alittlenews

Maybe the first thing we learn about composition in photo school or in pretty much any photo book is to avoid the bulls eye effect. You know the one where you stick the person right in the middle of the viewfinder and squeeze the shutter release. There are billions of snap shots filling millions of shoe boxes across the world that were composed just this way. Since the advent of AF cameras with their center viewfinder focus rectangle, this compositional disease has probably run rampant.

It may be that composition is the greatest casualty of the AF era. Even pros can fall victim to this because most of us either don’t use or don’t trust those peripheral AF sensors too much and use the center sensor all the time. If you get lazy you can just forget to recompose the image after autofocusing and use the crop tool in Photoshop to clean up your mess later. Yes, this is the voice of experience talking here. Been there, done that.

The great thing about all rules of photography is that they just beg to broken and you can break this rule too. In photo school the instructors drum into your head that you should use the rule of thirds. That’s just great. I love the rule of thirds and I love seeing pictures composed that way. BUT, the rule of thirds is not law. To borrow a phrase from Pirates of the Caribbean, composition rules are more guidelines than actual rules. They are there to give you a good sense of direction. One reason you should learn all the rules of photography is so you can break them creatively! And lets face it, we all like to break the rules.

So, how can you break the rules creatively and go bulls eye on the viewer. Maybe it is best to know when not to first because that will also answer the question of when to at the same time. Basically, you should never, and I really do mean never here, place the subject in the middle of the frame and have nothing going on around them. That is just a poorly done snapshot. So then, it is logical to say that if you should never do it that way that you should always include other things in the frame when you use the bulls eye composition. Put the subject in the center and surround them with something or frame them with something else. In other words, fill the frame with something. A person surrounded by nothing is just boring.

Now that begs another question. How do you handle a subject with very little else in the frame? That is when you can use the rule of thirds to your advantage. You can compose off center and then allow the person to fall on one of the thirds and you instantly transform a fairly empty frame into an interesting composition. This is also a very useful technique when you want to establish a foreground/background relationship between your subject and its surroundings. No matter whether you place your subject in a dominant foreground position or a more subservient background position, the use of the rule of thirds will help you maintain visual interest.

As is often true with photography, you can do all the studying you want to but the best learning experience will be had with the camera in your hand out there making pictures. Make mistakes; learn from them. Make some nice images and enjoy them. Most of all, get out there and compose!

About the photos: The first photo is of a little boy I shot last year who aspires to be a rodeo cowboy. This was done with a Nikon D2Hs and a 17-35mm lens. The light is from a single SB800 on a light stand to camera right. I used the rule of thirds style composition and a low angle to emphasize the cloudy sky which really helps the basically empty frame. Contest judges have really liked this photo. It has won a couple of awards in our annual state photo contests so the composition has passed that test. The other photo is of a little girl I saw waiting to greet troops returning from Iraq at an aviation terminal at the Huntsville International Airport. It is a classic bulls eye composition done with a Nikon D2H and an 80-200mm lens. The flags help fill out the frame and prevent the picture from losing compositional interest immediately.

Photos copyright Gary Cosby Jr., The Decatur Daily. The opinions expressed in this blog are my own and do not necessarily reflect those of my employer.

Some days are just cool. Today was one of those days. I had the privilege of shooting the leader of the Blue Angels, Captain Kevin Mannix, to promote an air show in Huntsville. I day dreamed a shot on the way over to Huntsville thinking that I would have to shoot a portrait because I would not have time to stay and see the Blue Angels do their practice run through before I had to leave.

In my mind’s eye I could see a low angle shot of the pilot standing in front of his plane with side lighting. The sky was full of puffy cumulus clouds and could see a nice photo taking shape. The only problem was I didn’t know if we would even be allowed to see the airplanes much less photograph the pilot with the plane. Upon arrival at the airport, I found that, indeed, we would be interviewing the pilots directly in front of their aircraft. Ronnie Thomas was the reporter doing the interview and he and I were assigned Captain Mannix, the squadron boss.

