Author Archive: ken

Every week I say I’m going to be keeping the blog updated. Well I guess I have to come to the realization that, with all the other stuff that’s been going on, it’s just not always going to happen. There will be weeks that I miss updating it.

That said, here some of the stuff that I’ve been up to. My time has been taken up by a combination of commercial/product shoots and senior photos.

This shot was for a local ad agency. Their client make these industrial casters. Most of the product shots are kinda mundane, but I liked this angle. While it doesn’t show the product as well, it would be great for catalog cover.

This next shot is a senior photo for a girl who is a talented singer and is in her high school show choir. She wanted a shot that had a “performance” look to it. It’s always a fun time when I get to use the smoke machine. 🙂

This last shot is another high school senior. She wanted senior pictures that were a little different and unusual. This was lit ambient lighting supplimented with a studio strobe with a gridded beauty dish.

Well that’s a little of what I’ve been up to. Sorry I don’t post more photos, it’s just that I shoot so many that would be a full time job just putting examples of everything I shoot.

Thanks for reading!

-Ken

If you are not a professional photographer, you might think that all you need is a camera to become a photographer. While that’s true to some extent, to do it right and protect your client’s interests you need more than that. Actually when everyone was shooting film, technology was much less important. As a result obsolesence was much less of a factor. Shooting digital now means we are constantly chasing technology that keeps evolving more quickly.

The technology is more than just camera bodies. As you upgrade to higher resolution cameras (larger file sizes) you then also need more disk space to store those images. Also larger files require more memory and faster processors. Which means new computers. Also with a new camera, you often have to upgrade your software so it can read the new RAW file format.

When it comes to disk storage you have to plan on how you are going to backup and protect your clients images. It could be devastating to lose a hard drive and all images on it. To prevent that from occuring you must have redundancy in your system. Meaning you have to backup all your images with a RAID server or to DVDs or via an online backup service.

I guess my point is that to be a professional photographer today, you have invest in much more than just camera and a couple of lenses.

Thanks for reading!

-Ken

I find myself apologizing to people that follow this blog because I haven’t been keeping it current. Things have just been a bit crazy around here. But crazy in a good way. We bought a new house so we are getting over the craziness of moving, but now are getting to the business of selling the old house. If anyone is interested in a 2000+ sq ft, 4 bedroom, 2.5 bath house on Aboite Lake, let me know. The kitchen and master bath have been totally remodeled and look awesome. The lake view is amazing!

Ok, change of subject. I recently shot some photos of a local band named Paradise. I photographed them originally about 2 years ago. They have had a change in band members and needed some new press/publicity photos. I haven’t had a chance to go thru all images, but here is one that I liked. It has kind of a vintage look and feel. Sorta like it was shot on pushed Tri-X film. 🙂

It was a fun shoot and I look forward to working the band again.

Another recent shoot was for a high school senior. He was great to work with and the shoot ended up being quite an adventure. (That’s really all you need to know 🙂 ).

That’s it for now, I promise to do better in the future in terms of keeping the blog current!

Thanks for reading,

-Ken

I know I’m a little weird about the way I see the world. Now that you know that, you will understand the photo this week. For some reason I thought a photo of a grout line in between two shower tiles would make a interesting photo. To me, the compelling thing is the shallow depth of field. I shot this with the Canon 50mm 1.2 lens. It was shot wide open, hence the awesome bokeh.

For the non-photographers out there, bokeh is a Japanese word that means the out of focus area in a photograph. The quality of bokeh is based on the quality of the lens. Poor bokeh has unusual shapes in the out of focus area. The smoother and more symetrical the bokeh, the more pleasing to the eye it is.

That’s it for today. Thanks for reading!

-Ken

OK, a few months ago a friend of mine asked if I wanted to photograph her in a bikini she designed for a contest (and won $1000 first prize). It was inspired by Eve and the Garden of Eden. The non-swimable bikini was created to be glued in place, that way it had to strings and had a more organic look to it. I told Tamera that it sounded like a fun artsy project to tackle. I, of course, planned on creating a composite image and building a digital Garden of Eden.

Once I started into the project my ideas changed and instead of showing a lush garden, I wanted the apple to symbolize the end of Eden. So I decided to go with a darker image showing more desolation with Eden being no more.

As the image developed and more layers were added it got larger and larger. The final size of the image exceeds 700 mb. That’s a large image file.

I still might make changes to the image, but I think I may be finished with it. I need to figure out how I want to print the image for the studio. Maybe a standout? Maybe a canvas?

Thanks for reading!!!

-Ken

Wow, what a diverse day of shooting. This morning I shot some stamped, machined parts (including some brackets), early afternoon I shot headshot and bikini photos for a girl applying to be a Colts cheerleader (I bet she gets it), and late afternoon was a shoot of an extremely cute 9 month old. Talk about a variety of subjects!

Yesterday I shot on location in Michigan at a manufacturing plant. I shot everything from parts to people. One of the cool things they had was a programable plasma cutter that could cut any shape out of metal. While I have shot photos of these before, this one had to be one of the most powerful. It was so bright that my auto-focus wouldn’t work so I had to shoot the photos on manual focus. My retina didn’t appreciate it. 🙂

Once again, thanks for reading!!

-Ken

It seems like I am always apologizing for not keeping my blog current. It’s just that I have been busy with work and the new house and haven’t had a lot of free time. Granted, it doesn’t take long to blog, but I guess keep putting it off. But anyway, I am updating it now. 🙂

Besides shooting my variety of commercial projects, lately I’ve shooting more swimsuit and boudoir style photos as well. The varying subject matter is what keeps photography so interesting. I’ve had more people tell me that I should be shooting weddings. Now, while it could be quite profitable, currently that’s not where my interest lies. I think I’ll stick to portraits and commercial work.

By the way, here’s a photo from a recent shoot.

Well that’s it for this week. Thanks for reading!

-Ken

It’s been forever since I’ve updated my blog. It’s just with work, the holidays, first of the year, and the new house I’ve been stretched pretty thin. The new house is pretty awesome. We lived in our old house for so long, it’s adjustment to live someplace new. I still feel like a guest in someone else’s house. 🙂

The only photo of the new house that I’ll share is below. We are still not settled in yet, so once we have everything the way we like it, I’ll post some more photos of the interior.

One of my shoots from last week was interesting. A local girl is auditioning for a swimsuit calendar and hired me to shoot her audition photos. After we shot the swimsuit photos, we shot a few of frames of Boudoir style photos. This was shot using a 4 light setup consisting of a large PLM, a jumbo softbox, and 2 60 inch umbrellas. The shallow DOF was achieved using a 50mm f/1.2 lens. It was shot on white seamless.

Well that’s it for now. Thanks for reading!
-Ken

Today I’m posting a few photos from one of last week’s senior shoots. He picked out a cool location (his mom helped), Lincoln Life’s old office suites at the Renaissance Square building. The build is going to be the new city/county office building so it was in the process of being gutted. In the Lincoln suites carpet was being ripped out, but the large columns in the executive lobby were still there along with the tile floor. It was a really fun shoot, but I wish we would have had more time. 🙂

Christmas is coming soon so I hope that everyone has a wonderful holiday and a Happy New Year.

Once again, thanks for reading.

-Ken

Ok, I’ve been busy working on some non-glamourous commercial work lately. But I am finding time to also work on some personal projects. I’ve been working on a fine art composite image and getting close to being finished with it. I’m just resolving some perspective issues. I’ll post a copy when it’s complete. Composites are fun, but they are challenging to get the right look. Also I might add another couple of elements to the image, if it doesn’t clutter it up too much.

Thanks for reading!!

-Ken