michaelmowery

<p>Ian I think that is what this forum is all about, giving suggestions and guidance to those who ask. We wouldn't need teachers or schools if we could do it on our own. Learning some rules certainly helps but I agree that one should then break away. I certainly wouldn't want a person's photos to look like mine that is why we practice what we learn from others and take what we like and find our own style. <br> Ben, Irving Penn is a great photographer to study for sure. I advise also to seek out other photographer's who's work speaks to you and study all aspects of their images and as Ian say's just keep shooting!</p>

<p>Not sure what the op's main subjects are and I assume they are more newborns. I agree with the space is less than adequate but Kimber seems to know the space and does not say that it does not work but rather asks in terms of lighting what is the best advice. I would tend to agree that the only pictures that can be taken are more head shots or newborn pictures.</p>

<p>Brook not so fast. We are talking babies and little kids so full length shots do not require the same distance an adult. Also there is no law that states we need to have four or five feet distance from subject to background. Some of the best shots are done with one light and the subject on the wall. Fashion and beauty photographers do this all the time.</p>

<p>Portrait photography world is a very broad term for you to be using as a student. It would be nice if you could elaborate more on what exactly you are looking to get help in. There are three parts to a portrait. #1 composition which includes your subject as well as the background (organic or staged), #2 lighting (natural or artificial) and #3 cropping (framing). Just by reading between the lines of your post i can assume you have no lighting equipment and have very little experience. Composition is a good place to start then practice with different cropping/framing to achieve different looks of the same composition. Move around your subject to gain different angles while paying attention to how the background effects your subject. Last you can start to introduce lighting (natural or artificial) Keep your framing to headshot, three quarters and full length.</p>

<p>I will just touch on the lighting portion and small space. My personal preference in children and baby photography is bright, cheerful and airy. I would welcome all bounced lighting. Dramatic lighting is out unless you are specializing in that type of look then i would say your space is too small.</p>

<p>Out of curiosity why isn't her wedding photographer doing the album? I can only assume the client did not want to pay the price they charged. If that is the case then I feel bad for you as you will have to have a price that you feel that its worth doing. Design only for what you have described I would say between $1,500 and $2,500 but if they are cheap then you might be in the $500 to $1,000 range. Good luck</p>

<p>photoshop layer. I personally don't like that old school style. Just shoot a great shot and you don't have to do all the bells and whistles.</p>

<p>Hi Mark I personally like the image and the crop. I am not so keen about shooting up on people but hey you did this on the fly on the job with all the stress that comes with shooting weddings.<br> I enjoy taking environmental pictures that show grandure. I do agree the rocks on the right seem very sharp more so than the couple. A lot has to due with the texture of the rocks and how the light hits it. You can always soften up a bit in photo shop. You can also due some more photoshop enhancements and burning of areas. What you did in camera was very nice and I am sure the couple were very happy with the shot. I am sure if you were going to do a picture that you knew you were going to be judged on you may have done some things different and I am sure you know all the technical things to do and have experience doing it. What exactly are you looking to hear from this post? I personally would not post a picture that I did not have complete control over then ask for a critique. I would be on the firing wall just like you are now. Now, unless I had a question or did not understand something about what I did or wanted to improve it then that would be different. In a wedding senario we all know the limitations that come with on the fly shooting without the comforts of a studio environment. Again nice shot considering the circumstances!</p>

<p>Stay away from Graphi, besides there is more than enough vendors here in the USA. Anyways that is not what you asked for. You said what are some great Album DESIGN companies NOT Album companies. There are a lot of freelancers out there offering design services for you to choose from. I can not recommend anyone as I do my own. The best advice is choose someone close or at least someone you can talk one to one with. Avoid any overseas designers.</p>

<p>From a lighting point a view it is ok. I love rays of light and splotching lighting patterns but you have to make good use of them in a flattering way. Most importantly you can not forget about the shadows as they can take over your lighting and composition if not controlled properly. As far as composition a photographer once said to improve your pictures just take a step or two closer to your subject. Good advice. When you go wide then you really need to control the model and how the model inter acts with the background or environment. Wide angle shots are much harder to pull off than tight shots. Good job over all.</p>

<p>You have posted twice about the same issue saying you are desperate yet you are slow to return replies. I told you before to take a picture during the daytime to see if the camera still takes dark pictures. If all looks good in the daytime then your problem is with the flash not firing or connection in the hotshoe. Again I say take some photography classes before you commit yourself to shoot something for someone.</p> <p></p> <p>***</p> <p></p> <blockquote><p>MODERATOR NOTE:</p> <p>Contributors - please read this thread: <a href="/wedding-photography-forum/00d27l "rel="nofollow"> http://www.photo.net/wedding-photography-forum/00d27l </a></p> </p> <p>It is the previous thread, which Michael and Katrin reference above</p></blockquote>

<p>Fawzia, The only answer I can give you is the flash did not fire or the flash connection is in question. What you need to do is take a picture during the day when you have enough light to make an available light picture. If that works you know its the flash and/or connection on the hotshoe. Try another flash. Your shot of the boy on the rock looked good flash exposure wise. I personally don't like a black background but I don't know what your looking for.</p>

<p>Hey Marcus I agree. I realize I did not directly address a solution for the OP. I just gave insight to how I have my software raid set up. It is good to see how others do things as not everyone does the same thing. I understand that my setup is not for the beginner nor for someone on a budget. What you have suggested the OP do sounds good to me. By the way I have four SSD and only two are in raid0 which is my scratch disc. My SSD's are all connected to the eSata expansion ports. They SSD are fast enough alone I agree. I had to raid0 4 hard drives to equal the speed of one SSD. </p>

