Radiant Squares Photography

This blog has moved

2010-03-24T22:23:00.001-05:00

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2010-02-19T00:52:00.005-06:00

I send out a newsletter every month, with some photos, and updates on what has been going on in the world of Radiant Squares.
If you are not signed up for it but would like to be, please go to www.radiantsquares.com and fill out the box that says "join my mailing list".

If you would like to read February's newsletter, please click here

That way you will be able to get news updates as well as any special offers or promos that I have going on.

Also, if you're a reader of this blog but you aren't a fan of the Radiant Squares Facebook page, I'd love to have you join the group!

I'll leave you with a photo or two that I shot yesterday while wandering around on an assignment for a new employer/client of mine.

That's it for now!
I hope everyone is having a great week!!!

Ray

Dallas Commercial Photographer

Ooops...

2010-02-13T02:27:00.002-06:00

As some of you may have noticed, there has been a little problem with the main website.
This is being resolved and things should be running smoothly again within a few days (hopefully).
Until then, you can check out my facebook page (and become a fan) at: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Coppell-TX/Radiant-Squares/20558714670

21st Century Advertising Agencies

2010-02-04T14:44:00.003-06:00

I am trying to pick up new clients and at the top of my list of people to get in touch with in this quest are advertising/marketing agencies in the DFW area. Seems logical.

I got a list of companies, then got phone numbers for all of them. Then I thought, I will look them up on twitter and follow whoever I can, so that they will have heard of the name "Radiant Squares" before I call them.

Would you believe that out of the 12 companies on my initial list, only TWO are on twitter?! I thought a marketing company would want to be cutting edge and be all about the social media wave in marketing. I was quite shocked by this discovery.

As a side note - if you are on twitter, follow me: @RadiantSquares

Advertising on Facebook - Worth the money?

2010-02-02T11:49:00.002-06:00

I have been advertising on Facebook for a little while now and I have been noticing a positive flow of traffic to the website from those ads. My site hit a record high of 49 unique visitors this past Saturday.

However, I look at the number of click-throughs and compare that to the number of people who's eyes saw the ad and I have to wonder if this is really worth the investment.

According to Facebook's ad tracker, the number of impressions is quite staggering.
The first campaign was kind of a dudd. Not quite sure what the problem was with it. I varied the cost-per-click allowance as well as the daily budget limit and never really saw any return for either.

The other 3 started out slow but seemed to have a better outcome than the 1st experiment.
However, I still am not satisfied with a CTR (Click-Through-Rate) of less than a half percent on all of the ads. Especially considering three of the 4 ads were aimed at a very tight age demographic (a 3 year age span).

I'd say the ads have been good to get my name in front of people, but the ultimate effectiveness is yet to be determined. I have paused all the ads for now while I reconsider their value.

If you've had experience advertising on FB I'd be interested in hearing your comments. If you found it to be more/less effective than something else (Ad Words by google for example). What is your preferred method of advertising?

Funny

2010-01-14T22:28:00.001-06:00

I just found this and had to repost it. From Joe McNally's blog:

Head-shot How-to's

2010-01-12T13:56:00.007-06:00

I thought I would do another little instructional series. This time on how to do a good head shot.

The basic ingredients for a head shot are obviously pretty simple:
1. A head (preferably attached to a body)
2. A camera with a long-ish lens
3. Lights/reflectors (optional)
4. A suitable background
5. Appropriate clothing
6. Image editing software (optional)

Putting them together just right can be the difference between an OK head shot and a great one.

1. A head
This is probably the second most important part of head shot photography. Although heads are fairly common, it is slightly less common to find a head that wants (or likes) having its picture taken. Most often this head will be in the form of a person needing a photograph, however it is not uncommon to go out and find consenting people who will agree to a head shot even if they don't particularly need one.

One of the first things you will want to do, should you be photographing someone who needs a head shot, is to find out how they will use the photo. Pretty basic. You don't want to photograph a gentleman in his workout clothes if he needs the photograph for an annual report. This doesn't really require much more explanation.

2. A camera with a long-ish lens
The camera/lens is the most important part of head shot photography. Although, arguably only slightly more important than the head itself. Without a camera there is no photograph!

