Author Archive: ken

This weekend was quite busy. I had a photo shoot for a gifted young singer/songwriter Adrian Bermundez. You can find examples of his work on MySpace – here. We shot tons of photos in a variety of styles and we got some great shots.

Here’s one of the more dramatic, moody shots.

This weekend the Fort Wayne/Allen County Convention and Visitor’s Bureau hosted an event called “Be a Tourist In Your Own Hometown”. It was a neat concept where all of the major downtown tourist attractions were open to city/county residents. It seems that most people take for granted the wonderful things that we have right around the corner.

For instance, when we first moved to Fort Wayne, my wife and I visited the History Center (used to be the City Hall). At the time, it was kinda uneventful because we weren’t familiar with the area or it’s history. When we went to the History Center on Sunday, it was much more interesting because Fort Wayne is now our home and we could put the history in context.

We were running short on time so we had to pick just a few attractions to visit, so we also chose the Courthouse, Lincoln Tower, and the Embassy. Of these the Embassy was a disappointment. The only thing open was the lobby of the Indiana Hotel. While it is pretty cool, I was expecting to be able to see the inside of the theater. Believe it or not, there are lot of city residents that have never been in the Embassy. They would be amazed that we have a venue like that in Fort Wayne.

The courthouse is a gem in Fort Wayne’s crown and simply amazing.

It is a real shame that the observation deck on Lincoln Tower is not open more often. It offers a great open air experience of Fort Wayne. They should have it open a couple of times of month during summer months. I imagine most people would pay a reasonable fee to be able to see the city from this perspective.

The sign of St. Joe Hospital as seen from Lincoln Tower (my wife works for St. Joe).

Parkview Field as seen from Lincoln Tower.

So I had a fun weekend and weather was fantastic. A perfect early fall weekend. So, thanks for reading this weeks blog and I hope to have something interesting next week.

OK, first of all, sorry about being late with this blog entry. I think that Labor Day thru me off.

Yesterday, I was scheduled to attend a lighting workshop in Indianapolis. There was a group of Fort Wayne photographers going down and I was going to tag along with them. Turns out that I had an important meeting I had to attend and I had to miss the workshop. As it turns out, that I won a door prize at the end of the workshop (even though I wasn’t there, but in fairness I did pay the registration fees). The amount of the door prize (a B&H gift card) covered the registration fee. So I didn’t lose out after all. 🙂

Today I shot a few photos of a local aspiring model named Kendra. She was a lot of fun to work with and was a real trooper. Here’s a sample.

Anyway, that’s what I’ve been up to lately. Oh yeah, and I took Kate (one of our dogs) in for her annual shots. (I knew you’d be interested in that 🙂 ).

Well today Canon annouced a new model camera that will be available this fall. It is the EOS 7D. From the press release and the info on Canon’s website, it looks to be a promising addition to the lineup. It shoots hi-def video as well and might be fun to play with if you have some good editing software. One thing that impresses me is the 8 FPS drive compared to the 6.5 fps on the 50D. I’m anxious to see how it handles noise at high ISOs.

OK, yesterday morning I was mowing the yard and I saw a strange bird down by the lake. It was dark brown and it’s body was shapped kinda like an Egret, but it was smaller, had shorter legs, and was the wrong color. It was prowling around the bank eating crickets. If you know what this bird is, shoot me an email.

While I had the camera out, I shot a photo of sparrow in the neighbor’s yard. It was shot with the Canon 300mm f/4 L IS lens with the 1.4 TC attached.

Finally, (and way off the topic) is a photo I created quite a while ago and just ran across as I was organizing some photos.

Anyway, that’s it for this week. Thanks for stopping by!

OK here’s one more photo from yesterday’s shoot. It’s a shot highlighting the watercut Qwest name that’s cut into the aluminum trim piece on the side of the this model. Apex has two major boat models, the Qwest and the Gill Getter. Then, each of those comes in a gazillion different seating arrangements, colors, and options.

Here is shot of the Qwest cutout that was shot in the factory and backlit with a single light.

Here is the Gill Getter cutout that was also backlit and shot at the factory.

Anyway, that’s it for boat pictures for while. I shot thousands of photos of the boats on the water and also in warehouse/studio. I think the total photo count came out to over 5500 photos and over 60 gb of disk space.

Got back from a photo shoot in Michigan and thought I’d share a couple of photos. Actually I’m in the process of copying the photos from a backup external drive to my RAID drive and there’s about 35 gb of photos so it’s gonna take a while. These shots are really more lifestyle than product oriented. Also, since I shot over 3800 photos over the past few days I just grabbed a few that I kinda liked.

This was a fun shot and I was happy about the Canon’s 6 fps drive. 🙂
 

This was a hard shot to capture. There were 2 guys in the boat casting trying to hit me. Plus timing the lure hitting the water was a challenge.

Shooting this next shot required me to climb up a 10ft tower that was bolted to the deck of the chase boat. The water was really rough so the tower was swinging a couple of feet back and forth. It was hard to keep the boat in frame.
 

The light was really nice for this shot. Believe it or not these kids are not pro models, but are the kids of one of the guys that works at Apex.
 

This shot was taken a couple of weeks ago and has a fashion edge to it.
 

We shot this in downtown Alma, MI. I had to use a monopod and a REALLY slow shutter speed. It was shot from the back of a pickup truck.
 

The final shot is of the set where I photographed the boats to be outlined in the catalog. Since the background doesn’t matter (the boat will be extracted digitally), the goal is to make sure the boats are lit consistantly. The boats are shot from several angles. One of which is from the aluminum tower on the right side of the photo. This is just like the tower bolted to the chase boat for the running shots, except the other tower is 2 feet taller.
 