<p>I dont understand why you posted a variety of different pictures and locations. I meant that you should show all the pictures of the one that you posted. I assume you did not just take one picture. I want to see what lead up to this shot and all your other angles and variations good and bad. I don't want to see a portfolio of your best shots from all your shoots.</p>

<p>It would be helpful to see the whole shoot instead of one image.</p>

<p>I am in no way being rude in my response. May I suggest you take a class on photography? It is kinda of impractical to ask someone on a forum what all my settings on the camera and the flash should be set to. Your basically asking us to take the picture for you. Also it is kind of difficult to know what to do without being there. You actually should use an auto mode or program so you can at least achieve a useable picture. Take note of what the camera chose for the f-stop,shutter speed and iso. Then switch to manual and put in those settings. You see you have your own personal teacher right with you in the camera.<br> There has to be some exploration on your part. Its not like in the film days when you took a picture and had to wait a few days to see what you shot. You have a screen on your camera so use it and see what happens when you change the settings (iso, shutter, f-stop) You have to put some time and effort in learning photography. Take notes as you go along. Thats what I did and I am self taught. </p>

<p>Lol at first I am thinking that is not a dark skinned person but now I see the man in the bush. The problem is All about exposure and flash to subject distance. The basic rule of inverse square law comes to mind here. Granted the situation is amplified by the darker tones of the man in the bush. A single flash can only expose at one distance at a time after that light drops off very quickly. Next time have both subjects equal distance from flash or have a second flash to expose for the distance of the second subject that is further away. Lastly make sure everyone is properly exposed by using a meter.</p>

<p>I second the flash bender. The bottom line is you will have to pick and choose your shots that you will light properly with a large light source held by an assistant. all other shots you just have to live with the harsher lighting. Just worry about getting the shot and not so much about the light.</p>

<p>Its all about distance from flash to subject. Do a test...Take a silver reflector which is the opposite of diffused light and take a picture of a person at 10 feet and then another at 4 feet and another at 2 feet. The closer the light to the subject the softer the light quality. <br> That said The largest possible diffuser (soft box) you can possibly use and be comfortable with will be your best bet. Name brands do not effect the light quality. I have used a sheet of diffusion paper cut as large as I could and got great results considering.</p>

<p>Its all about speed Marcus while balancing redundancy. I don't have a raid set up for redundancy purposes if you read my post. The raid0 is only for increased read/write speed. For redundancy I manually copy my files over to another drive via software backup, Sychronize pro X, which saves time and is more reliable than physically dragging and dropping files to another drive. All my assigned drives are stripped (Raid0) and backed up to another set of Stripped drives. Then backed up a third time to a single 4th drive that is kept in the closet. Off site drive is next step.</p>

<p>Raid does not mean you can have access to your files if one drive goes bad. Raid can also address speed or performance which may or may not have a redundant effect, example Raid0. My set up is a mixture of performance and redundancy but it is only redundant based upon my backups.<br /> I do not recommend RAID0 unless you fully understand it. I also don't recommend RAID1 because it simultaneously creates two copies without any verification. In other words if you have a corrupted file you now have two. Software backup to a second drive is a better solution.<br /> My personal setup is as follows. I have a 3 layer setup on my system. Layer one, Only my data is on 4 internal drives in raid0 to give me a read/write speed of 580mb/s. That is then software backed up to an external SATA connected 2drive in Raid0. My operating system is on a second layer on an SSD drive and my Home folder and applications are on a third layer on an SSD drive. Both SSD's are giving me around 580mb/s Read/write speed each and they are both partitioned with a backup copy of one another (not a copy of itself on the same ssd) Lastly I have fourth layer of two SSD in raid0 for my scratch disk with speeds over 900mb/s<br /> I have been running this particular system for over a year now with no problems. While I have one back up of everything I do have a third copy of my data which I perform two to three times a month via a dock that accommodates loose internal SATA drives. I simply plug in the dock via usb3 and drop in a 3.5 hard drive and perform a software backup of my data drive.</p>

<p>Sounds more like Favorite lens at the moment. While the fish eye is a cool lens it can become very boring after 10 pictures. For me my favorite lens means a lens that I must have if it was the only lens I owned and that would be also the 24 to 70 or the 24 1.4. Its a toss up. This is not in the context of wedding photography.</p>

<p>I don't do the math formula when it comes to guide numbers but yes I do shoot in manual flash mode most of the time. Like many other photographers (pros) who use speed lights or any other type of portable flash in manual, I get a feel for the flash and know what it will do at different settings. Knowing the rule of inverse square law helps me to know when to double the flashes power or decrease it. The best advice is to pick a distance most used and set your flash then when you double the distance you increase flash by 2 stops and visa versa. Anything in between I use the 1/3 settings</p>

<p>It is when your getting paid.</p> <p> </p>

<p>I have been a pro photographer for over 17 years and I have never used GN. I use what all other pros use.. a light meter. That is how you measure the light. In the old days of film if you did not have a light meter one did not have the luxury of a display on the back of the camera so one had to rely on physics and GN. Today all you have to do is take a picture and see if the flash was enough or not. The f-stop plays an important part in this as flash exposure is measured by Fstop. A telephoto length lens can help reduce the angle of flash coverage needed by a flash.</p>