our thirty frames and reconvened at some local restaurant for breakfast or lunch. This is where we compare images, and wished we had just a little more time to get the greatest of shots. This is my favorite part of the day because I’m surrounded by good friends, great food and plenty of laughs.

Even though the whole idea is to have a great time we do these things to learn from each other. Wow! What  a great concept “Learning from each other”

* All images photograph with a Canon EOS 1D mark 2 with canon 24-70 2.8 Lens and the canon 70-200 2.8 lens. Post: Lightroom 3.

All images copywrite of  drH Photography LLC

Today I am going to take another break from talking about one of the things I love, other than family and friends (Photography). My heart sinks a little lower today.  Maybe it is because I’ve had time to think about life and where I am going going. Certainly, the funeral of a beloved family member has given me reason to pause. It might be because of my day job as a television news photographer for almost 30 years. It often ushers me to the front row of life even though I would (sometimes) prefer to sit in the back.

What are we doing? Where are we going? From the guy at the red light on my left, with his music so loud at I can feel it my teeth, to the girl in the car on my right, deep texting her friends at 8:00 in the morning… (“What in the world could be so important”). Don’t forget the guy behind me in the 18 wheeler racing his engine has he inching closer to my bumper. (“Dude, you’re already late!!!”)

I often wonder, just where is the finish line? Is this our goal, to make all the money as we never stop, help, or care about anybody just so we can scream, “I’M RICH B_ _CH”… only to have Alzheimer’s robbed us of the very thing we can’t buy? Who hired them to take person humanity? Who taught our children to take guns to school only to watch their classmates tangle tubes and wires, fighting for their life?  ”STEP RIGHT UP”  and see the cure of cancer lay dying on the floor just because one of us decides to bring a gun into the school or workplace.

I’m amazed how a dictator can bomb and shoot people simply because they don’t want to be controlled by him anymore. “You lie” Mr. President seemed to be the beginning of never ending disrespect for people and country. Not long ago a radio show host called a woman a “SLUT” and then asked her if he could watch… since his taxes would pay for a birth control.

Young women’s dresses are getting higher while young boy’s pants hang lower. Whether it’s the defending bass or the unedited voices coming from our radio, its shaping our minds and our thoughts. We’re all doomed because we cannot hear the voice reason and understanding.

Every night, when I climb into bed my mind replays the events of the day: “Trayvon Martin, Mike Wallace Dead: 93, Navy Jet .Crashes into apartment complex, 10 year old girl gives birth. “Trayvon Martin” I just think I will wait until all the facts are in. Either way, one man’s life will never be the same and another mother has lost her son forever. How sad is that?

Are we in a race to make the most money? Are we running to see who can be the most dishonest? Are in a hurry to be the first to trample over our fellow man? We’re all headed to the same place. Lying on our backs, eyes closed as friends and strangers line-up to look upon our face one last time.

There’s nothing wrong with letting the guy with his turn signal on merge into your lane or saying, “Good Morning,” to someone you don’t even know. Dr. Richard Carlson’s wrote a self-help book called: “Don’t sweat the small stuff.” I believe it’s that  small stuff that we’re missing.

At the end of the day I thank GOD for giving me another chance to make a difference in somebody’s life.   When I think about photography, I smile. Even though the world is changing,  it is the “click” of my shuttler that  freezes life the way it use to be. No screams, no bullets, no mothers crying. Just a moment of happiness, a smile that never fades.   Some people say when you die, you see a light that is beautiful and bright. I hope I see that light when I go. I only wish I could take my camera. Rest in Peace Aunt Uila.

The image above was found online. It’s called “Shadowgraph” author is unknown. Even so, it is a great image.

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I hope all is well with you. There will not be a post today because of a death in the family and  I am traveling. Thanks for you understanding to this matter. Please come back (Wedneday) next week.

First, thank you everyone for your emails. It’s been great reading and responding to your comments.
G
I would like to take this moment to talk about something I have been hearing a lot of photographers teach. I  believe it is something that’s simply not true but I will let you decide.

We have all heard or read that aperture controls flash exposure and shutter speed controls ambient light.  Let’s explore this…Okay, aperture controls how much light reaches the digital sensor. Your flash as well as mine, put out the same amount of light. You can switch the power of your flash from full power to as little 1/64 power for some flashes. The amount of light from the flash is the same. The power ratios determine how long the flash is on. So if I had a flashlight and turned it on for 6 seconds to simulation full power, pointed it to a wall (our sensor in this case), and turned it on for 3 seconds to simulation 1/2 power, the flashlight power is the same but the amount of light building up on the sensor (the wall ) has a  different duration.

Your shutter determines how much light is exposed to the sensor. Look at it this way.  Picture a room with a white wall. Across from that white wall is window overlooking the city and two black walls across from each other. The glass window is our lens and the white wall is our sensor. Inside this room is another wall with a hole in it that we can make bigger or smaller (this will be our aperture for our lens). Two large curtains will be our shutter. The light from the window enters the room and travels to the hole, through the wall, and hits the black curtains. The curtains open exposing the wall for a period of time. Before the curtains close and a bright flash enters the room, then the curtains close turning off the light to out sensor (white wall). We have just witnessed a beautiful exposure of the city.

Yes, shutter speed controls ambient quantity,  but aperture controls flash exposure and ambient light. It is the aperture that controls the quality of light and the shutter controls quantity of light. So, remember our aperture controls all the light hitting the sensor and the shutter controls how long the sensor is exposed to light.

Have fun with your images. Until next week, be safe.