March 3, 2013iPhone Photos, Just for fun, People

Watch out for the Carlton Posse

Carltonautbackdrop, Canon 60D, children, compile, costume, cowboy, cowgirl, dress up, family, flash, kid photos, kids, note, photo, photo studio, photographer, photography, photoshop, sheriff, Speedlite 430EX II, studio, Texan, Texas, wife Leave a comment

A few weeks ago I took a trip to Houston (sans kids) to visit my wife who’s been down there since December. On my way back home, I swung by a gift shop at the airport to grab a little something for my kids, since they were upset that I went to Houston and they didn’t (but at $900 a ticket, it just wasn’t feasible). I found Sheriff badges with my kids’ names on them. I figured they would enjoy the Texan flare of their gift.

When I got home, the kids, as predicted, really liked the star-shaped badges. It helped make them less upset with me, too.

The following week, I thought it would be fun to swing by Zurchers (our local party supply store) and grab some supplies to help “Cowboy’ify” and “Cowgirl-ify” who kids for a photo shoot. The idea was to capture a photo of my kids and share it with my wife. It was a little bit of a challenge to keep the kids from spilling the beans to my wife, but they kept their lips sealed throughout the whole process.

So honey, if you’re reading this – this photo is for you!

As for the photography side of things, it was fun to use my little photo studio to capture each kid separately, but assure the lighting was the same for each one. Then I used Photoshop to put the three hoodlums in the same photo. The backdrop got a little challenging, so I had to compile two different photos – one of the garage door and the other of a gravel road down the street. I was hoping that would make it look more western.

I was pretty pleased with the final outcome, and while the garage and kid photos were shot with my Canon 60D, the gravel road was shot with my iPhone during a walk with the kids earlier today.

So while I am happy to share the photography elements behind the photo, the purpose was to bring a smile to my wife’s face, knowing that the kids and me love her and hope she knows the Carlton Posse will be there for her and look forward to seeing her in person later this month.

~signed, Carltonaut

January 23, 2013People, Travel, WordPress Photo Challenge

Weekly Photo Challenge: Beyond (the lollipop)

Carltonautaquarium, beyond, candid, canon, Canon 60D, child, eyes, family, Houston, kid, lollipop, photo challenge, photograph, photography, postaday, postaweek, snack, Texas, Travel, treat 4 Comments

I learned about this week’s The Daily Post at WordPress.com’s Weekly Photo Challenge before I packed my kids and I up for a trip to Houston, Texas. So as we spent the weekend with my wife checking out parts of Houston, I was looking for a fun capture for BEYOND.

The moment came when my daughter was enthralled with the size of her lollipop. I think it’s every kids dream to get a lollipop this big – and it makes it difficult to look BEYOND the lollipop to see what else is going on around you.

Canon 60D | 18-135mm lens | 1/640 | f/16 | ISO 2000

(NOTE: I am not sure why my camera was set at ISO 2000. I guess that explains some of the graininess I’m seeing in the photo.)

After some fun checking out the Downtown Aquarium in Houston (including two rides on the Shark Voyage Train), we took a breather to grab a snack. This was her snack. I wish I would have been that excited about the large pretzel my wife and I got to share.

~signed, Carltonaut

January 16, 2013Just for fun, People

Self conscious about self portrait

Carltonaut50mm lens, backdrop, Canon 60D, Canon Speedlite 430EX II, compilation, daylight, LED Flashmate, model, photo challenge, photograph, photography, portrait, posing app, RAW, self portrait, setup, studio, wireless shutter release Leave a comment

My wife is gorgeous. Regardless of how many magazines tout the Most Beautiful Woman in the World, the Hottest Woman or the Sexiest Woman, my wife takes 1st prize. But no matter how often I tell her that, she refuses to let me photograph her in a studio setting.

My make-shift studio really came together thanks to Jolly Old St. Nicholas. I received a white roll of a studio backdrop, two light stands, and a very sturdy Manfrotto tripod. I already had the off-camera Speedlite 430EX II flash, the LED Flashmate, the 50mm lens, a wireless shutter release, and of course, the Canon 60D.