Why a "long-ish" lens? This is because of the pleasing effect of a telephoto (or long) lens commonly known as "compression". Typically we think of compression in terms of backgrounds and the effect it has on them. However, if your subject should have a rather large nose, the compression of the long lens will help make it not as noticeable. Unfortunately this doesn't work for ears.

Whenever you watch a football game (or most other commonly televised sporting events) you will notice how when a player is on the screen, he/she is sharp and clearly focused while the people in the stands behind them are turned into a big blur of color. (See image for example) This blur is a direct result of a long lens and the compression it creates. This is especially useful in photography as you want the subject of your head shot to stand out and be the center of focus. You don't want the viewer to be looking at the background.

Another reason for a long-ish lens is that wide-angle lenses tend to make your subjects look un-realistic. Typically with wide-angle lenses, anything not directly in the center of the lens will be skewed or stretched a bit. If you ask photographers that do a lot of head shots what their favorite lens is, two lenses will pop up very frequently among the answers. They are the 85mm prime lens, and the 70-200mm zoom lens.
The 85mm offers razor sharp images because it is a prime lens (primes tend to be more sharp because they don't have as many elements as a zoom lens). It is, however, possible to convert any prime lens into a zoom lens. To do this, simply use the two appendages below your waist to move you closer or farther from the subject.

The 70-200mm lens is a great portrait lens because it allows the flexibility to zoom in very close to the person, while remaining a safe distance away in case they didn't take a shower that day. The 200mm end of that lens offers amazing compression which makes for very flattering portraits and head shots, but with the twist of the wrist, a wider shot can be composed for variety.
There are many other lenses that offer a farther focal length than 200mm, such as the 300mm or even the 400mm lenses. However, the drawbacks to using these are 1) super-telephoto lenses can cost upwards of $5,000. 2) The lenses are VERY heavy and cumbersome to use, allowing limited mobility. 3) In order to frame the subject properly, the photographer would have to be so far away that communication would be limited to smoke signals, walkie-talkies, and signal flags.

3. Lights/reflectors (optional)
Having lights and/or a reflector will help you to have more versatility. For example, a reflector is commonly used to reflect light into a darker part of the face. However, it can also be used to keep light off of the face altogether. Having lights means you don't have to battle the harsh sun light. Simply find a spot of shade, or use the reflector to block the sun, and you can provide your own light, however you want it to look - hard/soft, strong/weak, colored/neutral, left/right, from above/below, etc.

Typically, head shots are lit with soft light, either from a light source with an umbrella or softbox, or with light reflected from a large (white) surface. However, if the face is right or the client requests it, hard light can be used to make a much more dramatic portrait.
If the subject is a female, or if the subject's hair blends with the background, a hair light is typically used. The hair light will create a nice highlight on the subjects hair, which is flattering and also serves to keep the person's head from blending in to the background. (As illustrated by the painting/portrait to the left)

Portfolio Bolstering

2009-12-17T23:52:00.004-06:00

I spoke to someone a few months ago who is the director of sales of a national oil and gas magazine. Upon finding out that I was a photographer he suggested that I should photograph drilling rigs and try to get into the industry as there are a lot of companies that specialize in drilling and rigging in the area that I live.

Having nothing at all in my portfolio to reflect my abilities in this new field, I set out to get an opportunity to get some pictures.
At first I simply started out by discussing my idea with a few friends, and as it so happened, my room mate at the time knew someone who worked for a rigging company. He made a phone call and I had a brand new contact.

after about 3 weeks of rescheduling and waiting for weather conditions, I drove about an hour to the drilling site, where I was met by someone who worked with the contact I had made. He showed me around the place and introduced me to some of the workers. They were all very accommodating and friendly.

My goals for this shoot were as follows:
1: Get something that would look like it could be a feature for a magazine article.
2: Capture the workers in their natural element, hard at work, without disturbing anyone.
3: Have fun and get some cool photos for my website.

For the sake of keeping it short, I will skip ahead to the photos so you can see what I came out with.

As time went on the sun went down and the images got pretty interesting. I had 3 lights spread around the platform once it got completely dark.
Once they were done their pipeline change, I shot a few portraits of the guys, and then packed up and headed home.

