"Run – Bags, Location Lighting, & Making the Portraits I Really Like…" Late December 2011

Sometimes the pictures are already in your head. You just have to show up. With the appropriate amount of gear and occasionally your “A-Game…” These few images made in the last week or so were just simply fun to create with really pleasant subjects in front of the camera.


(3) – Newly elected Newburgh mayor Judy Kennedy photographed during an interview in her Newburgh, NY home on Thursday, December 29, 2011. Kennedy will take office on January 1, 2012. CHET GORDON/Times Herald-Record

(3) – Sort of an unconventional family portrait gig with my nephew, his wife & teenage son in the living room of their contemporary home on the NJ Shore last weekend. Available light at high ISO (1600) to hold the background exposure and then I added a just a kiss of strobe powered down to 1/16th. power, and bounced it off the ceiling with a remote sensor cord. A short telephoto is the ideal portrait lens at semi-wide apertures (f/3.2 ~ f/4.5), which then creates exactly the look I wanted. Soft background. Nice light. I remember thinking that I wanted these portraits to be about the subjects and not necessarily about the house, living room surroundings, etc. The trio image of them together (top) was an afterthought. A loft room upstairs overlooking their living room with slanted ceiling (for again bouncing the strobe) helped that image work out. The images of the new mayor (top 3) were shot a little tighter today with the 28mm ~ 70mm, and 70mm ~ 200mm zooms, also at wide apertures, but the lone strobe head was pointed into a shoot-thru umbrella, with longer exposures to hold the background, which allowed the window light in the kitchen behind her to sort of bleed through and fall out of focus… ~cg

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