Family heirlooms provide insight into generations gone by.  This is Mary Jung’s vase given to my wife.  She loves this ceramic vase, especially the Lord’s Prayer written on it.

I took this shot with my homemade straw grid on a 285HV on a black acrylic sheet.  If you find this page and were lucky enough to know Mary, then you’ll know how much this heirloom means to my wife.

I’ve been thinking about this project for quite awhile, and finally got some time to make the photo part of the project materialize.  The kids performed well and giggled while I wrote on their hands.  Now, I have to figure out how to make the card part of the project.  We have tons of materials, just need to figure out size and embellishments.  I could see several projects like this in the future! 

There’s a crop on this photo, color desaturation, and the toned down brightness create this effect.

OK, the boy made a Nissan Dealership for his school project.  Everyone in the class had to pick a different building in a city and make it out of shoe boxes and other materials lying around the house.  I’m really proud of him, because the only piece I did was cut the foam board, while he did all the hot gluing and assembly.

I was busy playing with my garage sale gear from last weekend (wishing I had bought more) and took this self portrait.  There’s three 285HV flashes triggered by Cactus v4s in this shot plus an obnoxious hair light.  Even with a 9 foot ceiling that hair light is really overbearing.  I rarely call Chris in to view my photos, but I did on this one.  She like’s the wedding ring in this photo the best! 

Here’s a recent discovery.  Bryan Orr and I were walking around Lake Lenexa and finally made it to the dam side.  Wouldn’t you know it, photo opportunities galore.  There are so many opps before you get to the dam it’s easy to see why we never made it all the way the dam before.  Glad we did, this is straight out of the camera with a lightroom Cold Tone filter on the first two.  Last one is cropped, but again straight out of the camera.

Today, they got along… Maybe it was because it’s Easter and you just have to get along when you start thinking about Jesus.  I’m ordering prints and plastering the walls with these.  My favorite printer just got an order… Mpix

Photo Info:  All natural light with my 50mm Canon prime lens.

I feel like doing something big!  Not sure what though.  Thought about shooting a graphic form some of my friends status on FaceBook.  There’s one status that talks about Metrosexuals, if I knew what that really was maybe I could photograph it.  With that thought I’ll leave you with this…

This little girl has it all.  She’s got the look that makes me crumble into a little puddle of goo.  Post processing was done solely in Lightroom – Setting was on cold tone.

This Friday I’m showing my first attempt at a large photography project.  It’s a fundraiser for the Pack’s new race track.  I’m organizing a photo shoot at the Pinewood Derby race this year.  For $7 you’ll get a photo of your scout and his car in a nice folio.  This is the sample that will be on the envelope for all to see before they purchase. 

Strobist Info:  I used a shoot through umbrella and a reflective umbrella on each side at 45 degrees to the model.  The flashes were a Canon 550EX and a 285HV set to 1/4 power.

Setup shot:

Photo Info:

Camera: Canon EOS 40D
Exposure: 0.008 sec (1/125)
Aperture: f/4.5
Focal Length: 75 mm
ISO Speed: 400
Exposure Bias: 0 EV
Flash: Strobist

There’s a universe out there waiting to be explored.  Tonight, I was looking for the Space Station at 6:02PM Central time.  I was hoping to get the Telescope out and hook up the Canon 40D to bring home a cool shot.  Unfortunately the Space Station is fast.  To the tune of 17,500 miles per hour.  They circle the earth in about 90 minutes and see the sunrise 16 times a day.  In the end the space station to the naked eye appears like a fast moving star.  There’s no light trail left behind like a shooting star, but it’s just too fast to track with a telescope.  The Space Station was only viewable for about 10 minutes and afterwards I pointed my telescope with my DSLR attached at the moon. 

More about the Space Station: http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/main/index.html

To track the station and find a viewing time use NASA’s SkyWatch application located here: http://spaceflight.nasa.gov/realdata/sightings/SSapplications/Post/JavaSSOP/JavaSSOP.html

Photo Info:

Camera: Canon EOS 40D
Exposure: 0.02 sec (1/50)
ISO Speed: 1600
Exposure Bias: 0 EV
Flash: Off, Did not fire

Strobist Info: 

Seriously, did you think I could light the moon?

