She piled the sled full of snow and sticks and towed it around the yard.

This is probably one of my all time favorite pictures of Kate. I used a special trick to create the utmost cooperation in my model, hot chocolate! Yep, I promised her hot chocolate, instant perfect model! So cute, even at 3 she’s a sucker for chocolate. The hat was designed by By Jackie Lee.

Baby A is already a couple months old and beginning to smile and show expressions. He wasn’t too sure about me at first, glaring at me like I was crazy! He’s probably got a point, but he eventually came around and we got some smiles before he wore out and fell asleep!

I love in the collection above, the bottom right image, where Baby A looked up and found his Mommy.

I was so busy with enjoying the day, I didn’t even get a camera out until the very end of the day. These girls were having a great time together enjoying good hot dogs by the fire (my daughter is in the middle). I love how candid the last three images are. These girls would be my daughter’s 2nd cousins, and they were having fun playing with their dad down by the pond. I was actually shooting the first image above right before they came down to the pond. It’s so wonderful to share Thanksgiving with family.

However the inside of the barn has 1 speedlight with a pocket wizard. The last two windows and last sliding door had no light in the room, so I stuck a speedlight in there with a pocket wizard. You can see how dark that room was below. This shot was taken about 20 minutes before ‘perfect’ light.

You can see my crazy setup below. Because the ground where I needed to shoot the barn was significantly lower, I had to use a 10′ step ladder, and I mounted my tripod to the top. It was a bit tricky to look through the view finder while standing on top of the ladder without falling off!

First reaction of any photographer would be, ‘DON’T do it!’ But if you have to shoot in these settings, let’s look at how we can make the most of it.

Now fortunately 11 AM in November is a lot different than 11 AM in July. The sun this time of year is lower in the sky and not as intense as in July. The first thing when photographing people outdoors is finding soft flattering light. Soft light reduces contrast. The lower your contrast the less of a difference between white and black. Contrast creates hard edges. So knowing this, soft light is most flattering for people, because it helps reduce the appearance of blemishes and makes the skin appear clean and smooth.

How do you find soft light at 11 AM? (1) Ideally you need to find open shade. The image below was shot on a senior shoot, where the sun was still a little hard, but we found this stairwell with amazing light. The top and bottom images are the same, just one is cropped. You can see the bright sunshine pouring in from camera left, this was aided by the concrete floor acting as a beautiful reflector. This produced some really nice flattering light.

In this shot, I just turned the senior and moved her to the edge of the light (the point where the sun stopped and the shade started). This allowed me to have beautiful soft light on her face, while creating a very nice hair light from the sun.

Again another senior, using the open shade technique. You can see on the very front edge of the image the edge of the shade and the back edge of the shade is right under the fence. This provided some beautiful flattering light.

(2) Now if I can’t find open shade, I usually try to back light my subjects. This is best done (in my opinion), by using the best glass you have. Usually this is a prime lens. I love my 50 mm f/1.4, as I feel lens flare and it’s ability to shoot into the sun in amazing. ** Note: This technique may not be successful with cheaper lenses, as the quality of glass isn’t as high. ** When back lighting your subject you can’t rely completely on your cameras built in light meter. If you do use your camera’s light meter set it to center-point. If you use a center weighted or average light meter reading, you are going to be thrown off by the sun. You need to expose for your subject. I often will shoot in full manual mode and lock my exposure. Back lighting is not for everyone, play around with it. I know a lot of my clients have really liked the look and even requested it for their shoot.

(3) The last technique I’ll use when trying to find good light outside takes an assistant (or a free helper whatever you can find). I will use a reflector or a diffuser. They both due exactly what they say, one reflects light and the other diffuses the light. In the image below I’m using a very large reflector. This reflector is working in two ways: first it is blocking the direct sun from hitting my subjects in the face, second it is reflecting soft light back into my subjects to fill in the shadows. For this engagement session I took my wife with me as my assistant, because this was her brother. To help the couple loosen up and bring out their own personalities I let them start walking along these old railroad tracks holding hands. As we moved I would give little directives, like in this shot, I asked Mere to look at Joe like he’s your stud of a man. Of course as you can see in Joe’s face he liked the fact that his lady was thinking of him as her stud, and in Mere’s face you can see she was dreaming of her love. Made for a great shot, but it would have never happened without my faithful assistant walking blindly with a large reflector to keep the sun off the couple’s faces! You can see the edge of the reflector in the un-cropped version of the photo below.

These are three of the techniques I’ll use on an outdoor shoot using only ambient light. Another technique I’ll use, but won’t discuss here is using speedlights.

