My second assignment of the evening was to photograph a local cross country runner for an upcoming feature. I’ve shot a few sportraits in my day, but never one of a runner. One of the main challenges was location. I met her and the reporter at the high school and while she was doing a short interview, I scouted a few shots within walking distance of the main entrance of the school. If this had been a track runner, I would have been automatically drawn to the school’s track, but cross country presents a bigger challenge for the background. The school is near a busy highway so I settled on a running shot next to the school’s brick exterior for the sake of a clean background. Ideally, I would have liked to have an open field or a forest to shoot in, but this was the best background I could find on the fly. I had her run towards a Nikon SB-800 (1/8 power, zoomed to 24 mm) while I added a bit of fill with a Nikon SB-600 at a 45 degree behind her (1/4 power, zoomed to 24 mm). I had a sort of sweet spot between the lights, and it took a few passes for me to catch her in the lights.
Portraits
Homes portrait
It’s been a while since I’ve shot a lit portrait. In Austin, I seemed to shoot quite a bit of them of local musicians, but today was the only the second time I had pulled my speedlights out of the bag since I started here about two months ago. My first assignment was to photograph a local home for an upcoming story previewing the Opera Illinois Yule Walk tour of homes. For the interior shots, I went 100-percent ambient because the house had large windows that created a very interesting ambiance in the home. I did pull the lights out of the trunk for portraits of the owners in order to throw a little more light on their faces. Here are couple of my favorites:
Farewell Austin
I had a pretty good summer. This realization came to me on the last day of my internship at the Austin American-Statesman as a few of the staffers looked at my work from the summer. Throughout the entire internship, I had constantly beat myself up over the quality of my work. I’m by far my own worst critic. I often overlook the good and immediately focus on the flaws. I’m extremely driven to be a better photographer, which can sometimes frustrate me when I don’t make perfect images. I might hit a single, but I’m often swinging for the fences. This summer as a whole was a time of tremendous personal and professional growth for me. I’m grateful for the awesome opportunity to have learned from and worked alongside incredible photojournalists at the Statesman.
[Read more…] about Farewell AustinOn the fly portraits
One thing I’ve found a bit stressful this summer is doing lighted portraits on the fly. Whereas commercial and fashion photographers often have days to plan out shoots, often I’ll get an assignment where I have to photograph someone in an hour in a location I’m not familiar with. It’s just part of the job and while it can be stressful, it can also be extremely satisfying when you come back with a good shot. (I recommend checking out Alex Garcia’s post about photographing Zac Efron for the Chicago Tribune in 5 minutes.) Such was the case for me today. I had about 30 minutes to make a portrait of Barry Evans, the CEO of Smooth-Stone Inc. As I was walked into the building, I started scoping out areas that might make for a good backdrop. Here’s what I came up with: