Still learning blog format

To all my viewers. I'm still learning the quirks of this blog format and am figuring out posting issues. Specifically there are pixel issues with any cropped picture I post. If you click on a blurry picture, it will bring up a link with the picture in a clear form. Enjoy, Thanks!

Canadian Girls

Here in Korea, I have a Canadian coworker who is here along with several of her university friends. They're all super fun and were sport enough to do a shoot with me. Not only was it fantastic to have four wonderful models, it is also the most beautiful time here right now. Spring has sprung, and after the dismal bleakness that was winter, the country has been transformed by cherry blossoms and fresh green leaves. They're gorgeous and they're everywhere. They line the streets and cast a soft glow around the city. They offered a great background for the majority of the pictures.
Not only was the setting great for this shoot but I also recently bought a new lens, a canon 17-40mm f/4L. This shoot was the first time really testing it out. So far it's great! It makes shooting with a lot of different perspectives much easier. I also played with lighting a little bit in a couple of these pictures. I tried bouncing my flash off an umbrella to get some softer light. It worked out really well and gave a portrait feel to the shots.

New Beginnings

Last Sunday, the church that Ryan and I attend announced that, since they are moving locations in a couple weeks, they need something to decorate the new walls with. A "contest" was open for any photographer to submit photos with the theme of "New Beginnings". Of course, the announcement had to come right before the sermon making it difficult to keep my mind from wandering into my right brain and camping out for the next hour.
The new project has been fantastic to work on my creativity. It's great to start with a blank picture and try to add subjects to a theme, instead of having a subject and shooting it/them in different ways. I had a few simple ideas that I worked on over this past week with some limited resources and I went back into my picture collection to touch up a few old ones. These are 12 options I'm sending in.

Ferrin

My co worker Ferrin offered to let me do a shoot of her a couple weekends ago. It was super fun to finally get out in somewhat decent weather (low 50's) and do a real shoot. I chose to go to the outskirts of a local stadium where there were some nice little nature filled niches. We ended up having a good time. She was a great sport about it and was willing to pose in front of the hundreds of gawking Koreans who spilled out of the stadium halfway through the shoot.


The lighting was pretty nice. There was even cloud cover and no harsh shadows to deal with. I shot with my 50mm and kept it at about f/4 for most of the time. I've been working on nailing exposure really well, so I tried to keep my settings pretty steady. For a few of the shots, I tested out a home made snoop, an easily made device that directs your flash to a target part of your subject. I tried lighting up her face with the sun as a backdrop in some of the shots. I'm not sure if I like the results in general, although a couple of the pics it does bring out her makeup and her hair. Overall, however,  I was quite pleased with the results. It's fun to see progress, even if it is still miles away from the pros.

I'd love to hear your comments by the way, if you'd like to share  =)

I definitely would pull something

A few weeks ago one of my friends with me in Korea told me I could tag along to his dojo and shoot some of his Kyokushin practice. I jumped at the opportunity and got quite a show. For those of you who've never heard of this style of karate, it's a lot less wimpy than others. It focuses on power and it focuses on making sure your opponent really hurts after you've fought him. Not only did the flexibility of the participants thoroughly impress me, but the decibel created by the thwack of feet hitting punching bag also gave me some awe for the sport. Call me wimpy, but I'd never pick a fight with one of these guys.

The shoot ended up turning out well enough. The lighting was the most challenging I've worked with so far. The green of the floor mat combined with the fluorescent bulbs cast a sickly hue on everything... thank goodness for photo shop.