Weekend Snapshots

Posted on May 8, 2011
Filed Under Photos, Weekend Snapshots | 2 Comments

Scoozzi, New Haven, Ct.:

Our appetizer: Polpo, grilled sliced Portuguese FAO 34 octopus with celery and lemon served chilled with sliced plum tomatoes, purple potatoes, gold beets, fennel frond oil, olive oil and maldon salt.

Caesar salad

I always forget that authentic caesar dressing is made with anchovies since most restaurants/bottled caesar/home cooks don’t always use this ingredient. Obviously, it was because I forgot about the anchovies that I ordered this salad. Luckily, The Boss really enjoyed his so he didn’t mind eating a large portion of mine.

My main course: Ravioli Aragosta, striped lobster and cheese ravioli tossed with sautéed lobster, shrimp and scallops, asparagus, San Marzano tomatoes and sweet corn with a brandy cream glaze.

The Boss’s main course: Linguini Pescatore, sautéed wild Gulf wild shrimp, sea scallops, South American tilapia, calamari, clams, mussels, San Marzano tomatoes, capers, garlic, lemon and white wine broth.

Like most restaurants, the chefs at Scoozzi accomodated our dietary needs, which include replacing sauces/creams that contain alcohol with something else that was very tasty!

<3,
Me.

Downtown Minneapolis – St. Paul

Posted on May 5, 2011
Filed Under Photos | 1 Comment

I’m in Minneapolis for a business meeting and took this photo with my cell phone last night when I checked into my hotel room; it’s the view from my window. I’m only here for a day, but all the people I’ve met in the Twin Cities so far are so very friendly. I hope to return soon for a more leisurely stay, even if there’s a some business peppered in to my next visit.

Using your on-camera flash outdoors

Posted on May 3, 2011
Filed Under Lexia Frank, Photos | 4 Comments

Last week, we covered how to manipulate your on camera flash for more flattering light. Previously, we talked about indoor lighting and outdoor lighting, and even covered a tiny bit of outdoor lighting at night. If you need a refresher, head on back there to review!

Today, however, I want to talk about when to use your on camera flash outside when it’s brightly lit. I know it sounds absurd… to add more light to a brightly lit scene, but it can make a HUGE difference. Your photos can go from this

or this

to this:

All three of these images were taken on the same balcony within five minutes of each other.

Here is the thing. I get e-mails from people all the time wondering why their outdoor shots turn out all washed out –why they can’t capture the bright blue sky. Or why they can capture the bright blue sky, but their subjects are always too dark. Well…It’s impossible to properly expose for the sky and the earth. That’s it. So if you’ve been struggling with this, you can now take comfort in knowing that it just can’t be done (kind of). Not when the sky is one level of brightness and the earth is another level of brightness. Your camera is not like the human eye, and it can’t merge the two levels together.

Okay, technically, it CAN be done, but it takes some finagling and some equipment. To expose properly for both the sky and the earth (and the subjects that are standing on the earth) you need to make the light equal in both places. That means, if your light meter reads the sky to be properly exposed at 1/1000 of a second at f/16, then you need your subject (what’s on the earth) to read that same exposure.

If not, you will get this: A properly exposed person, but washed out sky (this is the most common).

And if you do the opposite you will get this: A properly exposed sky, but a super dark subject.

You can do two things: Take away the light in the sky by adding a neutral density filter to your lens OR add light to your subject to equal the light of the sky, which is what we’re going to discuss. If you want to add light to your subject, you can use a reflector to throw light back on them, and although this is the least expensive option, it requires an assistant. The other option is to use your flash (on or off-camera flash, but today we’re just talking about on-camera flash) to add more light to the situation like I’ve done here:

This is called fill flash, because we’re exposing properly for the sky to get that nice rich blue, but we’re ‘filling’ in the shadows on the subject to equal the sky’s brightness. I have just merely set my flash to TTL (through the lens metering) and hit the shutter release button on my camera to take the picture. It’s that easy.

A small disclaimer: On-camera flash is still not my ideal choice to light my subject. I love the look of off-camera flash and this is what I use for the majority of my flash-lit shots (check out strobist.com if you’d like to learn more about that. The site has some insanely awesome articles about it!), but off-camera flash takes a lot of practice, an assistant (sometimes), tripods, pocket wizards and a whole lot of cash. So, for the ease of simplicity and our pocketbooks, on-camera flash will work just fine for us!

Not only does it give a proper exposure for both the subject and sky, but it also makes the eyes pop with that catch light. See that little white spot on the eye? That’s the much sought-after catchlight, the little reflection that makes eyes come to life and sparkle. What’s nice about this fill flash is that it didn’t blow out the main light (the sun!) and you can still see the nice gradation of brightness to shadow that the sun created (like on their necks for example) which gives a nice roundness and three-dimensionality to the subjects. If my flash had been too bright, it would have washed them out with brightness and visually flattened them against the blue background. Ew. Also, because I’m not using a reflector, my subjects aren’t squinting. Reflectors are constant sources of light blinding your subject, causing them to squint and be uncomfortable (and also, to get a sunburn quite quickly). Flashes are quick, their light intensity can be changed, you aren’t dependent on the sun’s direction to reflect light back on your subject, you don’t have to have an assistant to hold it, and you don’t have to worry about the wind taking it away. Both are great to use, but you just have to weigh your circumstances and decide which options are best.

These shots were taken with fill light using a reflector so you can kind of see the difference. I think a reflector is a little bit more natural looking than on-camera flash.