Quarry Grip & Such

OK. Here is the last of the equipment that will be going with us on assignment. Should be self explanatory and again, if you have questions feel free to comment.

Just heard from my contact at the Quarry, (writing this the day before leaving) that the quarry is not that large and impressive as I might think. My contact said that he has seen my work and knows that his location will be a challenge. "Not nearly as impressive as the locations I've seen on your web site". Apparently, this quarry was only started a year ago. Well see. Here's the last video of gear. DT

Quarry Light Equipment

Here is the second installment of the equipment I'm taking on this current assignment. This small Lightware case holds most of the lighting gear. 4 Nikon SB-800's, PocketWizards,2 Bogen stands and some grip equipment.

I'm currently on location shooting and will continue to post while out. Anyway, here is the video of the light gear taken on this assignment. Feel free to contact me regarding questions. DT

Quarry Camera Equipment

A lot of you have asked about the type of equipment I take on assignment. This short video (My Cameras) is one of several I'll be posting regarding this current assignment. I'll be following up with the lighting gear and other equipment taken on this assignment. We will also try to shoot some video while working on this assignment.

I'll be carrying my camera gear in a camera backpack, I have various backpacks which I can use depending on the equipment taken. This particular case is a Tenba. Basic kit consists of Nikon D2X, Nikon D70, 300 mm f/2.8, 12mm-24mm f/2.8, 24mm-85mm f/2.8, 80m-200mm f/2.8, TC-301 converter for 300 and a 10.5mm f/2.8 All Nikon glass.

If you have any questions after viewing the video, feel free to ask any questions you like. Thanks. DT

Quarry

I'll be heading out on assignment this coming Wednesday. Erik and I are flying to San Francisco and than driving south to Salinas/Gonzalez, CA. We will be shooting the second portion of an annual report I'm working on for a construction company.

Are location is a Quarry which my client owns. I'll be posting a You Tube video showing the camera and lighting equipment we'll be taking on this assignment. Look for additional posts in regards to this and images from this assignment in coming days.

When ever where required to wear hard hats, steel toed boots and safety glasses, that qualifies as an Industrial assignment. Over the past twenty some odd years I have definitely shot a lot of industrial assignments, however, I have also shot other subject matter such as Aerials, Hospitality (Hotels), Executive portraits, Health-care, Editorial and Corporate work environment type stuff. Most people including myself hate being typed cast or pigeon holed into one type of photographer. That being said, I do however, really love shooting the industrial types of subjects.

In my opinion, one of the biggest benefits of being a corporate location shooter is learning and seeing how things are built or made. My work has allowed me to travel all over the world shooting interesting subject matter and locations on someone Else's dollar.

If you are a photography student or a new photographer uncertain as to what area or field of photography to go into, I would encourage you to look into corporate location "Industrial" photography.

Sunday Walk

What a beautiful day today. My wife Debbie and I walk our dog Abby today through the neighborhood. I live just South of Denver about 15 miles, in a community called Highlands Ranch. We had a cold Thanksgiving here in Colorado, however, the temperatures have now warmed up to about 53 degrees Fahrenheit. The air was cool, crisp and clear, perfect for a wonderful walk with wife and dog.

Yakima Valley

This is a personal photo shot while on location shooting an annual report for a client of mine. I am always looking for opportunities to shoot while driving to and from locations. This photo was shot in the Yakima Valley where there are lots of fruit orchards and wineries scattered throughout the valley. I was on my way back to the Portland, OR airport where I was to catch a flight to Salt Lake City, UT for the second leg of my trip.


















The late afternoon light was just beautiful, warm and directional. If it had been you driving by this scene I'm sure you too would have stopped. I've never been to Tuscany, Italy but I imagine it would look something like this? If so, I want to go.

Whether I'm on assignment or just driving through my home town of Denver, I am always looking for those special moments when the light is doing it's thing. During the course of the day just living my life, I view the world through photographic eyes. I see things through lens in my mind, switching from wide angle to long telephoto lens, it's just what I do. If you shoot often like I do, I know you understand what I'm saying. It's just one of those things!

Happy Thanksgiving

Wanted to take just a few words to wish all of you a wonderful Thanksgiving. I also wanted to wish all of our brave men and women serving in our Armed Forces a Happy Thanksgiving as well. Thanks so much for all that you do keep us safe and preserving our freedom. I salute you.


The photo to the left here was shot on a recent personal trip to Northern California. I had always wanted to visit Garrapata Beach since reading stories about Edward Weston's many photos of this location. My family and I walked down to Garrapata Beach on the Monterey Peninsula to see this location.

What a wonderful place, strange rock formations and beautiful surf. The sky was a bit overcast, the type of diffused light I like for shooting this type of subject matter. If it had been sunny, I would of also made it work, but I would prefer the weather we had.

It seems that I've had quite an increase in emails and comments on my blog as well as You Tube. I wanted to thank all of you for visiting my blog and hope that the information I'm passing on is helpful. When I was starting out, we didn't have access to kind of information available to us. Isn't the web wonderful!

What the heck, I'll post another shot taken during the trip mentioned above. This time I'll show you? Let me look, be right back.... Found it.