All in all I think it was a pretty successful trip and I got some great images for the site. check them out at www.radiantsquares.com/corporate and www.radiantsquares.com/people

Help-Portrait 2009

2009-12-13T14:13:00.005-06:00

I had the great pleasure of participating in the first global help-portrait day.

This video will explain it better than I could hope to:

I arrived at nearly 10:30 and immediately started setting up. The people there had provided us with a white seamless.
I borrowed my friend Mike McLean's dyna-lite kit and headed down there.
There were 200 people, in 69 groups!
I was at station 1 of 3 and shot about 35 of those groups, including a group photo of 30 people!!

It was a very interesting experience. Some people couldn't wait to get in there and have their photo taken. Some people just refused to smile, while some people wouldn't come near the camera.
In general though, everyone there seemed very grateful for the opportunity (either to serve, or to be served).

Some of my favorite moments and the photos that go along with them:

#1

This couple had just had a baby girl. The father would not smile at all, no matter what I did or said - as long as I had the camera to my eye. So I stopped shooting for a minute and started talking with them. After a very short while he was laughing and having fun and while he was looking at his wife and smiling, I really quickly raised the camera up and took a photo. The flash brought both of their attentions right back at the camera and really quickly I got off two more frames before the smile vanished from his face. He came up to me after we were done, while I was showing his grandmother the photo, and told me that I had "blind-sided" him. I thought that was pretty funny.

#2

This guy came with all of his grandkids. Only problem was, he wouldn't smile, and neither would half of the kids. After trying to get one particular child to smile by threatening to have his grandfather tickle him, I got the brilliant idea to have ALL the kids tickle grandpa. So I told them to tickle him, and watched through the camera for just the right moment. Finally they all turned back around and while they were all still laughing I snapped a few frames.

#3

This man was obviously not very comfortable in front of the camera. I got the impression he was trying to just look tough and get it over with. So I started asking him what he planned to do with the photo once he had received his print.
He started saying he was going to send it to his "momma". Amazingly, as soon as he started talking about his momma, his face went from serious to happy and I got the photo above on the right.

#4

This guy is pretty well known around the community, as well as the church ministry that works down there, who we were recruited by. His reputation was to never smile in any photos. So when I took a few photos of him, people started asking if he was smiling. I looked back through my files and sure enough he had not been.
So I had him and his wife sit in for a few more, and like with the first photo, I waited patiently for some people around us to distract him enough to where he forgot I was there, and sure enough, he smiled and started to laugh. I caught this moment and showed it to his wife. She begged me to send her a copy of just him (the original photo has her in it as well) so she could have something to carry around with her.

Its moments like those that helped make the day a memorable one.
Hopefully next year we can do it again!

More to come!

Personal Project

2009-12-03T18:03:00.002-06:00

I have a lot of catching up to do as far as blogs. I apologize I don't always make the time to write about what is going on and what I have been shooting. I am working on rectifying that.

I started somewhat of a personal project a little over a year ago.
The plan was to photograph NICU survivors and get their stories.

So far I have done 3 different subjects.
I'd like to show you one of my newer subjects.

Meet Collin. He was 18 months old when I shot this photograph.
Unfortunately I didn't get a lot of information written down about him but you an see his feet and legs stand out as being part of the issue.

I will email his mother again and see if I can get more info.

I drove out to his house and set up a quick and easy 'studio' setup with a black background taped to the wall and a small chimera softbox as the main light.

Collin seemed to be in a rather bad mood that day and didn't stop grimacing or crying until about an hour and forty minutes into my visit.

I was still able to get some good photos though, which was good.

I'll be posting more soon hopefully!

Canon EOS 7D

2009-11-12T18:55:00.001-06:00

As was already guessed... The newest addition to the camera bag!
Such a great camera.

Stay tuned for some more photos and news coming up soon.

2009-11-09T16:55:00.001-06:00

Big Week for Radiant Squares!

2009-11-07T23:15:00.003-06:00

This past week has been a big big week for Radiant Squares!

