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portraits

Feb 12
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Portrait of a Good Father

By babies, Jason Caponi, portrait photography, portraits

Sometimes my favorite portraits happen when I am not exactly ready for them. I call these instances “happy accidents”. For example, I was using Jason as a stand in while I got my lights dialed in for a series portraits of his family. This first photo was taken with a single diffused flash and no fill which gives it a dramatic look.

It is the times when the subjects are not expecting you to click the shutter that they are the most relaxed, and you see their true personality. I was able to capture this quiet moment between a new dad and a baby who is his favorite little girl. You can’t fake moments like this.

Oct 18
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4 Month Old Alessandra Photos

By babies, Halloween, photography, portraits

Little Alli is one of the cutest babies that I have ever met. Just look at that face!

For a child this young, she has a lot of personality. I think I saw her expression change from “joy” to “surprise” to “sadness” to “confusion” to the “look a kid makes when they have to burp”… all in less than 30 seconds.

I was lucky enough to take newborn photos and these are the follow up photos.

Helping Mom Get Ready

For babies, a lot has changes in 4 short months. They grow so fast and everyday their brains connect to new parts of their bodies. I learned today that they start to recognize faces around this time.

Just today, Alli learned to stick her tongue out which had us laughing, and me scrambling to try to take a photo between the tongue flicking out.

The most amazing feature of this child is her deep blue eyes which she got directly from her grandmother. It is almost erie how much those two look alike.

Since it was Halloween season, we had to take some photos of Alli in her pumpkin shirt. We would have taken photos of her in her costume, but “we” ran out of steam.

Babies can only go so long before they have had enough. In fact something strange started to happen to Alli and I had to put the camera down for fear of getting bitten. ha ha

To see all the rest of Alessandra’s photos, click here.

Oct 15
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Senior Photos of Kimberly In Piedmont Park

By Atlanta, Piedmont Park, portraits, senior portraits

As a photographer, there are days when everything goes right, and I feel that I am making the photos want to be taking. This was the case when I had the chance to take young Kimberly’s senior photos.

I first met Kimberly when she was around 13 or 14, and I thought it would be fun to make her portrait one day.

Her father hired me to give her some memorable photos of her last year in high school.

Kids at this age are fun, enthusiastic and enviously skinny. I remember being 120 lbs. in high school, and being able to eat anything I wanted without penalty, but those days are long gone which is too bad.

We took these photos in Piedmont Park in the early morning when the light was fantastic. The summer heat had disappeared, and it was chilly when we started.

I have a lot of experience shooting at that location in the evening, but the mornings there are magical too.  The park looks totally different.

Fall had not yet come to the park so I had to work hard to find any fall foliage there. I think I saw 3 trees changing colors, but that was enough.

I had better quit posting before this entry gets too long. To see the rest of Kimberly’s Senior Portrait Gallery, click here…

Jul 17
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128 Corporate Headshot Portraits

By corporate photography, head shots, portraits, time lapse

Finally, the shooting was over. It took 6 days to shoot 128 corporate portraits on location at a large Atlanta corporation. The actual photography could have been done faster, but it was best to offer time slots to accommodate the busy schedules of so many people.

I shot these with my camera tethered to my computer so the subjects could see their photos and help chose the best photo. If there was extra time between subjects, I would retouch photos on the spot. This made me popular with some of the people who had special retouching requests.

To celebrate the end of this large job, I made a simple time-lapse movie of deconstructing my portable portrait studio. This video also shows the last person being photographed too.

Jul 17
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Portrait Session With Atlanta Photographer Megan Case

By Megan Case Photography, musician, portraits

I met Megan many years ago in a photography class that we took together. We did not talk much beyond class discussions, but I did take notice of her work. She was pushing ahead and standing out in the crowd.

On the last day we exchanged contact information and usually those kinds of connections never go anywhere. Luckily, this one did and now many years later we are shooting together. For this one, I was her assistant on a portrait shoot of a local musician, Dwight Raby. We had a shot list formulated before he showed up which helped the session run smoothly.

The results were just what we wanted… a very shallow depth of field with the eyes in sharp focus with the nose forward blurred and the ears backward blurred.

