Jason's Page

Babies. Well, try to do the shoot soon after a nap and when they are not hungry. Also, depending on the baby, a familiar setting for them is good unless you know that the particular baby isn't perturbed by unfamiliar surroundings. Spend a few minutes just interacting with the kid and mom and/or dad. Try to get them to see the camera as something fun.

I don't know what sort of gear you use. If you can get the flash off-camera, that's good; if not, point it up or to the side with a small bounce card to throw in some catch-lights.. A room with white or light colored ceiling and walls is good--you can bounce the flash to get a big, soft light source. A room with a big window and white sheers helps if you can pick a time of day when you can get good light from the window. Try using the window light as key with bounced flash or a white reflector as fill, then try the opposite.

Babies tend to move around a lot, so a tripod is usually out for me. Get in close, get down on their level, get on your belly. This can prevent you from controlling what the background will be, so a big aperture with shallow DOF can help turn whatever happens to be in back of your subject into a nice blur. If you are in a room with good ambient light, you can try using the flash as key and play with the shutter speed to control the brightness of the background (remember, shutter speed won't affect your flash exposure, only apparent ambient exposure).

Most of all, take a bunch of shots, be relaxed, and have fun. Babies are like dogs--if you are tense, they will be too. Good luck!

Hi Jason. Thanks for the kind words! I appreciated your work also--my faves are "A Friend" and "Firegate."

To answer your questions, For the series of photos of "Liam," I used a Canon 5D with a 24-105L lens. I had my daughter moving a slaved 430ex strobe with a diffuser attached around Liam to get good angles on the light. Babies have good skin, huh? Shot in RAW, using LightRoom for post.

I am definitely not an app developer. I used to run a web design firm in the nineties, but time marches on (as well as web development technique). Now I just do photography and let more qualified folks take care of the coding stuff. I use SmugMug for photo storage and sales, so whatever cool tech features are on the site...credit goes to them. I didn't even know they supported iPhone. I do like the fact that they support CoolIris, which I like very much.

I'm in the middle of trying to redesign the site now, probably changing the name too.

Good to hear from you. I'll look forward to seeing what you do next.

Steve

I would like to welcome you to the Tuesday's Challenge group. We hope to keep it interesting and helpful with learning to be more creative. I hope everyone gets comfortable enough to offer advise and share techniques in their comments.

Thank you for commenting on the Anclote park photo. It is one of my faves. Such a beautiful evening. You do great work! I will have to take more time to look through them all!

Thank you for commenting on my Kayak photo.
Really love your photos, you really know how to capture the emotion at just the right time.

Jason,

If you are ever out and about at lunch.. I can usually be found at Cheddars around noon. I normally sit in the Bar.

Earl

Thanks for the nice comments, Jason.

As far as advice, I would recommend that you go out and shoot as much as you can. Relax and have a good time. The more you shoot, the more you learn. Don't get hung up on all the rules.

Use a high ISO... 500 would be a good start. Using an F-stop setting of 3.5 or 2.8 for outside sports is good, if your lens will let you. Indoors, you want your ISO as high as it can go: 1200 or 1600 at 2.8. Again, though, have a good time!

Oscar

Jason,

I have been on here a little while... I was member # 192 and they are over 7000 now.. :) Leo is a nice quiet little town. Nice to be out of Fort Wayne. I work at SIRVA just off of Hwy 30 across the road from Sweetwater Sound. I am the Manager of Network Engineering there. I can not wait for some nice weather so I can get out and get some shots.

Earl