Over the past 2 months I have been working with a company that has been redesigning my website. It has taken forever and there was a lot of work and effort that went into it, but finally it went live this past Wednesday morning.
I have had a lot of good feedback and have actually already had my first quote request through the site today!

Also this week, I was finally able to upgrade my camera body!
The camera I have been using was never intended to serve me as a professional. I bought it when I was just a hobbyist and needed something more than the cheapest Canon dSLR. 3 years and 50,000+ frames later, I have put the old camera on the reserve slot and just yesterday got its replacement in the mail.

I'm very excited to see where these two big changes are going to take me!

Here is a quick shot I did tonight of the new body. Not saying what it is yet but maybe you'll be able to guess by the "hints" I'll be posting.

Thanks for reading and don't forget to check out the all new Radiant Squares Website!!

R.

Tim & Melinda

2009-10-30T22:20:00.003-05:00

I had the opportunity to do engagement photos this past weekend for two couples.
Both shoots were blast and I found some new cool locations that I'm sure to use again soon!
Here are a few of my favorite shots from Saturday evening with Tim and Melinda.

Stay tuned for more photos!

Arizona Day 2

2009-10-03T23:29:00.003-05:00

Day two of the Arizona shoot started at 5:15am. We were set to do a sunrise shot at about 6:15 or 6:30 so we had to be moving at an unfriendly hour!

The building's colors lend to great photography, especially with the nice orange light of the morning.

After the sunrise we went inside and photographed the president of the hospital and his staff.
We found a great hallway with a lot of light coming through and got some great head shots.

The day ended with a sunset shot of the building with the mountains it was named after in the background.

Busy day, but good stuff!
More to come

Posting is fun

2009-09-24T20:05:00.004-05:00

I have been meaning to start posting more frequently. Obviously I am failing. For this I apologize.

I returned from a "run and gun" trip to Arizona about 2 weeks ago now. Although in my mind it seems like it was only 2 days ago.
We pulled a 20 hour day the first day, of which 8 were spent traveling, 7 were spent shooting, and 2 were spent downloading images and recharging batteries. Bed time was 11:30 pacific.

We shot a lot of different parts of the hospital, spending about an hour on each shot, which isn't a whole lot. One of the reasons the client said she booked us is because she knew most photographers could not complete the number of shots she had in the time period allotted.

Here is the O.R.

Here is a great shot which will be used to show the level of care and compassion people can expect at the new hospital.

And here is one of the doctors

Wake up call was for 5:30am the following morning.

On the agenda for day 2:
- sunrise shot of the exterior
- head shots of the board members
- detail shots
- lobby shot
- reception shot
- sunset shot

To be continued...

Upcoming fun-nes

2009-09-05T23:16:00.004-05:00

On Tuesday of next week, Mike and I are heading up to Arizona for a 3-day long shoot of a brand new hospital. It is not open to the public yet so we will have the run of the place.
This is my first time attempting to travel with all the equipment we will be taking with us.

I don't have a final tally on everything yet but so far it looks something like this:

2 camera bags, 3 cameras, 6 lenses, over 30gb of CF cards, two laptops, an external hard drive,
10 light stands, a tripod, a monopod, 2 bogen superclamps, 2 justin clamps, about 12 speedlights, 8 pocket wizards, lots and lots of gels, a truckload of rechargeable batteries, 2 battery chargers, 2 soft boxes, a Lumiquest box, a boom arm, an empty sand bag, tripod case, and our clothes.

It will be interesting getting all of this through airport security!!
We will get a tour as soon as we arrive and are fed, then its work time until about 7pm that night.
Early to bed and up at 5 for a 6am sunrise shot, working all day and again a late night. Then another sunrise shot (unless we get a good one the first morning - I'm crossing my fingers).
We will finish up around 2pm on the third day, drive to Las Vegas airport and head home to crash and sleep all day Friday.

Busy busy busy!

Last weekend I shot a church event put on by the young singles department. It was an "Amazing Race" event. Teams picked a country to "dress up as" then started out in the same room, were given a puzzle to put together, and on teh back of the puzzle was the first clue. From there it was off to travel all over Downtown Dallas, Plano, Richardson, and Carrollton.
I got some fun photos and the event ended around 2pm.

