Life Images Productions is a top photographer in the Sacramento, California Professional Photographers guide on MarketingTool.com.
And a little slide show from Thumbtack.
by Life Images Productions
Been awarded the top 10 photographers in Sacramento on Thumbtack!
Interesting…. just got an email that I’m now rated in the top 10 photographers in Sacramento. Cool! 
Holiday lights lesson on CAworkshops.com
For those following my blog, I’m amazed the amount of getting over 10,000 hits daily…strange feeling. As you will know, I’m Executive Producer of CAwokshops.com, a website for the photography community and teaching lessons and tutorials. Well, we’ve posted some new lessons and one that was fun was the newest, “Holiday lights; how to shoot lights at night”.
We went to shoot the huge tree in Old Sacramento, yeah me with my new cast from the broken wrist. Check it out!
‘Photographer’s Spotlight’ Feature on CAworkshops.com
As many of my blog followers will know, I’m part of a venture that helps teach and serve the photography community; CAworkshops.com, a website for inspiring and teaching photography, it’s cheap too! Only $89.00 a year.
Well, we’ve added a new feature series “Photographer’s Spotlight”, where we feature a professional photographer and spend a day with he or she.
This first Spotlight is on the wonderful scenic and nature photographer Jon Paul, based in South Lake Tahoe. Jon shoots large format: 4×5, 5×7, 8×10 and makes these amazing images from all around the world.
Myself and Associate Producer, Chris Tierney spent a day with Jon and got to know a little about his work and his philosophy on photography. Check out this Photographer’s Spotlight.
Next one we just finished shooting is with my friend Char Crail, a wonderful artist and great photographer that is such fun and a great energy… we’re in edit on that episode and it will be coming soon on CAworkshops.com.
Go check it out and join the community!
Photographers and equipment vs. the art of it…
It’s another one of those moments of not sleeping. So I jumped online and happened to come accross a great blog link, via Editorial Photographer’s group, (a conversation between Vincent & Pablo) and it got me back to thinking of the art of photography. Yes, we use these tools, gadgets, and now computers and more tools, gadgets, tricks and such… but ultimately it’s about the art or something about the image.
So many photographers get caught up in the tools and gadgets and sometimes miss the whole point of what another photographer was trying to show you. A good friend of mine has another friend (ok get the score card out to track this one) and she’s always commenting to me that her friend knows nothing about the technical side of photography. I say to her many times “photography is actually easy now, you just push the button”. She comments on how beautiful her scenic’s are and how her composition is. AH! That’s the key, her composition… like art photography is composition, light (the capture of light) and yeah… some technical; mostly because we’re limited to what the film, or digital chip, can see and capture.
So I find myself thinking at times do we get too caught-up in the technical? Or, do we allow the creative and the art to help take us along a path that we may feel uncomfortable and a bit afraid of how it’s going to turn out.
This is where as a photographer sometimes we have to break our boundaries, get outside our comfort zone and just play. Just waste some film, well now-days many don’t use film so there’s no excuse to play and experiment and get some bad images… then look at them not so much for the technical, but for the art of it. Personally, I never thought either Pablo or Vincent’s work to be ‘technically’ great, but over the course of time it sure has stood its ground artistically.
Get your cameras out and go play!
If you need an excuse, join CAworkshops.com and participate in “The Assignment” an new members feature that should help photographers get out and play or practice a technique. Like school, sometimes we need the instructors to push us out the door to do our homework.
Another contest! ‘Rights grab’ and what it means as a photographer; “Share the Experience”
Recently I received a spam email (email blast) from the National Parks organization, a Federal Government run department, with millions of Tax-payer’s dollars. And it spurred me to take a look at what the rules are; low and behold buried deep in the rules, after their Copyright statement—where the take notice that the copyright of the photographer is the photographer and that the photographer must be the holder if to submit to the contest.
Well then the next paragraph has the ‘key’ to your handing over your rights to the National Parks, The Federal Government, The Sponsors (Olympus):
except as follows. By virtue of a non-exclusive, worldwide, royalty-free, perpetual license for the photographs granted by the Contestants to the Sponsors and Federal Recreation Agencies, Sponsors and Federal Recreation Agencies shall have the right to edit, adapt and publish any or all of the descriptions and/or photographs submitted (collectively, the “Entries”), and may use them in any media in association with the Contest and/or the promotion of the Federal Lands without compensation to the Contestant, his or her successors or assigns, or any other entity.
That paragraph basically hands over your photo that you entered to ALL Federal agencies, yeah they state the word “Recreation”, but then what’s the definition of ‘Federal Recreation Agency’?
I only hope that nobody enters the contest, because these rights grabs are wrong, unjust in how they allow complete unlimited usage of all entries. Just by entering you gave up your rights of that image. You may hold the copyright, but that image is now being used by Government agencies, Olympus (and it’s divisions) for whatever the heck they want and you don’t get a dime!