When a photo challenge was issued for a self portrait, I volunteered myself (obviously, since it was a self portrait) to step in front of the camera for some shots. Since I am far from an experience model (or model in general), I used the Posing App I had recently downloaded onto my iPhone so I knew how to stand and where to put my hands so it didn’t look any more awkward than it already was. To make it more interesting, I had a couple of clothes options nearby and switched it up. Here’s my compilation of the “Best Of” captures.

Canon 60D | 50mm lens | Slow, but varied | f/10 | ISO 100 | RAW

I did end up having some fun taking the photos and being the subject, but I have no plans of quitting my day job. As for the self conscious part, it took me a few days after I shot the photos to take the leap and share the photo compilation on the Facebook photography group. Now I guess I am doing more than taking a leap, I am jumping off a cliff.

I also thought I would share a photo of the setup I was using, in case someone else wanted to play the victim with whatever equipment they had.

In short, I had my LED Flashmate right behind me to illuminate the white backdrop. I had the basement window on my left and my Speedlite on my right at a 45-degree angle. It did end up leaving a shadow on the backdrop, but I was able to patch it out using Photoshop.

To return to how I started this post, I would love to put my wife in the studio and snap some photos of her so I can get that perfect photo of the perfect woman and place it on the wall in my office. But I don’t know if that will ever happen. I’ll keep my fingers crossed.

~signed, Carltonaut

December 2, 2012Black & White, Just for fun, People

Photographing daughter in mommy’s wedding gown

Carltonautblack and white, bride, canon, Canon 60D, canon speedlight, canon speedlite, Canon Speedlite 430EXII, dad, daughter, fill light, flash, flashmate, GiSTEQ, gorgeous wedding, gown, home, LED, lighting source, lights, mom, mommy, photo idea, photo shoot, photographer, photography, Pinterest, wedding, wedding dress Leave a comment

If I admit that I got this idea off of Pinterest, does that mean I lose my “Man Card”? But as a dad, I couldn’t resist the opportunity of capturing my young daughter in my wife’s wedding dress, with the idea of displaying it at her wedding when she turns 30 (Hey, a dad can hope, right?)

After rummaging through our closet to dig out my wife’s gorgeous wedding dress, I maneuvered my 6-year-old daughter into the dress. Obviously it was a little big for her, and the gown has a lot of fluff in the skirt, so I didn’t want my daughter to get lost in the poofyness.

She was a good sport, though she kept complaining about the dress being pretty itchy. I tried a couple of cutesie ones, then tried my hand at a few artistic ones. Here is my favorite photo from the whole shoot.

Canon 60D | 18-135mm lens | 1/60 | f/4.0 | ISO 200 | Canon Speedlite 430 EXII

You are welcome to check out the Bridezilla shot I captured, or some of the other ones from the shoot.

As for lighting for this shoot, I turned out all the lights in the house, allowing the daylight in from the windows to serve as the natural light. I used a Flashmate LED video light from GiSTEQ placed behind my daughter to serve as a fill light, the the Canon Speedlight 430 EXII mounted to the camera to provide the front lighting source. I am still a novice when it comes to figuring out lighting, but I learn by playing.

I invite others to try this same concept, and since you’ve seen it on a blog and not on Pinterest, you hopefully won’t lose your Man Card like I just did.

~signed, Carltonaut

November 25, 2012Just for fun, People

Christmas Tree and the Kids: Believe

Carltonautaperture, Believe, Canon 60D, children, Christmas, Christmas Tree, dark, decorations, holiday, home, kids, lights, magic, manual mode, ornament, photo, photography, photoshop, Pinterest, RAW, Santa, saturation, winter Leave a comment

Now that Thanksgiving is over, we dedicated Saturday to decorating our home for Christmas. After hauling boxes of decoration up from the basement, we went to work. Of course, we started with the Christmas tree, since that is what my kids were most excited for. Then we put of the Creche, ran some lit garland, unpacked the nutcrackers and hung the stockings on the stair’s railing (we don’t have a chimney).