Here are some of my favorites:

Putting together the first clue

Playing in the fountain

Here come the teams, fresh off the DART

Finding clues in the fountain

The food challenge had some not-so tasty treats

One unlucky team member eating dog food

Zero Gravity challenge

Zero Gravity Challenge

Flying High

All the participants, volunteers, and staff that stuck around till the end

3rd place team member heading home

That's it from me for now. Stay tuned for more. Hopefully I'll have a few minutes here and there to blog about our trip to Arizona!

Happy Labor Day weekend everyone!
R.

Roadside Stops

2009-08-12T11:32:00.003-05:00

Last week my good friend Mike and I went down to Clear Lake to help teach at a journalism workshop for high school students who are on the yearbook staff. This was their first year having a photography class and the kids seemed to love it. The first day was spent going through the basics of operating a camera and composing a photograph, but on the second and third day we got to get a bit more advanced and showed them some basic lighting techniques.
Here is a photo that Mike did of me teaching them the basics of lighting:

Clear Lake was beautiful and Mike and I took the opportunity to walk around and talk to some locals and, of course, to photograph them.

Here is one of my favorite photos from a town called "Kemah".

You wouldn't be able to tell from looking at him, but he is a nurse! He has the softest hands of any Harley rider I've ever met. haha

All in all it was a very fun trip and it yielded some great portraits.
More to come I'm sure!

60 Second Head Shot

2009-07-30T16:14:00.005-05:00

I was shooting downtown today when my client asked if I could do a quick head shot of her.
Naturally, I agreed.

My favorite place to do head shots is outdoors in the shade. My favorite backdrop is trees, bushes, or anything nature looking. The green just really complements people's skin. The shade allows me to use my own light, which gives me much more control over how the subject is lit.

The building I was shooting in has a nice park next door and my first thought was to get her over to the park. But once I stepped out on the porch I realized I didn't have to take her more than 5 feet from her front door.

I quickly set up a light stand, used an SB-28 speedlight, and a shoot through umbrella.
I posed her with her back to the park and fired 2 quick light tests.
Fired of 10 more frames once the light was right, and we were done.
From the time the first light test was shot to the time the last frame was shot was exactly 59 seconds!
What took the longest was setting up the light stand and flash, and I decided to change lenses after seeing what it looked like. (I started with a 5omm F/1.4, but opted to go with my 70-200mm F/2.8 instead.

And here is the result of my one minute of shooting:

As Promised: Bridal Portraits!

2009-07-27T00:41:00.004-05:00

In my last post I showed you how I photographed my friend Melissa for her bridal portraits. Unfortunately I couldn't show the images at the time, but I'm happy to say that, as of yesterday, they are happily married and I'm now free to show off the photos!

As I showed you the setup for the indoor ones, I'll go ahead and show you those.

Here is one with only one of the strip boxes firing. As you can see, the black background and white dress create a beautiful contrast, and the light makes the photos so incredibly dramatic.

Both lights firing this time. I probably should have moved them back a bit farther behind her, but the result is still very dramatic.

Finally, my favorite image from the series, which was blown up to a 16"x20" for her wedding day:

She loved them almost as much as I did! I was very happy that she let me shoot inside, as I've been trying to convince the brides-t0-be that I've shot to do it, but none of them have gone for the idea. Since she is a very good friend she was kind enough to indulge me.

Bridal Portraits

2009-06-25T14:14:00.003-05:00

I did some bridal portraits last night for a very good friend. I have been trying to get brides to let me shoot them indoors on a black background so that the images could be black and white. The white dress with a black background really creates some powerful contrast and draws attention to the dress. Finally I was able to, mainly because my friend was nice enough to be my guinea pig.

For the project I rented two 6' tall strip boxes. The guy at the rental place acted like I was crazy for wanting to use them for bridal portraits! But I wish he could have been in the room with me as I shot some of the most powerful and dramatic bridal portraits I have ever shot. I put one on either side of her so that only her sides were lit. The bride loves them and I'm hoping that now that I have something to show to future brides I will be able to do it more often.
I mean, why would you not want to shoot indoors in July in Texas??? Its 100+ degrees outside, with 90% humidity!! This way you can do your hair and makeup and it stays the way you want it. You are not wearing a 10lb dress and sweating for 2 hours. OK, I can't promise you won't break a little sweat in a studio with lights and a heavy dress, but I guarantee it will not be anywhere near as bad as if you were outside!