This is just wrong and photographers, amateur and pros, need to tell these organizations that they just can’t get for free the rights to our photos. Don’t allow the idea of possibly winning a prize is a good fee for using your photo…oh yeah, without your copyright notice on it too!
Read the fine print please on any contest you enter. Make sure they’re not trying to grab your images and use them without paying you. Doesn’t mean you’re a pro, just means you value your photo and your rights!
Off my soap-box now.
Hot car in the dusk light…
6 lights and 2 generators, wait till dusk and shoot like crazy for 4 mins. Click on image and it goes to a bit larger size.
I got to talking with my father about the race car he recently re-owns (long story on how that came about) and he says to me that my cousin Robert Reel (not the nostalgia funny car driver Robert Reehl) was bringing the car up to Lodi’s historic “Kingdon” raceway, which was the place my father first ran this chassis and with fuel (Nitro).
Well back in 1968 it wasn’t the smoothest run my father ever did but, he did win the whole meet that weekend. Now 42 years later, the car’s back in the Burkholder hands and we got to play at the Kingdon event Sept. 11th 2010. They also gave us access and full ability to do a fire up on the Friday night before the event. So, with 4.8 gallons of fuel (at $28/gal. for Nitro) we pulled-er out onto the track and waited for sunset/dusk…
We spent most of the late afternoon setting up the 6 lights and two generators necessary for this shot. One setup with a large 4×6 ft. diffusion scrim, enabling the even lighting across the car and highlight in the rear wheel chrome. A second light is far right to create what would be similar to what ‘track lighting’ would look like if there were lights (most of this track’s lights were removed sometime late 70’s and upon closing)
The light behind the rear left tire would be similar to how most tracks have for lighting the starting line for the drivers with a low angle light. I did add a light to skim across the back right tire (foreground tire) to have a highlight on the tire; otherwise it would die in the darkness.
The setup was as follows (see graphic scheme.. Photographer I am, painter/illustrator I’m not) but this will give you a good idea of the setup and lighting scheme.
The whole setup was all in my imagination… the hardess part of any setup is dealing with the things that get tossed at ya… for one we had some generator issues where a second generator kept tripping off (wound up being a bad GFI in the unit) but we were setup with a second generator just-in-case. Which begs the comment… have a backup plan!
We also found that these cheap LED lights (mostly marketed toward video) works awesome for light to pack-up and load in the dark. I use to use a light on modeling light but these don’t draw the bugs for some reason… I’m gonna buy a few more of these they’re awesome!
Load with 6 AA batteries, attach to a lightstand and you’ve got light. AND they’re dimmable too! A great find. Plus we use them for the CAworkshops.com video shoots. They may not be heavy duty, but at $36 I can buy 8 of them for the price of one of the ‘professional line’ stuff out there on the market. I still don’t understand why they’re so darn expensive, it’s LED. BTW the exposure at 400 ISO at 3 ft. is f/2.8 so it’s not really enough for shooting with but works great for video and packing in the dark.
Yeah, it’s been a while since I’ve posted… Sorry!
Been busy gang with some projects. I’ve had a few of you tag me with ‘why haven’t you updated your blog lately? Well here’s how/why:
- We just finished a video training presentation for the California Child Support Disbursement Unit (CASDU), to explain and give a step-by-step instruction on how to use their systems and easily make or receive support payments. It’s been a long project and is finally done, check-it out here: https://www.casdu.com/CAS_SDU/
- Also, just finished a really fun and cool project for Soundmatters, a very ingenious company that’s created the most AMAZING, COOL product for those with a iPhone, iPad, MP3 or Bluetooth device. It’s called the foxL v2. A Bluetooth speaker/conference phone device that… well, you have to check it out to get it… But!!! all I have to say is this thing’s cool and everyone will have one. We’ve posted the video on YouTube, check it out here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GvY15M0_itE also, this whole video was shot with the Canon 5 D Mark II. Which I’m so totally amazed by and love. Its HD quality and the ability to use the 100mm macro lens, allowing for the super shallow depth-of-field and close-up shots of the product it really awesome to work with.
- CAworkshops.com’s been keeping us busy with new lessons online: lighting controllers, HDR, and various workshops. Check out www.CAworkshops.com.
New lighting lesson on CAworkshops.com
Been busy lately working on some projects and doing some workshops for CAworkshops.com, which we have two new lessons produced, edited, and posted tonight. It’s quite an undertaking to do these lessons: storyboarding/outlining the lesson plan out. Filming… my flub-ups. It’s hours of work and my buddy, and Associate Producer, Mark Loper’s a champ at keeping me in line.
Anyway, we’ve got two new lessons of a three-part series on basic lighting and techniques. Check it out, CAworkshops.com, if you’re not a member, you’re missing out on some great lessons, techniques and information that’s available 24/7/365 to you. Learn not only from myself, but from other professionals…AND it’s only $89/yr.
Happy Holidays all!