Once night fell, I convinced my kids that after a hearty ice cream dessert, I would need their help to take a photo by the tree. Since ice cream was involved, they anxiously agreed. But I will admit, once the dessert was over, they were ready to back out of the deal.

I turned on the white lights of the Christmas tree, closed the shutters, and turned off all the other lights in the area. I set my camera on the tripod, put it in manual mode and took a few test shots. After snapping 75+ photos in RAW+JPG, using a variety of shutter speeds (I kept my aperture at f/3.5), I let my kids spend a few minutes playing before sending them off to bed.

I opened the RAW image of the one that had no motion blur from my moving kids, and that had the best facial position and posture. I adjusted the white balance to AUTO and increased the exposure before opening up the image in Photoshop. I wasn’t completely sold on the look, so I played with another setting – Saturation. I added my final element – the word believe – the photo before it met my desired look.

Enough talk. Here’s the final photo, along with the camera settings:

Canon 60D | 18-135mm lens | 1/8 | f/3.5 | ISO 400

I will admit that I got the photo idea from Pinterest, and I really like how my own interpretation of the photo ended up. Wishing everyone a Happy Holidays.

~ Carltonaut

October 23, 2012Black & White, People, Travel

Decisions: Black and white OR color

Carltonautbeach, black and white, California, canon, Canon 60D, canvas, childhood, color, family, kids, nature, photo, photo on canvas, photograph, photography, reflection, San Francisco, sand dollar, sand dollars, Travel, vacation, water 3 Comments

My last blog post shared a photo of my daughter running along the beach with the low-setting sun. Another photo I shot at that same San Franciscan beach was of my son collecting a few of the bazillion sand dollars that littered the beach. I love the innocence of this photo, too, along with the reflection of my son in the water retreating from the beach.

I am thinking of printing the photo on canvas and hanging it in our home. But I am torn between the black and white version of the photo, or the color version. I really like his blue jacket, but I’m not a fan of the orange color of his face. The black and white kills both of those elements, but still makes it a great photo.

If you were printing this for your home, would you go black and white OR color?

~signed, Carltonaut

October 21, 2012People, Travel, WordPress Photo Challenge

Weekly Photo Challenge: Silhouette

Carltonautbeach, best family vacations, California, canon, Canon 60D, child, childhood, daughter, ocean, photo, photograph, photography, postaday, postaweek, San Francisco, sand, sand dollar, shells, silhouette, Travel, vacation, waves 8 Comments

Earlier today, my family and I returned home following one of the best family vacations we have had in a long time. Tomorrow morning I get to go back to work and play catch up on the six business days I missed while playing in San Francisco, Disneyland, Cars Land, California Adventure, LegoLand, San Diego and St. George.

As expected, I carried my camera with me everywhere I went. Okay. I’ll be honest. I carried as many as three cameras with me – my Canon 60D, my GoPro HD Hero 2, and my iPhone. What made this vacation so different from all the others we’ve taken, is that when we got home, my kids and gorgeous wife were in 90% of the photos I shot. Usually I have a bazillion “artistic” shots on my SD cards, but not this time. And you know what? I was okay with this.

Wifi at the hotels was pretty hit and miss. I didn’t want to have to pay for it. This prevented me from sharing many of my hi-res photos during the trip, but allowed me to focus on having a great time with my family. With my iPhone, I was able to check my email and saw the Daily Post at WordPress.com’s weekly photo challenge topic – Silhouette. A trip to a San Franciscan beach gave me the perfect opportunity to meet this challenge, and I am very excited with the final outcome.

Canon 60D | 18-135mm lens | 1/1000 | f/11 | ISO 200

I am strongly considering printing this as a 16×20 canvas printing and hanging it in my daughter’s bedroom. I think this simple photo highlights the innocence and freeness of childhood, with the beauty and splendor of the beach. My daughter loves the beach and collecting shells. This beach yielded a few dozen sand dollars – perfect and unbroken. I have another photo to share in a subsequent blog post, but for now, I share this for silhouette.

