Renaissance Festival 2011, #1

I made the trip up to Plantersville again this year to the Texas Renaissance Festival. Back in 2008 when I was first learning off-camera flash, we ran ourselves ragged shooting anyone who remotely looked interesting ... and there were plenty. Years go by, and you become more selective in what you photograph at the festival. This year it was photographing performers and doing a few select portraits. This is Soraya from Gypsy Dance Theater.

Fall Color

Photo of Lauren taken recently, 85mm, 1/60 sec at f/2, Elinchrom Quadra with a beauty dish from camera left at minimal output.

Horse and Rider

This image has made the rounds recently -- 500px.com, facebook, and the Bay Area Photo Club. It has only appeared in black and white until now. I always envisioned it as a high contrast black and white, but when I retouch an image I always work on the file in color until the very end and then do the black and white conversion. So those of you who have seen the black and white version either online or in print, this is the layer before the black and white. It was one of those rare instances of good luck ... when you have to react fast and things work in your favor. I probably took about 12 frames of Lauren in this basic pose. And for a brief second at about shot #3, the wind kicked up just enough to blow her hair in this great line following the horse's neck.

So, I took the shot and hoped for the best -- hoped that f/4 was enough aperture to carry focus from the horse to Lauren, hoped that the flash had recycled and was ready to fire, hoped that in my rush I framed it correctly. And at the end of the shoot, it's one of those frames you scroll to and zoom in a couple of times just to see if you got lucky.

Great White Egret

Great White Egret at Armand Bayou on Saturday. Spot metered, 1/1600 sec at f/5.6, 300mm, -0.3 EV.

Kacey

Photo above is from a shoot with Lauren and Kacey last weekend. I was experimenting with backlight, which seems to be a common theme for me lately. Modern cameras and lenses continue to amaze me in how they perform in these backlit situations -- holding detail, minimizing flare. No flash was used here; natural light; f/2.8 at 1/640 sec, 85mm. In postprocessing, I added some additional tint and texture.