On December 7, 8 & 9, 2018, I shot photos of the Randazzo Dance Company’s annual performance of The Nutcracker. I ended up shooting around 9,000 photos over the course of three days, and was able to publish & share these with families of the dancers.
With all the cold weather here, I needed an indoor project, so here’s a look at my current camera bag of choice and my everyday carry. You can watch my review of the Amazon Basics DSLR Backpack on YouTube.
I spent some time this evening watching the Photographic Processes Series by the George Eastman House. This is a free series on YouTube that the George Eastman House, the educational arm of Eastman Kodak, has made available. Really fascinating stuff. The image in this post is a cyanotype by Anna Atkins, a British biologist in the 1800s.
I am extremely pleased to announce that Linen Ray has launched their new website at linenray.com. Linen Ray is the musical duo of Rebekah and Gabriel Craft. Both members of the husband and wife team have a rich individual history with music, and their musical distinctness comes through in their collaboration.
I was able to help Gabriel and Rebekah in recording and engineering some of the music on the site, including contributing electric guitar and programming. I also shot their promotional and behind-the-scenes photographs. Please take a look!
2013 was a great year for me as a photographer, and I wanted to take a few minutes to reflect on some highlights from the opportunities and experiences I had this year.
This was a big achievement – I shot my first full wedding as a primary photographer. My friends David and Sue got married on the west coast of Michigan, on the shore of Lake Michigan at sunset. It was a beautiful weekend, and I am very proud of the images I made.
I was able to shoot some great music-related work this year as well. Here are some highlights below:
I recently had the opportunity to shoot promotional images for Rap For Food, an Ann Arbor-based music group that performs music and advocates for locally grown food and sustainable food production.
I shot their musical performance at Honey Creek Community School’s Earth Day celebration, and also did promotional images (including headshots, such as the one shown below of Rap For Food founder Lucas DiGia). It was a nice chance to do both documentary-style work as well as more produced images.
Next week I’ll be attending the 2011 ITEEA Conference in Minneapolis, MN. This is my fourth year attending the conference, and I always enjoy shooting photos at it. I thought I’d do a post that gives a little behind-the-scenes of what photography gear I’ll be bringing, and more importantly, the decision making process that went into figuring this out.
photo from the 2010 ITEEA conference
CAMERA GEAR
After shooting this conference for several years, I’m more and more comfortable with what gear I am bringing. Here’s this year’s list:
Canon T1i camera
Canon 70-300mm lens
Canon 18-55mm lens
Canon 50mm f/1.8 lens
Canon 430EZ flash
Yongnuo CTR-301p radio trigger (one trigger, one receiver)
This kit gives me all the range I need to cover everything I’ll likely encounter. The zoom plus flash will give me nice coverage for the keynotes, and the 50mm f/1.8 is great in low light and for quick portraits.
NASA’s Lee Morin addresses the audience during his keynote at ITEEA 2010
Along with this, there’s the necessary support stuff:
Canon battery charger
extra Canon batteries (2)
extra Eneloop AA batteries (4) for the flash
SD cards – 8GB (1), 4GB (2)
Crumpler 5 million dollar home camera bag
Gallon ziplock bags
After some internal debate, I’ve decided to also bring a small point-and-shoot camera, for a few very specific reasons. I’ll be bringing a Canon Powershot SD780IS, which is a great little pocket camera that can also shoot HD video. I’ll be using it for a “feel” camera, and possibly as a second camera for a short video segment I’m planning on shooting.
Here’s a great article on using a camera because of its feel – granted, it’s a $8000 Leica M9, but the idea is sort of the same.
http://www.overgaard.dk/leica-M9-digital-rangefinder-camera.html
I did a project like this last year, shooting a pocket camera on high ISO and black-and-white, and I really liked the photojournalistic feel this gave my images.
City of Lights: Behind the Scenes photos
I’ll be planning on shooting this camera at ISO 1600, doing black-and-white in-camera. This will be a perfect companion for the big DSLR rig, especially since it’s completely silent (and if I turn off the auto-focus beam, almost completely impossible to tell that a photo is being taken). I am going to be using this camera to look for the out-of-the-way moments, not the big highlights.
LIGHT STAND/CAMERA SUPPORT
I’ve spent way too much time debating whether to bring some kind of light stand that can also work as a camera support. I will be shooting the keynotes and sessions, which will mean the flash will likely just stay on the camera for that time. However, I’m also planning on shooting some posed portraits like the IdeaGarden group portrait, plus shots of some of the teacher and program award winners. For this, it would be nice to have a light stand and some way to hold a light modifier.
last year’s IdeaGarden group shot
My first thought was to bring my lightweight aluminum tripod, along with a Manfrotto 026 Umbrella Adapter
I then started thinking about my DIY mic stand to 1/4″ converters, thinking I’d be able to scrounge a mic stand at the conference and just use that. After a few emails to the event organizer, it turned out that it would cost them close to $50/day to rent a mic stand from their AV company – pure extortion, in my opinion! I think I’m settled on bringing just a spring clamp with Manfrotto micro-ballhead, plus a mic-to-1/4″ adapter on the off chance that there’s a spare mic stand floating around that I can snag.
spring clamp with Manfrotto micro-ballhead
In the end, I’ve decided I’ll bring the following, all of which will fit in my laptop or camera bag:
Spring clamp with Manfrotto 492 Ball Head
Interfit 5 in 1 Collapsible Reflector
Mic stand to 1/4″ stud adaptor
gaff tape
I think this will work nicely – I can always press people into service as Voice-Assisted Light Stands (VALs), holding flashes and my reflector/diffuser. When I go to shoot portraits, I can keep the flash on-camera if needed and bounce off the reflector, or take the flash off the camera using the Yongnuo CTR-301P triggers, and have a VAL hold the flash and refelector. One thing I love about the 5-in-1 reflector: I can take the cover off, and it becomes a nice diffuser, allowing me to shoot the flash through it, similar to how I’d use the 43″ Westcott umbrella with the cover off as a shoot-through umbrella. I can also use just the reflector if there’s reasonable available light, although this is rare at the conference (generally there’s pretty poor light quality from fluorescents, and usually not enough light in general).
I’m very much looking forward to attending and shooting this conference!