I was also proclaimed “The Best Photo Assistant Ever”… I’ll take it because I’ve been called worse. You see more of Megan’s work at www.megancasephotography.com

Jul 10
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Portrait with a 1000 Watt Smile

By corporate photography, headshot portraits, portrait photography, portraits
After a corporate headshot photo session, I was having fun with Tony, the subject seen here. If recall correctly, he did not love having his photo taken. 



For the “official” photo he was more reserved, but as soon as I told him the shoot was over, he gave me the million dollar smile. Luckily I had my finger on the shutter ready to capture it. Sometimes I know when somebody is holding a little extra charm in reserve and Tony had it just waiting for it to show. I retouched the photo to make it more like a magazine portrait instead of just a headshot to go into a catalog. 
Jul 02
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Moody Portrait of Collin

By Collin, portraits, strobist, Studio

This weeks light test took place at our friend Megan’s house. She has an upcoming client shoot and we were shooting light tests. With three photographers in working together, we all able to bounce ideas and knowledge off of each other.

The last 30 minutes of the day consisted of each of us taking turns running the shoot. We each had about 10 minutes to set up a lighting scenario and shoot a portrait. This artificial pressure helps prepare for similar real situations that happen on paying photoshoots. Nothing like pressure to hone your skills. My starting photo is shown to the right.

Here is my shot of Collin where I used a 24″ portable softbox. A small silver reflector helped to fill in some of the shadows. That’s it.

From there, a slaved flash was added to the backdrop. In this case I wanted to separate the back of the head which had gone to silhouette from the background.
The background light was moved to give different looks to the background.

The last version I tried was showed more of a spotlight effect on the background.
Jul 01
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Portrait of a Two-Legged Dog

By 2 legged dog, Dogs, handicap dogs, pet portraits, portraits

When my friend, Collin, asked me if I wanted to help him take photos of his mom, Ginger, and her Chiauau, Roo, little did I know that this dog would more resemble several other animals combined. Roo is unique because she was born without fully developed front legs. She has the stance of a kangaroo, the small wings of a chicken and the huge ears of a cave bat.

She has never known what it is like to walk on 4 legs and she considers hopping, sliding and dive bombing from the top of the couch totally natural for a dog. To get around she stands on her back legs and uses her tail to balance… just like a kangaroo.

When it was my turn to take photos, I used every stupid dog trick in the book from fake “barks” to cat “meows” to get her ears to stick straight up or her head cocked to one side. A little bribery with cheese did wonders too. See the full gallery here.

Here is Roo with his mom, Ginger. You will not find a bigger animal lover!

Roo is living proof that a strong spirit will find a way to adapt! 
Jun 27
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Newborn Photos of Baby Alessandra

By babies, newborns, portraits

The name Alessandra could have at least 5 nicknames that can be derived from it: Alli, Sandra, Allison, Liz, Lisa… It is important to think of these things when naming your child. I am just glad that my parents did not name me Art, because nothing good would have come of that in elementary school.

Little Alessandra was just a few weeks old when she got her first studio portraits. She was fascinated by the large softbox and would not take her eyes off of it…  She never fell asleep either so I never was able to take any of the peaceful sleeping baby photos that I had planned. We’ll get those next time. See the full newborn baby gallery of Alessandra here.
Little Alessandra has red peachfuzz for hair. She will probably be blonde like her mom.
Hello world!

So tiny… just a handful.
Pretty in pink…
Hangin’ with mom!
Daddy’s girl…
Grandma and Alessandra.
Jun 27
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Weekly Photography Tests With Collin

By portraits, strobist

The advantage to taking photos of the same person week after week is that one can see how their face reacts to the different light scenarios. Last week’s test consisted lighting inspired by faces that I have seen on television. You can see this sort of lighting on almost any tv show to establish mood or setting.

In this case I am using warm and cool hard flash lighting to create dimension.

The great thing about this setup is that you can leave the lighting the same and simply have the client change their body direction for different looks.

Sometimes I try to turn accidents into keepers with a little experimentation, like in the photo below where the side flash was too strong. Not every photo has to be success if you learn something from it.

The next test was to light an interior room subtly while maintaining detail in the sunny outdoor scene.

The final test was to use window light as the 2nd light in a 2 light set up. Daylight is free and it adds extra dimension on the shadow side of the subject.
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