Captain Mannix is an excellent man and very enthusiastic member of America’s armed forces. He has flown many combat missions the Middle East and hopes to return to carrier aviation when his tour is over with the Blue Angels. As he and Ronnie talked, I set up and tested my lights. I set two light stands about 10 feet apart with an SB28DX on one stand and an SB800 on the other with Pocket Wizards to fire them. I banged off a couple of frames to check exposure while Ronnie continued to talk with Captain Mannix. Realizing that I would need to light a full length portrait of the Captain, I decided to add a Vivitar 285HV with Pocket Wizard at the base of each light stand to illuminate the lower half of the man. These strobes I just laid in the cradle formed by the leg supports on the light stands.

I was just standing there listening to the interview when the Lieutenant managing the media tapped me on the shoulder and said, “Time’s up.” Now I just about freaked out because I had not yet taken one for real photo. I begged for just a minute and that was about all I had to shoot. Fortunately, I had my lights already set and tested. I literally shot five frames before I had to move. I had hoped to go through about three different set ups. Now I was stuck with just five frames! Had I not set up and tested while the interview was going on, I would have had nothing, literally.

Follow the Boy Scout motto and always be prepared. You just don’t know when that tap on the shoulder will come and you have to leave. In my few, brief seconds, I adjusted the Captain, set my camera on the tarmac and tilted it up with a 14mm lens and squeezed off three frames. I managed to stand up and get close with the 17-35 for the final two images and then I had to move so a TV guy could do an interview. I wasn’t happy but there was nothing left to do. If I could have a do over, I would certainly vary the pose and my angle of view. As it turned out, I was pleased with what I left with, especially considering the circumstances.

Then, to my absolute delight, the Air Force A-10 Warthawg began its practice session. The A-10 is my favorite military aircraft. It has no glamor but it is a beast with wings. The A-10 is designed for close air support and sports a variety of devastating ground attack weapons including the incredible 30mm cannon in its nose. The aircraft was designed to even the odds on the European battlefield where the Soviet Army would have had a vastly superior armored force to allied troops. The A-10 was to be the great equalizer. Thank God that it did not have to perform that role but it has proved entirely effective on Middle Eastern battlefields and in other deployments in the Balkans.

To cap off the time I had at the event, A P51 Mustang of World War II fame flew in formation with the A-10 and I was able to shoot two of my favorite planes flying side by side. What an excellent day!

Photos copyright The Decatur Daily, Gary Cosby Jr. The opinions expressed in this blog are my own and do not necessarily reflect those of my employer.

There is something about the human brain that likes shapes. A crafty photographer will use all kinds of shapes to help grab a reader’s attention. If you have ever studied composition, you know that triangles are your friend. The triangle does not have to be literal of course but the elements in the photo that form a triangle tend to hold the eye. Well, we are not going to talk about triangles. That was just free with admission.

We are going to deal with using some naturally occurring shapes to help you make some pictures. Shapes can come in geometric forms, amorphic forms and even alphabet or numeral shapes. Any or all are just fine. The point is that shapes help keep the reader where you want him and that is staring all google eyed at your photos. (Apologies to the now famous search engine!)

You can define shapes within the frame using any lens in your bag. The real key is in seeing the shapes yourself. Many times when I am searching for a feature photo I will look for shapes to help carry an image. When I find a cool shape, I will just hang out until I have a photo or come back repeatedly, even for weeks or even months, until I get a situation that yields a nice photo. Perhaps now would be a good time to review the post on developing photographic patience. Anyway, why waste a good spot when nothing is going on. Other times I just blunder into a good shape and, BANG!, the photo practically slaps me in the face.

