Midday sun solutions. This image is from a wedding I did in The Canary Islands. The sun is high and it's hard to light them without interfering with what's between them and me. Too bright for my spots etc. A mirror would have  been the best "try". My personal rule photographing people outside is: If you can't get good light on them, don't have them look in the camera! Dark eyes looking at you is like an autofocus hitting a white wall, you just keep searching and searching without getting contact.

If I had wanted an image with eye contact, I would have kept the camera frame, but moved them close to me on the right and added some nice light on them, maybe also a diffusion screen over their heads (a California Sunbounce Sun Swatter would been the ideal one, since you can keep it so high and out of your shot). If you know me, you know I love photographing in midday sun, and it is one of the main things I teach.

A second thing about this image: I got low to get more lines, but mostly to get their heads clear of the ocean line to keep it peaceful between them. 

I think this image speaks more then a thousand words.

Excuse me for being more personal then photographic today. I grew up in wonderful Asker, Norway a 25 minute drive from Oslo along the Oslofjord. It's right by the ocean but still close to the mountains. About 91% of Norway is considered mountainous. 

I know live in beautiful Utah famous for its red rocks and skiing. Always since I first visited here in 1983 I wanted to get a picture I liked of Mount Timpanogos. It's the mountain up the hill from The Osmond Studios where I first worked when I moved here in the 80's. It's also the mountains I can see from my house today after I moved back here in 2000. Timp as we often call it rises to an elevation of 11,749 feet (3,582 m) above sea level. This picture is taken on my way home from work yesterday, in a park along Center Street. I'm standing about 4700 feet (1,432 m) above sea level. What a powerful experience it is to look up at this beautiful mountain so high.

5 minutes after this picture was taken the sun on the mountain was all gone, today 24 hours later almost all the snow is gone. I think the ultimate magic of this mountain is days like yesterday, when it is nice and green in the park, fall on the mountain side and snow on the tops. Just wanted to share this image I wanted and now I feel I got. Please have a wonderful week end wherever you are, mountain, ocean or whatever it may be. More then anything I see, I love and enjoy difference.

I have been in love with metal and glass backgrounds for years. Office buildings often have some cool metal entries or pillars. When I opened my InStudio Photographics last year I wanted to get some metal backgrounds into my camera room. So off to Metal Mart I went, I got a couple of nice things but the one I want to blog about to day is just a very reasonable 4 x 8 foot metal sheet, think it was around $30? I like to use it bent as you can see in the overviews. You can also make it like a U, etc, etc. The lighting in this sample is interesting enough. For fill I send a strobe into my neutral grey ceiling to create a light similar to a cloudy day. The nice thing is it doesn't reflect in the metal since it comes from straight above but it does give nice light in the hair and shade areas. For a main light I used a metal halide lamp 5500K.  It's coming in close and low to not cause disturbing reflections in the background. It is just barely stronger than the fill from the ceiling. Hope you all are having a great week end.

PS. New classes added, including a 3 day Wedding School 

Here is an Animoto video from Jamie's shoot  for my "Lighting that Rocks" and "Color and Colour" program sections. (See Lighting that ROCKS! blog) We always start a sales appointment with an Animoto video from the clients shoot. It gets them so excited and happy. We include the video in some of our packages and love it when they post it on their Facebook etc. great free marketing.

A little info about Animoto: Animoto is created by TV & film producers, Animoto for photography turns your photos into stunning videos in minutes. Fast, award-winning production value. 300+ free, commercially licensed songs. And now, totally white label.

If you are signing up for an account, you can get a free month and/or save a few dollars using this promocode :-) qwapsjvz Here is a link to the Animoto site, enjoy!