Here’s Tim hard at work on the set of a short film:

With that said, here’s a look back at a family portrait shoot we did in Brooklyn, NY in the Spring.  We had a blast working with this family and capturing their cute mug shots:) As usual, the Manhattan skyline lent itself to be a beautiful backdrop for a beautiful family.

Tim’s reviews so far:

“Lyndhurst, New Jersey: Mr. Bruno’s Pizzeria”

“Nostalgia and a Solid Slice at Fort Lee Pizzeria”

“Edgewater, New Jersey: Brooklyn’s Brick Oven Pizza Is An Excellent Grimaldi’s Substitute”

“Hoboken, New Jersey: Promising Pizza at Dozzino”

“Fort Lee, New Jersey: Franco’s Metro”

The first thing I noticed about my friend Jen was her contagious smile and laughter.  She is one of the sweetest people I know.  She and her husband Moses make quite a fun pair whose love for each other is highly evident when they interact and who complement each other so well.  So when they asked us to take their maternity portraits, we leaped at the chance. We love taking maternity photos; the exciting period of anticipation before a baby’s arrival is a very special time that we are honored to capture. This shoot took place in the middle of snowstorm season, but luckily the weather held out for our outdoor shots.  As always, we had a lot of fun hanging out with Jen & Moses and am sure their baby will feel the same!

Hey everyone, Tim here. I thought some of you photo enthusiasts would be interested in the lighting behind these images. The more I started getting into the craft, the more I learned how to control every element in the picture.

Balancing Ambient and Flash

Ever since I first got into photography, I always strove to understand how to make flash unnoticeable. One key concept to master lies in using all the lights around you to craft your image. For starters, check the background lit with ambient room light in the last picture. If you notice, it has a light color, but it’s actually darker in value than our lovely couple. I intentionally exposed it darker using my in-camera settings. Doing so increased the contrast from their skin and clothes and strengthend the framing lines. To further separate them from the background, I placed the sun streaming in from the staircase window behind them so it would light their hair and shoulders:

Once I had those two ambient, available light levels exposed, I then placed my main light in front of them to the right and set the flash power to properly expose their skin:

Using the Background to Frame

After I finished that series, I thought the sweeping, ribbed lines in the staircase architecture would add drama to a portrait. Since I didn’t have much more space to move, I used a wide angle lens to use the ceiling and columns as a gazebo of sorts–even as a subtle crown to impart royal flair to the budding young family. I got down low to frame their heads with the window and to hopefully have it supply a nice rim light to their heads, but the effect didn’t show up so strongly.  I generally view a centered placement of subjects’ faces as an artistic faux pas, but in this case I felt the placement anchored the balance between the pregnant belly and the ceiling:

A similar impulse led me to frame the picture below. I used the vertical centering on purpose to anchor the tension between the sharp, dramatic architecture and the organic, round nature of Jen’s belly. In a figurative sense, the hands seem to cradle the unborn child from the sharp exterior. On the lighting side of things, I first exposed to retain color in the sky and used appropriate flash power to expose their faces.

Capturing Spontaneity

Sometimes you can’t plan everything; reality happens so quickly that you have to shoot unscripted moments without thinking. However, careful preparation of the technical elements (your camera and light settings) and experience greatly aid in presenting the moments in satisfying ways.  The next two shots (the first a repeat from the beginning) took place at the tail ends of the outdoor shoot while Sarah and I set up and tore down the flash. As they stood by in the frigid wind, they started clowning around:

I saw the moment and tried to use the background to frame the action as well as I could. I firmly squeezed the shutter down until the moment ended; the 10+ rapid fire shots guaranteed capture of the moment.

When we finished the shoot, their faces had looks of anticipation (most likely to get back inside) and fascination while Sarah tore down the flash. I thought it had a fashion magazine ad sort of feel and used the windows to frame/coronate Jen and the door frame to impart Moses a subtle halo. At least, that’s how I thought it looked at the time:

Special thanks to Tim for helping out with lighting in the 1st photo and Alan for helping out with the last photo so I could make a cameo!:

Please watch it before you read the entry.

