Welcome to the Creative Peaks Photography Blog

Winter Action Shots

March 24, 2012  •  Leave a Comment

Getting Some Air I tried to get some acceptable shots of people snowboarding and sledding.  The local golf course has a great hill and the kids I photographed made a small ramp so they could get some air.  After a bit of experimentation I found that the following was giving me good results. 

1. Pre-focus on slightly in front of the ramp and set the camera to manual focus so nothing changes during the sequence.

2. Set up the shot considering the background.

3. Have the action occur to the right side of the image giving the subject some space to move into.

4. Set the camera to rapid shooting mode.

5. Over expose the image by 0.7 to 1.0 EV.  This compensates for the effect of the snow.

6. Set the camera to Shutter Priority and choose the highest speed before the camera starts to underexpose the shots.

7. Start shooting as the subject moves into the focus zone and continue shooting as they move through it.

I am happy with the results.  The biggest difficulty I had was the position of the sun, which was mostly behind the subject.  The over-exposure helped compensate for this.

Other images from this shoot are here.

 


Easter Stock Images

February 25, 2012  •  Leave a Comment

Easter Egg BasketEaster Basket with Multi Colored Plastic Eggs This past week we worked on producing some stock images that could be used for Easter.  Linda and I bought some pastel colored plastic eggs, small baskets, and some colored straw.  I made a few arrangements but they all looked terrible.  Linda came to the rescue and got the baskets to look acceptable.

I set up the shoot on our bar and used some white cardboard for both reflectors and a background.  I soon found that any shot that included the background wasn't acceptable.  The white turned grey and muddy looking.  Fairly typical for shooting against a white background.  I decided that the only decent shots would be tight closeups with no background showing.  This improved things greatly.  I used two model lamps, one to the right and one to the left of the subject, and each reflected from above.  I balanced my white reflectors on the rim of the lamps and the knobs of our bar cabitets.  It worked fine.  I also used my flash.  I attached a diffuser and bounced the flash off a third reflector I held over the subject.  I managed to eliminate most shadows but the even the best shots still had unwanted highlight spots on the eggs which I later eliminated in Photoshop.

I'm pleased with the results although I know I could have done better if I had set up my light box.  That might have eliminated the highlight spots.  I guess the bottom line is that iStock accepted all of the images I submitted from that shoot.  They can be seen in my iStock Lightbox entitled Easter.  For those of you who don't know, iStock is a stock photography site with over eight million images to select from.  You can sign up for free and then buy images from the site.

The images can also be seen on this site in my Easter Gallery.


Introduction to Creative Peaks Photography

February 24, 2012

Creative Peaks Photography represents the combined works of Linda and John Mirro.  We're both retired and we live in the Rocky Mountains of Colorado, a location that gives us ample opportunity to photograph nature in all it's splendor.  We love to travel and our love for photography adds to each new location we visit as we seek out unique areas to photograph.  Of course, photography, like any art or skill, has to be developed.  Hopefully we learn and improve as we move along.  This blog will note both the good and the bad of our experiences and it will highlight the lessons learned along the way.


Archive
January February (2) March (1) April May June July August September October November December
January February March April May June July August September October November December
January February March April May June July August September October November December
January February March April May June July August September October November December
January February March April May June July August September October November December
January February March April May June July August September October November December
January February March April May June July August September October November December
January February March April May June July August September October November December
January February March April May June July August September October November December
January February March April May June July August September October November December
January February March April May June July August September October November December
January February March April May June July August September October November December
January February March April May June July August September October November December