Thanks to all the folks from Apex Marine for making this a fun shoot. Also thanks to the guys in the factory – Brian, John, Bruce and all the other craftsmen at the Apex Factory.

… yep, two posts in a week. It’s just that I had a cool photo shoot yesterday that I thought I’d share. Also, next week I’ll be really busy and will be lucky to find the time to post anything.

To setup the subject for these photos, I shot some lifestyle shots yesterday for Apex Marine (see Apex Marine ) for use in print ads and a catalog. First of all, even though they are a new client, I have to admit that they make pretty cool cutting edge boats. They have really progressive features such as satelite radio, GPS, MP3 inputs, JBL sound systems, and more neat stuff. They also make electric boats. Yeah, so if you don’t want to pay for gas and you want to decrease your carbon footprint, you can get a rechargable boat. How cool is that?

Yesterday we did some running shots (more of those next week) and fun lifestyle shots. Our models, Katie, Cory, Kacy, and Tyler were real troopers and did a lot of jumping and diving. It was long day, but we had some fun too.

One of the boats shot from a tower bolted to the chase boat.

Cory doing a backflip from one of Apex’s Qwest series of boats.

Katie and Kacy jumping from the boat.

Cory – Cannonball!!!!!!

I tell you what, I really want a boat now. I grew up boating on Barkely Lake in Kentucky. My parents had a cottage there and I spent many summers boating and skiing. It’s been a while since I spent time on the water and I realized how much I miss it. Maybe one of these days I’ll get a boat. 🙂

You know, one of the most overlooked aspects of photography is lighting. As a photographer lighting is one of the few elements that we can control. Granted images can be manipulated with Photoshop and other software, but, in terms of the real elements of a photo, lighting is a key factor. It is amazing how often it is overlooked.

A painter has an entire arsenal at his/her disposal to create a piece of art. They can control the medium, the tools to apply the paint, and the paint itself.  A painter can decide the size of the brush or whether to even use a brush at all. A painter can decide to use canvas, paper, wood, or any of surface and texture on which to create an image.

A photographer has a more limited tool kit. We can use composition, exposure, depth of field, and lighting to create our images. All too often lighting is vastly overlooked because it is either not well understood or even not taken into consideration.

For instance, in the following photo the lighting effect actually is a major component of the photo. It provides the mood and the distance between the subjects. While the setup was not complex it did require the understanding of the cause and effect of different lights and modifiers.

If you are photographer, make sure you are aware of the consequences of how lighting effects your images. Many of, what I call the big box studios, have a relatively static lighting setup for portraits. Often the studio lights are suspended from tracks and have limited mobility. This means that custom setups are not easy to achieve and as a result portraits tend to have the same look and feel.

As a person looking for a photographer, be sure you select someone that knows how to craft the image you are looking for. This means the photographer not only understands the technical aspects, but also has the artistic vision to produce a remarkable image.

Yesterday evening was Fort Wayne’s first Buskerfest. What is Buskerfest you ask? Well I didn’t know the answer either. Apparently a “Busker” is someone that earns money by performing in public for tips only. So you guessed it, a Buskerfest is where a bunch of street performers get together and perform. It’s new concept to Fort Wayne and seemed to be a success. Since it was a free event and took place at One Summit Square, there was a good turnout and there was plenty of room.

There was a wide variety of entertainers, including jugglers, musicians, dancers, human statues, and others. It was a fun, interesting, and family oriented evening.

April Ganser from Tag Art Company (http://www.tagartcompany.com/) does some facepainting on a young festival goer.

A human statues amazed the crowd. If he was just standing there, you’d swear he was a real statue.

A mime was, you know, doing the stuff that a mime does.

There were a couple of jugglers on stilts. They were a big hit with the kids.

There was guy doing animal ballons. Of course the kids loved it.

One of the favorites was the trapeze artists. They had a large metal pyramid that the trapeze hung from,

Anyway, I thought the festival was a success and look forward to next year’s event. Hopefully they be able to add a few more performers. Plus, they had a beer garden, that’s always a good idea. 🙂

I recently received a phone call from customer asking if I shot senior portraits. She said she was asking because she liked my work, but didn’t see a gallery titled “seniors”. I explained to her that I don’t consider “senior” pictures as a style of portrait. High school seniors, like everyone else, have a large range of tastes and styles. For me, it makes sense to base the style of the portrait on the person, not base it on their chonological age.

I also told her I don’t have a single style of photography either. Again, because people are different, I base lighting, poses, location, and shooting style on the individual. If you look through my online portfolio you’ll notice that there is a wide variety to the images I create, all of which are tailored to the individual.

When viewing my portfolio, I think most people would be hardpressed to be able to pick out just the senior photos. And that’s the way I like it. 🙂

… is that you always get to meet new and interesting people. Because I work on new projects all the time I am exposed, not only to new locations, but also new people. I guess I’m a “people person”, even though I guess I never thought of myself in those terms.

Last week I shot some photos at a couple of locations outdoors and indoors. Those of you that know me can attest to the fact that I had to break out the gells for at a couple of shots. I can’t help it, it’s a compulsion. 🙂

This first shot was lit with my gridded McGyver octobox/BD contraption and a gridded strip box.

This next shot was with aforementioned contraption along with a blue gel.

Ditto for this one and a little PS thrown in just for fun. 🙂

That’s it for one of the shoots from last week. There is of course tons more from other shoots, but I don’t have time to post everything on the blog. I may try to post another blog entry later this week with some other photos.

Thanks for stopping by and leave a comment if have a moment.