If you want more information on open shade technique and how to find good light, check out Jasmine Star and her post Reflections: Natural Reflectors. Jasmine does a fabulous job at sharing great tips for improving your photography.

** UPDATE: Right after I posted, I saw Jasmine wrote a new blog post about her recent workshop where she talked about shooting in bright daylight. Check it out here. Notice, she back lit her models.**

The Youngrens are a great photographer couple to check out, http://theyoungrens.com. I don’t think they have a blog posts explaining it, but they are experts utilizing this technique and their work is very inspirational.

I have not been disappointed so far. I ordered the new Nikon P300 from B&H and like always great service and fast shipping. I had it on my desk within 24 hours of ordering it! The P300 boasts of it’s f/1.8 lens and ability to shoot in low light situations. As seen below in a shot my wife took at the Grand Ole Opry in Nashville TN, the P300 has a great processor. The camera did a fantastic job of interpreting the scene, the blacks are pure with little to no artifacts or noise. The next image taken at B.B. Kings in Memphis TN, shows again the quality of the P300 in low light situations. I think there are multiple factors involved in the ability for the P300 to create stunning low light shots. The first is obviously the f/1.8 maximum aperture lens. The second may not be so obvious, but I believe it’s the fact that this lens is only rated for a 4.2x zoom [24-100mm]. With this known fact, you can shoot at 24mm with an aperture of f/1.8 and have your shutter speed as low as 1/24 and come away with a sharp image! Now that’s shooting in some low light. So many people when looking to buy a point & shoot camera, look for 2 things: MegaPixels and Zoom. That’s the scheme the marketing department wants you believe. ** The higher the MP, the larger the zoom, does not mean the better the photos! ** With a 24mm lens, this makes you move closer to your subject which helps you produce sharper images in lower light.

The P300 also has a nice macro setting. I find macro fascinating, I’ve haven’t been able to justify investing in a macro lens for my DSLR’s, but it’s fun to play with the macro on the P300. The image of my watch below was taken at my desk, all ambient light (ugly florescent), and a sheet of printer paper. The last image below was shot outside in the shade of a BMW GS.

Overall I’ve been very impressed with this camera. In fact so much so, I hardly carried my DSLR while on vacation. I don’t normally trust a point & shoot, but I have confidence in the P300 that I could create great images while on the go. The battery life is pretty respectable. We went several days without feeling a need to charge. ** Note: I’m the kind of person that is a little crazy when it comes to having things charged. ** One feature that I like, but some may not, is that the flash does not automatically pop-up, you have to release the flash manually. I believe Nikon picked this design because the camera specializes in low-light ambient shooting.

Summary: Good low-light camera, high quality image processing, fun macro mode

My wife and I just got back from a trip to Nashville. During our trip we took a backstage tour of the Grand Ole Opry. If you ever find yourself in Nashville, the Opry is a must stop! On this tour there were about 100 or so people going through the self-guided tour, each one waiting for the previous to hurry up and move on so they could get a turn. So I found myself wanting to shoot some of the dressing rooms, because they all had themes and were really fascinating.

If you notice in the room below, there are just a few small bright light sources. So to make sure I got an image I could work with, I took 3 shots with each shot 1 stop apart. So one shot at -1, one at 0 and one at +1. There are several ways you can achieve this. The long way is to actually change your exposure between each shot. That could look like using aperture priority and adjusting the exposure compensate +/-, or you could be in full manual mode and adjust your shutter speed 1 full-stop. Most DSLRs move in 1/3 of a stop increments, so to adjust a full stop you’ll need to move 3 clicks. This technique would probably take a photographer about 20 seconds to adjust the exposure for 3 shots.

There’s a better and faster way, and it’s called bracketing! Refer to your camera manual, but in most DSLRs in the last 15 years bracketing is available. What bracketing allows you to do is specify the number of images in your sequence and what exposure compensation you desire for each image. Once you have your bracketing set, all you have to do is press the shutter button 1,2,3 done! Less than 5-seconds and you have 3 images ranging 2 full stops!

The image above is the middle of the three images taken, the one that was shot with no exposure compensation. Now maybe I got lucky (or maybe I knew what the exposure was supposed to be), but just in case I would have goofed something up I had 2 additional images (-1 & +1) that I could use if needed and it took me less than 5 seconds!

With your bracketing images you have other options as well. You can blend images in Photoshop by using layer masks or you could use HDR software to create a high-dynamic range image. Whatever you use it for, I’m sure you’ll find auto bracketing to be very useful!

*This is not an exhaustive resource on bracketing, in fact in only scratches the surface. If you have more questions regarding bracketing, let me know.