Flickr Link:  http://www.flickr.com/photos/michael_reynolds/4140390637/

Ok, I freaked when she asked me for my hat…

Please, don't ask for my hat.  It's cool and comfy.  The last girl who took it didn't want to give it back...this is me while she takes a photo of my tantrum.  Not a bad photo from a 5 year old.

Strobist Information:  1/2 power 550EX to the left of the model with a shoot through umbrella.  Fired with my handy Cactus v4 triggers.

Photo Info: 

Camera: Canon EOS 40D
Exposure: 0.008 sec (1/125)
Aperture: f/4.0
Focal Length: 32 mm
Exposure: +1.15
ISO Speed: 100
Exposure Bias: 0 EV
Flash: Strobist

Flickr Link: http://www.flickr.com/photos/michael_reynolds/4104992388/

“You look like you are in the Volturi” was the best comment I received about this photo when I posted it as my FaceBook profile picture.  The second best comment was the one were Lauretta said I looked like a witch hunter. 

I was surprised that no one made any references to my title “…I grew strong”  I was referencing my growth in my lighting capabilities that this picture illustrates.  I still didn’t get all the shadows removed that I’d hoped.  Down below you’ll see my setup shot.

Strobist info:  Above me was my trusty 285HV in a straw gridded snoot at full power.  below and in front of me was a bare Canon 550EX at 1/64 power all triggered by Cactus V4 triggers.  A white reflector was at my feet angled toward my face.

Photo info:

Camera: Canon EOS 40D
Exposure: 0.008 sec (1/125)
Aperture: f/4.0
Focal Length: 39 mm
Exposure: 0.00
ISO Speed: 100
Exposure Bias: 0 EV
Flash: Strobist, two flash and reflector

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I’m a couple days late getting these posted.  Again, these photos were shot with one flash in a shoot through umbrella to the left and a reflective silver umbrella on another flash to the right.  I have a 43” reflector right in the middle while hand holding my Canon 40D right below the reflector.  The background is a 6’x9’ I received from CowboyStudio.

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Here’s the latest mini project, that I’ll be repeating with my youngest tomorrow.  I wanted to do a nice back to school photo to hang on the wall.  Here we started out pretty serious and went downhill rapidly as he’s wearing my shoes in the middle shot. 

Each of the photos was shot with one flash in a shoot through umbrella to the left and a reflective silver umbrella on another flash to the right.  I have a 43” reflector right in the middle while hand holding my Canon 40D right below the reflector.  The background is a 6’x9’ I received yesterday from CowboyStudio.  I paid a whopping $20.21 and so far I think it’s worked out really well, but then again most things seem pretty good on the first day…

Tomorrow, I’ll do another First Day of School project.  See you then!

In all my time living in the small town of Granby, Missouri, I don’t think I took more than a couple dozen photos.  Now, that I live three hours away the shutter clicks go off at a rate of almost 20 a month.  Here’s a shot of the Granby water tower.

Background: This shot was taken around 10AM on August 2nd from with my Canon 40D and the best lens I got, the 17-40MM L.  I only took two shots of the tower and both were equal in presentation.

Favorite Water Quote: 

A man may well bring a horse to the water but he cannot make him drink.
- John Heywood, 1497-1580

Photo Info:
Exposure: 1/4000 sec
Aperture: f/4.0
Focal Length: 40 mm
Exposure: 0.00
ISO Speed: 400
Exposure Bias: 0 EV
Flash: Off, Did not fire

This photo also appears in my PhotoStream at Flickr.com

New challenges always inspire me to be more than I was yesterday and drive my innovation.  This is a dual purpose project that not only helps a small town pizza shop but also allows me to fulfill an assignment of the "Strobist Boot Camp II.”  Though my sister would doubt my smiling calzone is truly innovation I love how he turned out.  The dessert pizza is probably a candidate to put on a menu or brochure, but my other two photos are the ones I consider to be the best out of the shoot.  The bottom two photos do have the owners blurred beyond recognition as well as their kids.  These are located at the very bottom of this post.

All of the shots that are in the this post were shot with a 285HV behind an umbrella turned down to 1/16 power, backlit by the natural light of the front windows.  My lovely assistant held a silver reflector to the right of the food angled down to further any backside shadows opposite of the flash.  Not missing a single hit were my Cactus v4 wireless triggers.  My lens of choice for this shoot was my 17-40mm which I’m an advocate of being anyone’s first “pro” series lens. 