The photo was taken at the San Francisco Maritime Museum, San Francisco. We walked onto an old ferry which use to carry cars and passengers. I was sitting down in the pilot house and saw this wonderful patten on the ceiling. Thought it made an interesting shot. Anyway, there you have it. Happy Thanksgiving. DT

Cover Shot & Easy Portrait

I recently photographed this charming lady for the cover of a company magazine. She is a top sales person in her district and the company she is employed by wanted to feature her on there magazine.

This was truly a quick set-up, just one light and a reflector.

The first thing I did when I arrived on location was to check the ambient light. The color temp as well as intensity. I realized that I would not be able to light the entire space and therefore, I would have to filter for the color temperature in the room. The light hanging from the ceiling are a High pressure Mercury vapor type light. My experience tells me that the color temp is close to florescent lighting, at least it will get me close.

I sent my camera (Nikon D2X) to a florescent setting for white balance, and I place a green filter (came with strobe) on the strobe to balance with the "florescent white balance" set on the camera. In effect, turning your strobe into a florescent flash. Here is a diagram showing the set up.

Here is the second set up I was asked to do by my client. They wanted a simple head shot of the subject for the profile to be written about her.

Of course I have the same ambient light situation as before, H.P.M.V. lighting. I kept the same camera white balance (florescent) and used the same green filter on the strobe.

I used two additional lights for this portrait. One as a hair light clamped to a decorative panel behind the subject and a second light used to light the panel.

I've been shooting location corporate work for more than 20 years, specializing in annual reports and other business collateral material.

Additional work can be seen at my home web site TEJADAPHOTO.COM. I shoot for all kinds of industries, I seem to shoot a lot of industrial type of assignments.

Ring Flash

I have just completed my DIY ring flash. I think it turned out great, plus the cost was less than $20.00 This flash was made with Home Depot materials, and things laying around the studio.

The main component consists of a 10.5 inch utility light made of aluminum and a 4 X 5 inch heating duct coupling. The mounting system is fashioned out of fittings laying around the studio. Small ball head, flash shoe, Bogen mounting plate from a flexarm that I had and small stud. Of course there is the red paint!

This ring flash is just another tool the have up your sleeve if you need it. This ring light is very lite weight, less than the weight of the PVC one I started to build before finding the parts for this version. I fire the strobe using the Nikon SU-800 command unit. The complete ring flash is comfortable to handle and as I mentioned earlier, very lite weight. One other great thing, it comes in any color you want!

Here is a close up of the parts I fashioned together for the mounting system. I'm going to be making another one for my intern and will be photographing the entire process.

The black gaffers tape is used to cover the rough metal joints between the heating coupling and the main dish. The diffusion material is made from a product I bought sometime ago from B&H. It is a heavy plastic type of material, we use to use this stuff when we made our soft boxes before there where commercial boxes available.

Thought you might enjoy seeing my new toy. I really don't have any plans on using it just yet. Kinda fun.

Putting Anne to rest.

For those of you who did not realize, my Father and Step Mother both passed away several months ago. Anne passed away 4/12/07 and my Father on 7/16/07.

It was Anne's wishes to have her ashes placed at several lawn bowling clubs throughout California. Anne was a singles women's champion in the early 80's, she loved bowling and even got my dad into it.

Soon after Anne passed away, my father health declined. He was only able to place Anne's ashes at one of 7 locations she listed. After my dad's passing and some time to take care of family matters, my family and I took Anne ashes to Northern California.

My family and I where able to squeeze in some vacation time for ourselves while in CA. I took only a Snap and shoot camera with me. I wanted to show you some of the images taken while there. I was shooting with a Canon G9.

We had about 6 days to noodle around as well as placing Anne at her request locations. We saw the Winchester Mystery House in San Jose, CA, Monterey Bay and San Francisco. I shot all of these pictures using the camera in manual mode. Kinda liberating just traveling with a lite weight camera that produces some fine images. Let me know what you think of the images, hope you enjoy.

Just click HERE.

Lighting a small CAD room

I am currently working on an annual report for a large construction company based in California. The first lag of the assignment took Erik and I to Yakima, WA and Ogden UT.

The video I've attached here is from the Yakima portion of the trip. My client has a "HOT PLANT" (Asphalt plant) in Yakima and a recently remodeled office they wanted photographed. This video is of a young lady seated in front of a CAD computer in a very very small room in recently remodeled offices. You will hear the audio of me working with my model giving direction to her. I'm simply looking for a natural body position of the subject, trying various things to create a natural looking moment. The fact is, the subjects I photograph are not professional models and it is my job to put them at ease and to find a "comfortable & natural" pose for them and me.

I used 2 SB-800 strobes to lite the room. The main light has a CTO filter on the strobe head and the flash has a snoot on it to contain the light to just the subject. The second light is bounced into the ceiling to provide a fill light. This strobe has a CTB filter attached to the head of the flash. This flash provide the base of cool blue in the room. The main light over powers the fill to provide an natural skin tone to the subject.

I hope you enjoy the video, please let me know if you would like to see more of these and perhaps what kind of information you would like to see.



Here is an example of a photo from this series that did not work for me. In this shot, the back of the chair is blocking my view of the maps I placed in the rack behind my subject.




I will be posting other images from this assignment in the next several posts. I have several other location to shoot for this assignment. I'll be traveling to St. Louis, California (Monterey, Sacramento, Yosemite), Key Largo, FL and other locations not yet known.