This photo story discusses how to avoid distracting elements when taking landscape photographs. In this analysis, I’m attempting to create an image of the Newport Bridge, a local landmark in Rhode Island, and in doing so came across two obstacles. The first, being a lack of inspiration at the start of the shoot and the…
Are you having a long, stressful week? Then lets break stuff! This is not an original concept, but it’s something that I’ve never had the opportunity to shoot.I started by sketching compositions in my awesome moleskin hipster notepad. I like to doodle out ideas first because it will help me gather my thoughts and I can make notes as to what props…
Once again the Christmas season is at our doorstep and along with it comes this years Christmas card build! Though not as fun as the 2015 card, after all how often can you use a leaf blower during a photoshoot! The shoot itself went smoothly. Both models were well behaved and cooperated. The tricky part, as you will see in the…
I use several Nikon SB-900 and SB-700 strobes for my photography work. Both these units use four AA batteries and the batteries drain like crazy. I was using your typically brand-named batteries for a while… and, well… they sucked. They wouldn’t hold a charge over time and they would drain rapidly when in use. I…
Here’s a sample of various portraits I’ve shot over the years. The one thing all these photos have in common is they were all illuminated using small portable Nikon flash units: SB-900 and SB-700. Most of what I learned about lighting tools and techniques came from reading Joe McNally’s book: The Hot Shoe Diaries. It’s a must read for…
I’m a big fan of the Nikon creative lighting system (CLS). I’ve been using it very successfully for several years now. In the past I was using an extra strobe (you know, because everyone has an extra strobe laying around) as the master strobe to command the remote units. That work ok, until I actually needed to…