Sometimes you can spot a good shape and bring a subject back later for an interesting portrait. Keep a file, either mental or written down somewhere, of locations where you can check up on when you need a good portrait location or a good feature photo. These can be lifesavers when you have to have a shot really fast. Let’s talk about the photos now.

The first image is one that really appeals to me. There is something in my brain that just really digs the inverted horseshoe shape made by the ceiling which frames this stairwell on the Delta Queen Riverboat which used to dock in Decatur. The boat is now either in its final year of service or has been retired due to a government regulation barring wooden hull boats from carrying over a certain number of passengers. The Delta Queen is a truly historic boat and I have personal fond memories of seeing in lock through Wheeler Dam as a child. My grandfather was lock master at Wheeler for many years and we would go down and see him and see the riverboat going through. It is one of those warm, fuzzy childhood memories that have stayed with me over the years.

Anyway, I used a Nikon D2Hs with a 17-35 zoom with the camera placed on the floor. The only thing I could wish for would be a little less exterior light shining in the bottom of the frame and for a lady in an old fashioned southern ball dress to be on the stairwell instead of a guy in shorts and flip flops. Oh well! The low angle and the wide angle provide a nice combination that emphasizes the curvature of the lines and, like I said, causes the photo to really appeal to me. It is one of my favorites. Architecture is a great source of shapes and every place has architecture so keep your eyes open and your idea file handy.

Next we have a photo on the opposite end of the visual spectrum. This one was shot with a D2H and a 400 f2.8 S lens. I don’t remember for certain but I may have used the 1.4 teleconverter with this image. I was out near Pryor Field, a small airport in southern Limestone County and they had relocated the road to create a longer runway. The new road formed this nice, lazy “S” from a certain point of view and the telephoto compression really helps the image. All I had to do was wait for a vehicle to come along to give some perspective and I had another arresting image. It is just really cool to see these things. You can go back there now and not see this image at all because the grass along the sides of the road obscures the edges enough to make this shot impossible. Right time, right place, right lens.

The last image was made with a 17-35 on a D2Hs in Point Mallard Park’s Aquatic Center. We do a bunch of photos in the Aquatic Park so it is always a challenge to come back with something a little different. I walked up to one of the water slides just trying to see differently and suddenly I noticed this big number “6″ formed by the slide. I wish I could have been a little more elevated but there was no way to do that but the shape is still visible. Really, life is full of shapes when we take a step back from the daily routine to recognize them.

The best way to do some compositions using shapes is to go out looking for them. You drive around your city every day and never really see it. I remember reading a Sherlock Holmes story once when Holmes asked Watson if he knew how many steps led up to their flat. Of course, Watson didn’t know. He had never paid attention but Holmes knew exactly because he did pay attention. Shapes are everywhere. So, are you Holmes or are you Watson?

Photos copyright The Decatur Daily, Gary Cosby Jr. The opinions expressed in this blog are my own and do not necessarily represent those of my employer.

I’ve had a long break from blogging while nailing down a new roof on my house. I don’t recommend roofing as a second career, or a first career, unless plumbing is the only other option. Even with the milder than normal weather last week, Alabama in June is no place to be working on a roof. So now I am back and my home is once again “in the dry” and I am ready to return to the world of photojournalism.

Every now and then a group will ask me to come and do a photo workshop or class for them. I just about always include this lesson as the foundation for the class. Everyone wants to make equipment the primary focus of any photo discussion as if equipment were going to make the picture. Photographers make photographs and cameras are our tools. In an earlier post during the Getting Better Fast series, I talked about the decisive moment. That is a good starting place if you have not read it already.

Now lets talk about the composition. All rules aside, I am going to say that composition is simply the way you chose to arrange objects in the frame whether you do it in the viewfinder while shooting or use the crop tool in Photoshop. I may have said this before but if you really want to learn about composition, study master photographers and great artists. Don’t encumber you mind with a bunch of rules unless your mind just really digs rules. Otherwise, study the great photos and works of art and see how they arrange the items in the frame. For this post, I am using three photos of egrets in an around the Wheeler National Wildlife Refuge in Decatur, Alabama. These images were literally shot within a few yards of roadways and two of them were shot just off Alabama Highway 67 which is heavily traveled.