I can't show you the photos I got for another month or so, but this is the basic setup I did:

Photoshop Tip

2009-06-09T12:36:00.003-05:00

For those of you who use photoshop to process your images I ran across something that might be of use to you.

You may have noticed that your images lose some saturation when they are uploaded to the internet. I have heard that this can be avoided by using the "sRGB" color profile. However, I still notice considerable desaturation.

While trying to make sure my images were, indeed, in the "sRGB" profile today I ran across a great feature that prevents the loss of your original color.

Under the "Edit" menu, scroll down to the "color settings" option.

This will bring up a dialog box where you can change various settings.
If you view it with the "more options" button enabled you will see an option to desaturate by 20%.

This effectively gives you a preview of what the image will look like once it is on the web.
From there, you can re-saturate it up to the way you want it to look. I used the sponge tool, but you could throw a hue/saturation adjustment layer over it just as easily.

Save it as a JPG and when it uploads the image will look normal.

Babies - they make everyone smile (well almost...)

2009-06-06T17:32:00.003-05:00

I agreed to act as "photographer" for a friend's "baby's first birthday" party.
Didn't realizing that there would be a whole pack of little rugrats running around! But I quickly settled in and got a few great photos.

Here is my favorite (ironically not of the birthday girl...)

Shot through a play house window.

A tip for all of you Pocket Wizard using photographers

2009-05-14T17:09:00.009-05:00

I was assisting a photographer friend of mine the other day and we ran into a hiccup with our shot.
We were trying to shoot a building from pretty far away, and fire lights inside it. I think the range must have been just out of reach of the pocket wizards we were using as they were not firing with any kind of consistency.

My first thought was to use a relay, about half way between the photographer and the lights.
It had been some time since I had actually used the relay feature so I had to look up how to do it. After a few minutes on Google, I had my answer. The only problem was, in order to have relay mode work on your pocket wizard, the relaying unit has to be on the hotshoe of a camera. We didn't have another camera available to use for this, so I thought we were done for.

While digging through my gear bag, I came across a little piece of equipment that I almost never use anymore but that ended up making a huge difference. It is an $11 hotshoe adapter that I bought from www.flashzebra.com.

Photo by Mike McLean

What makes this hotshoe special is that it has a pc jack on the side, which sends a signal to the contact on the shoe of any flash and fires it. I originally picked it up because I had several flashes that did not come with pc connectors and this was the cheapest way to get them to work with pocket wizard triggers. However, you can use it to cheat a relay mode with pocket wizards.

To do relay mode, you need a minimum of 3 pocket wizards. The first is used as a remote to fire the shutter wirelessly. The 2nd normally is on the camera's hotshoe, plugged into the camera's wireless shutter release port. When pw #1 is fired, pw #2 gets the signal and sets off the shutter.
While this is happening, the camera senses something on the hotshoe and sends the signal to fire whatever is up there in sync with the shutter. Here is where relay mode kicks in. The Pocket Wizard automatically goes to the next channel down (in our case, channel 2) and transmits the signal to fire #3, which is already set to channel 2.

As I didn't have another camera to use, I thought of this hotshoe adapter. It has a "hot" shoe and a pc connection. I simply put the pocket wizard on the hotshoe adapter,

Photo by Mike McLean
and then added the cable to it.

Photo by Mike McLean
A quick push of the "test" button on pw #1, set to channel 1, fired the lights that were hooked up to pw #3, which were set to channel 2. By doing this, essentially you can take the range of your pocket wizards from 1600ft to 3200ft. All that for $11.

Pretty nice!

Some More Vehicle Photos to Drool over

2009-05-02T11:49:00.004-05:00

Here are a few shots of an Alpha Romeo 8C. It is extremely rare, especially in the U.S.
It showed up at the Ferrari event I was at a few weeks ago, and I couldn't pass up a few minutes of alone time with it!