The Photo Guy

Nambe Lake Pecos Wilderness

Just outside of Santa Fe there are some wonderful trails in the Pecos Wilderness. Nambe Lake (not to be confused with Nambe Lake Recreation Area) a crystal clear hanging lake just 6 miles round trip from the ski area is a great place to hike to. With a final altitude of 11,400 feet and the hike in being pretty steep at times it is pretty strenuous, now try it with a bag of photo gear. This shot is an HDR composite of 5 frames with some additional digital light painting to bring in the textures.

Lyle Lovett and John Hiatt Kiva Auditorium Albuquerque NM.

The usual three song rider… I guess it goes back to the 80’s when all major acts started requiring that show photos only be taken during the first three songs. I have heard rumors and stories of where this came from but it just the fact you have to live with today.

Ugg Make Aerial Photo :-)

On a recent architectural commercial shoot I created a set of aerial images of the property. This is Pueblo Pintado Community School in Pueblo Pintado NM.

Susan Vega In concert at the Kimo Theater Albuquerque NM

By now you are getting pretty used to the concert fair coming through this blog but wanted to catch up on some older images.

Flamenco II

More from the previous post about Flamenco out doors at the NHCC. This image was one of the first just as we were setting up before the rain started. We were still hopeful it was not going to rain. Were we wrong…

The set up was along one of the water features and we were planning to work more of that into the image but just get things going from this angle to start. This was a two speedlight set up with the light at camera left just to set a small amount of fill (shoot through umbrella) with the camera right light straight on with no umbrella to help give us a bit of sunshine to make up for the lack of real sun.

Flamenco

This is the first image of a series paring dancers with the natural world rather than the stage. I have been trying to get this started for some time but as with most personal projects they take a back seat to the commercial work. We finally got this photo shoot going just before Kati the amazing dancer in this image was to leave town for NYC. Our loss, NYC gain.

We staged the photo session at the National Hispanic Cultural Center. They were very kind in allowing us to stage things there and worked with us to make sure things went smoothly. Well the parts we controlled went smoothly but mother nature must have had a bad day. Shortly after setting up a monster thunder storm moved right in over us. We made the first 30 or so images along the fountains we have planned to but then the rain started. The rain forced us to move to the portal in hopes of waiting it out but when it looked like it was not going to lift (and it became even worse… much worse) we started with plan B and then plan C.

Well plan B started out with us photographing from the portal facing back into the garden. This kept us out of the rain mostly but the wind finally got the better of us and forced us in doors. The photo shown was taken with small speedlights only since we were working around water ( and then some) all the power of studio strobes would have been dangerous. This was a three light setup. The main was an SB800 shooting through a 32 inch umbrella gelled half CTO, with fill from an SB26 also through an umbrella. Some of the garden fill was from a third light hidden behind a column. I would liked to have it further out into the garden to illuminate the fountain better but it would have been in the rain and I had no way to keep it dry. All in all the shot turned out quite well.

Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf

What can I say a classic play. More small flash work. Seems I have not dug out the big lights for quite some time. Finding power on the stage was going to be a trick so we went with the small strobes. Again some post processing to make the mood.

J2Cents

Well I am late posting more work again. Always have the best of intentions to post but well you know how it is. It is good to get a post out there on J2Cents and the work we did together. This is part of a project that has been going on for a couple of months now. This image is part of the promotional images I shot for him. This one may be his album cover for the CD he is working on now. Great guy you should check out the his music on myspace. For the promotional work we were looking for a space with some old character, maybe some brick and some industrial. Well, in Albuquerque that is near as impossible to find except for a couple of locations. For this one we used the Factory on Fifth art space which is a converted old brick factory building now housing artists. We arranged to have a space open for us and then went to town with the lights. All small lights for this shot. 1/250th sec shutter to knock down the ambient to let us work the light we added. Back drop light gelled green to accentuate the light from the florescent tubes lighting the space. Gelled the main light 1/4 CTO to help throw the shadows a touch blue and back light to add a bit for the peak of his cap. In post we have added a bit of a grunge touch dropping the shadows down and desaturating the image with a bit more contrast. Gives it a punchy grungy look.

Passenger on the Ship of Fools

Performance image captured during a live performance of the Vortex Theater production of Passenger on the Ship of Fools. This is Bridget Kelley a wonderful actor and in this role for me the first time I had heard her sing. Great voice! She is playing Katherine Anne Porter.

Very high contrast lighting is the norm for a theatrical production. What may look like a smooth open stage light rather evenly to the eye actually produces pools of hot high key light with deep shadows. The eye adapts to the light and has a much broader exposure window to work from than any camera and sensor today. Knowing this and understanding that the shadow depth will be much greater for a given highlight exposure (come on tell me that you are exposing for your highlights…) you can control the subject framing to achieve a pleasing composition.