The top photo is the most extremely horizontal. I shot it and all the others in this post with a Nikon D2H or D2Hs and a 400mm f3.5 manual lens. This first image is an example to cropping to improve the composition. I had the bird positioned just fine in the frame but the depth of the frame provided too much information. I cropped this image to a thin horizontal that emphasized the lines created by the sand bar/mud bar in the background which was receiving nice light. The lines help direct your eye to the bird.

The next image is one I shot of a bird flying in to land in shallow water near Alabama 67. When you have a subject that has movement in real life, you can sometimes use your composition to imply movement in a still photo by allowing more space in the frame in the direction of the subject’s movement. In this case, the movement was left to right so I cropped to emphasize this direction. This is, of course, not a hard and fast rule, just a good idea that can be done the opposite way to give a different feel to the image.

This final image was made on one of those rare fall days where the color from trees on the shore was coloring the water. I have looked for this type photo many times and this is about the only one like it I have. There is a bit of tweaking in Photoshop here to enhance contrast. The more bold the contrast in this image, the more vivid the color so it is pumped up a bit. The natural color is just a shade less vibrant than this. The composition in this photo actually goes contrary to what I just said. The bird is in the top middle and the implied motion should be right to left. I chose to do this in vertical format to emphasize the water and the wonderful coloration. The bird’s reflection just adds a really nice touch.

For a long time, I labored with composition. It comes more naturally now but that is just a by product of having shot a lot of photos that didn’t work. You can study composition in a book or you can just go and compose. I went to college at the University of North Alabama and it happens that Michael “Nick” Nichols or National Geographic fame also attended there. The professors tell stories of how nick carried some little stuffed animal around in his camera bag and would use it to practice composition. It apparently paid off for him. If you are unfamiliar with Nick’s work, Google him. He has some magnificent images and he is most well known for his work with the great apes.

Photos copyright The Decatur Daily, Gary Cosby Jr. The opinions expressed in this blog are my own and do not necessarily reflect those of my employer.

I don’t know how fashionable it was to be emotional before Tiger came along with his famous fist pumps and yells, but it has certainly become more of an emo sport since he came along. I think Tiger shattered a whole lot of long standing golf idols while still managing to respect the game and its history. For all of us who have played golf as duffers, we know all about emo golf. Our golf is usually punctuated by negative emotion since few of us hit shots like the T man. We are more likely to spice our shots with thrown clubs, words our moms would not approve of and those looks of knowing disgust.

For photographers who have never covered golf, this may come as a surprise. Golf, the buttoned down game of knickers and funky plaid pants, has emotion. Looking for emotion on the course without, of course, becoming a target for someone’s thrown club, can really spice up your photography of this grand old game. Obviously, by far the most common emotions you will see are negative emotions. The grimace after a mishit drive or the bending over backwards lean after a missed putt. Sometimes the emotion shows up while players are waiting to hit. Sometimes it comes like a storm after they hit.

Like every other aspect of photography, being in the right place at the right time with the right lens and actually looking for those moments makes it much easier to shoot. You can get emotion at any time on the course but around the green you will be able to see more emotion than anywhere else. Golfers watching the ball roll to the hole are a great place to snag an emo picture. The reaction to a good putt or a bad putt are your best chance at emotion photos. Another place you will see plenty of emotion is on and around the tee box. When golfers, especially amateurs, hit poor shots they can really put on a show. You will see them drop clubs, make faces and yell things to the ball which don’t really matter to you or to the ball but it is good theater.