If you saw me a week ago, you would have seen a harried, overworked, under-slept stress ball hunched in front of a computer feverishly trying to finish editing a project that took too long to shoot.  Nevertheless, that stress ball finished a film short that he’s well pleased with.

Sarah was a big trooper throughout it all – she took care of every imaginable behind the scenes odd job; anything between holding the microphones and bounce cards to helping out with the edits.

Edmond H Lee must be the bravest and most generous photographer in existence for helping me make this silly idea.  Why?  A) He did it despite the prospect of facing ridicule after starring in this short.  Part of me wants this short to succeed and get famous, but the other part incessantly worries that he’ll face “you peed in bed” jokes for the rest of his life from random strangers on the street.  I pretty much figure that the short won’t go viral, so he’ll probably rest easy knowing that only the ten people that have seen the short will make fun of him for it.  Give him a pizza, he’ll appreciate it.  B) He let me commandeer his computer for the weekend to edit with his copy of Premiere Pro CS5.  My video software and computer couldn’t handle the current generation footage, so he graciously took me in and let me do my thing.  I’m forever in his debt.

We started shooting this at 9:30AM in The Coffee Foundry the prior Saturday.  ”We’ll be done in an hour, maybe two,” we proudly assured them.  By the time we left at 3:30PM, I’m surprised they didn’t throw a fit and throw us out already.  I will never underestimate how long a shoot will take again; note to self–take my projected time and always multiply by two or three.

We used a lens (two owned, one rented), my tripod with its three axis gear head, and skateboard to shoot the whole thing.  Minnow Park, James Pyun, and Dan Chao happened to frequent the cafe that day and graciously helped out.  They made the bathroom scene work!

Geeks would appreciate how I shot the main bathroom sequence.  I couldn’t figure out how to shoot him in the Foundry’s bathroom without tying it up from customers.  In the end, I decided to shoot it in Edmond’s living room to get the most amount of light control.   I simulated the gray bathroom wall from the cafe by underexposing a blurred out, wrinkled white sheet hung on a backdrop stand.  By setting it to half a stop below medium gray, no one would have known the difference.  Nifty, eh?  I then lit Edmond’s face and pants to show up properly.

A couple people have asked, “How’d you guys make it look like he peed?”  Weird question, but sure, here’s your answer.  We had the hardest time getting a white sheet to look wet on camera; Sarah anticipated that problem by suggesting we use a darker color, but we forgot to grab a correctly colored sheet when we did our first shot.  We didn’t have time to reshoot it, so we had to make do.  It took a while to get it to look right, but essentially, we placed a black shirt underneath the sheet and over-saturated it with water.   That’s how it’s done in the show biz…

I still can’t believe the first short I made was about a guy wetting his bed.  I wonder what this says about my future direction – is it only headed down the toilet?

As you can see, the top shot was taken virtually at the same moment as the lower shot.  How did I do this?  Edmond H. Lee, the principal photographer seen peeking behind the bride’s left shoulder*, shows how I took the shot through the following picture he took at the same exact moment:

There you have it folks – how to shoot two cameras at the same exact time.  I cradled the 5D MkII since it’s easier to shoot a scene with wide angle “from the hip”, as they say, and stabilized the cropped sensor body on top of it.  I pressed the shutter with my middle finger since it felt less awkward and enabled the rest of my hand to stabilize the camera.  You saw it here first!

*Full disclosure: In case you’re wondering why he’s not in the telephoto shot, I cloned him out to give a cleaner background for the client.

In case you were wondering where I took these photos, here are the locations by row:

Friends also in the NYC region, feel free to do better than me, shouldn’t be hard!

-Roy Batty, Blade Runner

I’ve shot New York City streets from day one of my photography obsession. It feels like a lifetime since I started, and it will take a lifetime to master capturing the chaotic, transient stream of activity. Regardless, these days I’ve felt like my creativity and mind’s eye have dulled, so I’ve tried to take my camera along with me during my commutes again. My favorite masters Ernst Haas and Henri Cartier Bresson indirectly taught me to see the world in both color and in grayscale, in abstract patterns and precise compositions of activity, emotion, and human spirit. I hope you can see the little I’ve absorbed from them, if any.  Click any picture for full slideshow view, and use the arrow keys to navigate.