Currently, I claim micro-photography status.  Don’t confuse this with macrophotography as I truly don’t have a lens with the feature and my interest just doesn’t lie in that facet of photography…yet.  I say micro-photography in the same connotation as micro-brewery should be viewed.  I don’t have the infrastructure or personnel to do elaborate photo assignments in the same matter that a micro-brewery couldn’t start shipping to a nation full of customers.  The tools and automation to support shooting 500 school children in a single day and the delivery system to provide parents the options of 7 different photo packages are significant and the experience necessary for that kind of scale is learned over a period of time.  What I like to do in my micro-photography world is set up small assignments with a lot of flexibility given to the photographer on the day of the shoot.  Here’s an example.

About a month ago my neighbor, the Vice President of the Parent Teacher Committee, had a fantastic idea she shared with me.  Since our school is being split into another and many of the students and faculty will be moving, she wanted to do a special photo session of each class and present the final product as a teacher appreciation gift.  She’s seen my landscape work of Lake Olathe in charity auctions and inferred my skills were not of a photographic newbie, but I’m fairly certain she had made the assumption that a good landscape photographer is a good group portrait photographer.  I’m curious if she knew that tidbit if she would have offered the gig to me, but little did it matter as my excited acceptance of the assignment sealed the deal!  The teacher appreciation gifts would be an awesome experience gainer and give me a manageable level of exposure.  There was no haggling over price or deliverables as I instantly claimed my sitting fee would be waived and unframed 8x10s of each class would be provided at cost [at the time of writing this was $1.99 each at MPix]. 

The great thing about providing photography services for free is the amount of control over the project—almost complete control, and the tolerance of imperfection to process.  For instance, when on a family vacation I cut the old time photographer little slack when she had six customers in line and didn’t even acknowledge any client except the one she was taking pictures of and then had the audacity to continue ignoring every client until the pictures were printed and the bill was paid in full. Going into this project, I was going to miss some steps so I definitely wanted to over communicate this fact when we agreed to do an outdoor shoot on the playground.  I proved this a few days later when I called to ask about one more enhancement to the photo—placing the teacher’s signature along with the abbreviation for the school and the year into the final product.  She loved the personal touch for enhancing each photo and the last loose end of the deal was tied.  I was about to do my first group photo session with exposure to all my kids friends and the chance to gain some valuable experience.

The decision to take a vacation day to do “volunteer work”  made with my spouse was easy and her volunteering to write my exposure numbers down and track which numbers went with each teacher was very useful.  The VP agreed to bring each class to the playground and return them upon completion meant the difference of complete chaos and a controlled photo shoot.

One of the personal goals for this shoot was to only use manual mode on my camera, which I did accomplish for the first time.  I thought posing would be difficult, but engaging each class and making the typical photographer jokes proved successful.  My favorite one liner when one of the kids is just not smiling is to shake my head in disgust and yell, “Hey, kid in the back, get your finger out of your nose.”  This would buy me about 1 second of smiles and a three second opportunity to get a decent shot.  Be ready as those four seconds are your last.  No matter how much you are tempted do not try this joke on the first shot as your resulting images will invariably have a kid with his finger half way up his nose.

After a solid day of shooting 23 classes I knew I would face a few hours of post processing to scan the images of the teacher’s signatures, to select the best image and PhotoShop them together into the final image.  I cropped each of the photos while in PhotoShop and my post processing consisted of the additional step of cropping the images into the 8x10 format.  After investing most of the day I decided for one more final touch, I would print proofs (4x5s) and go through each of them with the VP and confirm the final order.  Presenting them in this manner gave the VP one more idea, to compile the proofs into a binder and present them to the principal as a picture memoir of the year.  After confirming all the proofs I got a little lazy and only printed 21 not noticing that I missed a couple.  This was quickly rectified with a reorder and I ate the cost of postage for my mistake.  Like I said earlier, the tolerance for mistakes is high with volunteer work and no reputation loss was incurred.

The week after I delivered the portraits they were framed and give to the teachers and the principals gift was on display for everyone to see.  Many parents and teachers alike had positive comments, and I’m told that even one teacher shed a tear.  In retrospect tracked how much time each step of the process took and the costs associated with the shoot.  The document linked below is to that document.  In summary I like flexibility, the opportunity to gain experience and to learn from my mistakes while making a difference in the lives of others through photography.  The success of the teacher appreciation shoot has been told by many neighbors and has resulted into multiple photographic requests from both the school, scouts and friends.