One thing to keep in mind when shooting the negative emotion stuff is not to overdo it. Get your shot and move on. Don’t go nuts over it because that can really irritate the competitor and most of my tournaments are the local variety where nothing other than a little pride is on the line. Most of these guys aren’t pros and won’t ever be. If I am shooting the boys who are getting paid then I would be more inclined to press the matter but that won’t help you any with your local club tournaments. Be sensitive to the situation and shoot accordingly. Of course, no one gets worked up over you shooting positive emo. You can just lay on the shutter and bang away. It all evaporates quickly anyway.

Another thing to keep an eye on is body language. A lot of golfers can play all poker faced but they will usually give away their feelings in the body language and this can be seen from a long way off. Watch the way they are walking and you can sometimes see joy or anger and that will give you a good clue where to find the emotion. Some players are just naturally more expressive than others anyway. Find one of these players and just mine them until you have some good stuff. Many times at club tournaments you are not really too worried about the leaders, especially in the early rounds and finding emotion will give you some nice photos to work with and it will keep you away from having the always present club swing photo in the paper for three or four days. It is just double eagle territory when the leaders are the ones who are giving up the best emotion. Where are you anyway Tiger Woods? Want to come play in Decatur?

Photos copyright The Decatur Daily, Gary Cosby Jr. The opinions expressed in this blog are my own and do not necessarily reflect those of my employer.

Golf courses are the most scenic sporting venues where most of us will ever shoot. I for one, will probably never do a mountain biking story in the Rockies or surfing in Hawaii. (One can only hope!!!!) That leaves golf courses. My ambition is to one day be able to cover the Master’s at Augusta National. That place is just beautiful. That you can play a sport in such a picturesque location just boggles the mind.

The courses in our coverage area don’t rival Augusta but they all harbor some beautiful elements and you can use those elements to help you make some very interesting photographs. The easy photo is just banging away on the golfer as tight as possible so you can get those swings and follow throughs. Man, now that is exciting. You will come back from the tournament and all your stuff will look exactly the same. I know that is what my editors want to see.

So after you get tired of golfer after golfer in his follow through, try looking over your course to see what possibilities it holds as a visual element. Trees can be used for framing. Sand traps can be used as artistic elements. Fountains can create a really unusual element. Lakes, creeks, shadows, hills, elevated tees, elevated greens, even an elevated photographer can all make those typical golf shots rather atypical. Use the geography of the golf course to help you. Places that frustrate the competitors can be just the ticket to make a better shot for you.

There are a few things I like to do. I always look for something growing on the course that I can shoot through. Flowers, trees and bushes are all good candidates for framing a photo. A bush, tree or flower in full bloom or blossom can be spectacular and can be used for either a foreground frame or a background that is beyond the ordinary. Water on the course is another good visual element. A creek snaking along a fairway or a lake guarding a green can easily be turned into a compositional element. Early morning and late afternoon light spilling through trees along the fairway can stripe the fairway beautifully and give you another possibility. Sand traps are just cool, unless you are trying to hit out of one of them.

Try and look for places where you are either well above or beneath the level of the golfers you are photographing. Some courses have excellent contour and you can use those contours to help you gain a different point of view. An elevated green or tee box can help you isolate your golfer against the sky. Basically, you can do a lot with golf that you can’t do with any other sport. Just keep your eyes open for the visual possibilities.

Photos copyright The Decatur Daily, Gary Cosby Jr. The opinions expressed in this blog are my own and do not necessarily reflect those of my employer.

I’m not Emily Post but here goes a little lesson in golf etiquette. Golf is the most peculiar sport I have ever run across when it comes to dos and don’ts while shooting the game. One would think that the clicking of a camera shutter would not even register on a golfer who was intensely concentrating on his game but any little noise seems to cause problems. Since this is a fact of the game you have to be particularly conscious of not being obtrusive in either positioning or in decibel level.