~signed, Carltonaut

September 19, 2012Just for fun, People

Photographing ‘Bolting’ Meme in Silhouettes

Carltonaut2012 Summer Games, bolting, Canon 60D, Canon Speedlite 430EX II, challenge, flash, meme, olympics, people, photo, photography, postaday, postaweek, silhouette, Usain Bolt Leave a comment

Did you watch the 2012 Summer Olympics in London? If you saw the Men’s 100M and 200M finals, you will probably know what my son and I are doing in these photos.

Canon 60D | 18-135mm lens | 10″ | f/9.0 | ISO 400 | Canon Speedlite 430EX II | B&W

Canon 60D | 18-135mm lens | 10″ | f/9.0 | ISO 400 | Canon Speedlite 430EX II

A member from the CTE-Salt Lake City photography groups I participate in issued a great photo challenge – Silhouettes. While I have occasionally taken photos with a subject between my camera and the sun, I have never done silhouettes indoors using an off-camera flash – but it worked and has sparked my interest in shooting a few other things to capture a silhouette of various ‘space’ objects.

~signed, Carltonaut

July 18, 2012People

Help a fellow amateur photographer out

Carltonautamateur, amateur photographer, arts, candid, candid portrait, canon, Canon 60D, Canon Speedlite 430EX II, capture, child, family, kid, moment, photo contest, photograph, photographer, photography, pictureline, portrait, vote, wedding 2 Comments

I usually don’t reach out to others to ask them to vote for my photo when it’s in a photo contest, but I really like this photo of my daughter that I snapped at a wedding last year and think it is a great candid portrait.

I know there are a lot of great photos out there, but I hope you’ll help a fellow amateur photographer out and click on the link to vote for this photo in Pictureline’s weekly photo contest.

Thanks in advance to all those who’ll take a moment to vote.

~signed, Carltonaut

May 12, 2012People, Travel

Sunset Silhouette on Waikiki Beach

Carltonautbeach, Canon 60D, Hawaii, nature, Oahu, outdoors, palm trees, photography, relax, silhouette, sun in the sky, sunset, surfer, Travel, vacation, Waikiki, waikiki area 2 Comments

My wife and I had plans to get our photos take along the North Shores of Oahu on Thursday morning, so when we arrived in Oahu on Wednesday afternoon, my wife decided to hit up the hotel’s salon to get her hair curled and ready for the morning’s photo shoot. I decided to head out along Waikiki, not knowing beforehand what I would shoot.

I walked down the shoreline looking for the “perfect shot”. After all, isn’t that what us amateur photographers try to capture every time we take a photo? After walking for about 15 minutes, and not really seeing anything, I headed back toward the hotel. The sun was getting lower in the sky, so I snapped a few shots of a sailboat out in the ocean with the sun in the sky, and I also shot some waves splashing up along the rock wall. Thinking that was the best I was going to get, I continued my walk to meet my wife for dinner.

Just before crossing the street to the hotel, I saw this shot. A guy was sitting between two palm trees, tired from what appeared to be a day of surfing (or paddle boarding) at Waikiki. I snapped a few shots, excited about how it looked, and then officially put my camera away and had dinner with my wife.

Canon 60D | 18-135mm lens | 1/800 | f/11 | ISO 100

I think I prefer Maui to Oahu – Oahu, especially the Waikiki area, is too crowded! North Shore was great and we got some beautiful shots.

~signed, Carltonaut

Carltonaut

Photos of (and out of) this world

Category Archives: People

Watch out for the Carlton Posse

Weekly Photo Challenge: Beyond (the lollipop)

Self conscious about self portrait

Photographing daughter in mommy’s wedding gown

Christmas Tree and the Kids: Believe

Decisions: Black and white OR color

Weekly Photo Challenge: Silhouette

Photographing ‘Bolting’ Meme in Silhouettes

Help a fellow amateur photographer out

Sunset Silhouette on Waikiki Beach

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