My First Blog: Look at Me, I'm Bloggin', I'm Bloggin'!

So.............this is blogging. Am I doing it yet? Well, the interwebs told me that as a photographer, I should be doing this. So....here I am. Is there anybody there? I thought for my first posting, I would talk about my frantic experience photographing my 6 nephews this past June in Duck, North Carolina. Not only was it an adventure, but it is also timely, with Hurricane Earl approaching. I hope our rental home is safe, since we plan to return next year.

We had a week in Duck, and I put off my little photography assignment until the second to last day. Obviously I had no plan on how I was going to wrangle 6 critters to pose for me, but I know each well enough to figure out how I could coerce them to earn their keep. One simply required that his cup of popcorn be just out of frame, one wished to trigger the strobe several times, while another demanded that some shots be taken with his swimming goggles and floaties on (somehow those did not make the final cut). Ideally, I would have liked to have shot all the images at dusk, but this was not possible due to eating schedules. They seem to require frequent feedings. My wife and I only have carnivorous plants to deal with at home. Not wanting to do much masking or post work in general, I left the sky as it was, and only slightly tweaked the recovery slider and luminance in Lightroom, in hopes of getting some of the sky blues to pop.

Our location for the shoot was beneath the hot tub, with the subjects' backs to the ocean...the Atlantic Ocean, to be pacific. I kept the lighting to a minimum, as I spent half my time chasing and positioning my models, rarely having a moment or a safe place to put down my camera. I shoot with the Canon 5D Mark II, and my 24-105 was the lens of the day. With a Pocket Wizard on top, I positioned one Canon 580EX thorough a white umbrella on an Avenger stand, just barely out of camera-left frame. For some reason, kids love staring directly into flashing lights. I lost several frames to these hypnotized stares. I was shooting at a 1/200th and around a f/10, in an effort to underexpose the sky. I must acknowledge my lighting guru, David Hobby (http://www.strobist.blogspot.com/) as my inspiration for the mixed lighting setup.With such small models, the umbrella was large enough to create some wrap on the non-lit side. In the end, I probably had 2 minutes per model, as they each had their own reasons for wishing to leave. One had to refill his popcorn and another had to get into the pool before going down to the beach. Prima donnas! W.C. Fields was correct. Still, it was a pleasure, and I've recently started photographing dogs and their "owners." Thanks go out to all the parents/agents. The checks are in the mail.
   Hey, did I just blog? That wasn't so bad. If you have not seen my work recently, please check it out at http://www.slangerphotography.com/.