I was shooting the Spirit of America golf tournament one year at the Burningtree Country Club and legendary PGA golfer Jerry Pate was there to watch his son. Of course, I had to get a picture of Jerry watching his son so I introduced myself to him and we conversed briefly. The last thing he said to was, “Just make sure you don’t shoot during his back swing.” You may have seen Tiger Woods on TV dressing down a photographer for shooting when he wasn’t supposed to. It seems that the back swing is taboo.

The best safe guard is to just shoot with long glass. Sound, especially on a windy day, doesn’t carry very, particularly if you are down wind from the golfer. The other advantage to long glass is that golfers are fairly sensitive to your proximity to them. The long glass gives you a nice buffer and keeps you “out of their face” while still allowing you to get tight shots. You are still going to get some golfer who is just camera conscious and he will give you anything from an evil eye to some verbal abuse to even calling a course marshal on you for just pointing a camera at him. Fortunately, not all golfers are Princess and the Pea sensitive.

There are really two sets of rules when covering golf. There is one set for professional and serious amateur events and another set for club and charity tournaments. When I have covered the Hooter’s Tour, they have passed out a set of media guidelines which you are asked to follow. They are specific but very much common courtesy and common sense. You are expected to behave just like the photogs covering the PGA. Hooter’s is a bit like AA baseball is the the Major Leagues. These guys are serious and are trying to make the tour. The second set of rules are much more relaxed and apply to the fun events such as best ball charity tournaments. Most of your high school and college tournaments should be treated the same as a pro event.

No matter which kind of tournament you are covering, there are some basic things you should do and not do. Obviously, don’t be disruptive, especially when a golfer is in his back swing. Once he has made contact with the ball, fire away. Remain at a respectful distance from the golfer while he makes his shot. If you are unsure, ask someone such as a course marshal or even another golfer who is not involved in making a shot. Stay out of the golfer’s line of sight unless you are really quite far away. When you are shooting from a position ahead of the golfer you can use a low shooting position or use a tree or bush to help shield you from the golfer’s view.

Be conscious of your movements and don’t move around while the golfer is making his swing. It is also important that if you are driving a cart not to drive in the immediate area of a golfer making a shot. Many times you will have a driver or an escort of some kind who is a golfer and they will be mindful of this anyway. When you are around the green, you can usually get closer to the golfer but it is important not to move around while he is putting. Movement is very distracting while a person is standing over a ball. In a big tournament, the golfer can be very tense and even more sensitive than normal. Keep in mind that the people you are photographing may be playing for money or standing or both. You don’t want to be the cause of a bad shot that could cost him money.

Finally, put your cell phone on silent or just turn it off. There is really nothing more distracting than having a cell phone ring while you are shooting pictures. Imagine how much more distracting that is to a golfer trying to make a shot. You can sum up the etiquette of shooting golf with two guidelines; keep quiet and be invisible.

Photo copyright The Decatur Daily, Gary Cosby Jr. The opinions expressed in this blog are my own and do not necessarily reflect those of my employer.

Golf is a boring game. Golf is a quirky game. Golf is an exciting game. Golf is a frustrating game. Golf is difficult to shoot. Golf yields spectacular photos. All true and sometimes all at the same time for both golfer and photographer. I want to get back to the Positioned For Success series and do a few posts on shooting the game of golf. Since everyone reading this can pick up a camera and shoot pictures of a person swinging the club, lets look at the quirky side of the game and see how to shoot it, or at least how to make quirky pictures that are out of the ordinary golf coverage.

First of all, I have never shot anything bigger than the Spirit of America golf tournament in Decatur or a Hooters Tour Event. The Spirit tournament draws some of the best amateur golfers from around the southeast while the Hooters is a pro tour that is a couple of notches below the venerable PGA Tour. At least a few of the players in both of these tournaments will one day play on the PGA Tour and some have played and are working their way back. That said, the vast majority of our golf coverage comes from the high school and country club events and charity events that proliferate through the Spring and Summer.

This leaves us with the probability of shooting a whole bunch of golf that has no impact beyond the event itself and often it is a charity tournament that is more of a fun event than a no holds barred competition so making pictures that are not repetitive becomes a challenge. Enter the quirky element. A quirky photo can happen anywhere from the club house to the driving range to the 18th green so you have to be ready and actually be searching for something beyond the ordinary because if there were ever a sport that is very easy to be ordinary at photographing it is golf.

That is the secret. Don’t settle for anything ordinary. At least go out having the mindset that you are not going to settle for anything ordinary. You have to shoot the guys, or gals, swinging the club but look for different ways to do the shot. Can you climb a tree? Ahh, there is one I have never tried. Maybe this year. Can you do something with lights and shadows? Can you find a golfer doing something out of the ordinary like a golfer clowning around driving the cart? Who knows, some guy a little tanked up may put a golf cart in the drink. Now that would be a photo!

There are no real technical secrets to this post. You can improve your chances of getting a quirky photo by following someone around who has some personality. Look for them on the driving range or watch a few groups tee off and see who you think might yield the best chance at something a little off beat. Just a hint here, but the guy who has his Tiger face on is probably not your guy for a quirky photo. That is the guy you will just tick off by following him around. Find the guy who is all loose on the range or on the tee and hang with him for a few holes. Don’t make a nuisance out of yourself. Just hang back and watch. Golfers are a sensitive bunch when it comes to photography which will be the subject of a later post. For now, keep your eyes peeled for the offbeat and hang in there until you get something off the beaten path.

About The Photos: The top photo was shot on the driving range during a Hooter’s Tour Event. The golfer was using a portable mirror to check his swing on the range just as many people now use video cameras. It was odd, off the beaten path and made me happy. The only thing that was difficult was keeping my reflection out of the mirror and not getting hit in the head by the follow through. The second photo is from a charity tournament. These guys were sitting between the 9th and 18th greens heckling the golfers after they would putt out. Not exactly good golf etiquette but it was a heck of a lot of fun.

Photos copyright The Decatur Daily, Gary Cosby Jr. The opinions expressed in this blog are my own and do not necessarily reflect those of my employer.

Shooting food for our newspaper is a bit random. We are using mostly amateur cooks and usually photographing them in their home kitchens. We do have about three of four ladies we use from to time that are professionals, one even works as a contributing editor for a food magazine. These are the exceptions. The rule is most of the people we photograph are cooks just like your mom or wife or husband. Some of them can make great food that looks great and some of them make great food but the presentation can be a bit iffy.

Enter the food promo for a local seafood festival. A local Catholic congregation does a seafood festival every year as a fund raising event. My job was to photograph the food and a couple of the men who were involved in the cooking. They showed up with the traditional elements for a shrimp boil; shrimp, corn on the cob and potatoes. The men also brought their own plates and service items. Basically I had no control over any of the elements in the photo. I was assigned to do the shot in the studio but when I saw the items I knew that my best bet was to get outside and use the last light of the day and somehow work it into the photo. Our studio is small and very difficult to do much in other than a head shot or a table top setting.

When I saw the clear plate the creative wheels began to turn. I had to do a traditional food shot of all the stuff on the plate but I knew I could do better with the clear glass. I knocked out the traditional shot and then moved out from the table area and decided it would be very nice to shoot up at the plate. The ambient light was basically just dusk light in the sky. I set my main light, an SB800 in an umbrella on a light stand and extended it to just about its max height of 11 feet and tipped it so it would direct light straight down. I had some trouble keeping this umbrella out of the photo and ended up moving it back about two feet to keep it out of the frame.

A couple of test frames showed me I needed to add some light from beneath to keep from silhouetting the shrimp so I laid another SB800 on the ground pointed straight up. A few adjustments to the power ratios on the two strobes and I arrived at my final exposure. I shot two angles on this low angle shot, one showing the man’s face and the other here that does not. I really liked this one best but we ran the one where you can see the guy’s face in the newspaper. Not unexpected.

I really love to shoot food and not because I sometimes get to eat a few bites! That is just one of the occasional perks. Ummmmm. Food photography is the one thing in photojournalism that really stretches your lighting skills. If you look at some food magazines or mags that feature food, you will see some amazing craftsmanship in the photos. I really press to get better with each food assignment. Hey, a guy has to retire someday so why not retire into food photography? Now that is the life! Just joking but food photography gives you a great chance to try new techniques, new lenses, and just some new ideas. The food doesn’t run away, talk back or fight you. It just sits there and looks good.

Photos copyright The Decatur Daily, Gary Cosby Jr. The opinions expressed in this blog are my own and do not necessarily reflect those of my employer.

Believe it or not, making beautiful people look beautiful in photos is not as easy as it would seem. I have found it far easier to make people look ugly than to make them look beautiful no matter what their eye appeal is. Basically, it comes down to light. Everyone has seen the difference in Hollywood stars when they are on the cover of a magazine with a well lit portrait and when they are caught in the glaring light of on camera strobes in those tabloid moments. Lighting makes the difference. Okay, makeup artists, stylists, art directors and those cool fans they use on fashion shoots make a little difference too!

Every year, we do a send off party for the reigning Miss Point Mallard as she is getting ready to leave for the Miss Alabama pageant. During this party, the beautiful young lady models her gowns for us to photograph. There is no set, no stylist, no cool fan to blow her outfits around and the lighting is usually just what you carry in with you which, in my case, means a trio of SB strobes. The party is always held in the private home of one of the pageant coordinators so the backgrounds can range from really good to very difficult to work with. Space limitations are always the biggest problem because about all of these folks have nice homes. So there we have the challenges.

Katie Boyd is the reigning Miss Point Mallard and they tell me she has a good chance to become Miss Alabama. I photographed her in three outfits during the send off party this year and I got a couple of shots that are worth talking about. Both are three light photos but there are two different approaches which I will contrast for you. The first photo is my favorite. The red dress, the excellent background and the lovely young lady just make this a really appealing photo for me.

The main light is an SB800 in an umbrella positioned to the camera left, high and at about 65 degrees left of the camera to model line. I had Katie turn slightly toward this light so the angle of the light on her was actually closer to a classic 45 degree position. There is a light positioned very high and behind her to the camera right. It was placed a ceiling level and aimed down to give some separation from the background. Then there was a problem. The high light separated her upper half from the background but the lower portion of her dress blended in and we were losing the foot and leg extended through the slit in her gown.

To solve this problem I positioned a third SB800 on a chair slightly ahead of her and aimed from her waist down. I was getting spill onto the background which was very bad so I used my bag to scrim this light so it was not impacting the background at all. The result you see here.

The second set up was with a different gown and in a different room in the house. With the owners permission we pretty much moved the furniture from her dining room so we could use a small cove in one wall for our background. Katie’s gown featured a low scooped back and I wanted to highlight this feature. The electric blue gown made a nice color combo with the wall color but I needed to light the cove to bring out the color.

The lighting setup for this one uses two umbrellas with SB strobes. The lighting ratio is not quite 2:1 but is comes fairly close with the main light being on the camera left. I collapsed the umbrella on the right so the light fall off was somewhat controlled. You can control how much of the umbrella you collapse by moving the umbrella shaft in or out relative to your flash. This helps you control how much the umbrella closes. You have to be careful with this technique because the light fall off can be fairly dramatic causing you to under light portions of your frame. The third light is just laying on the floor and aimed up. It was set to about 1/32nd power and zoomed to the 85mm setting. This lit the cove with some control on the beam spread.

I left with two photos I was very pleased with and they fed me dinner on top of all that. Very nice indeed!

Photos copyright The Decatur Daily. The opinions expressed in this blog are my own and do not necessarily reflect those of my employer.