Studio Shots with my Favourite Models

With hockey (finally) on hiatus for the summer and a couple of weeks before my next race, I've been trying to stretch my horizons a bit and take shots that need a bit more preparation before hand.

In the rink and at the race track, it's pretty much find a good spot that I like, get the camera settings right and blast away at whatever catches my eye. But I've been reading and watching a lot on photographers that are good at working with light. Joe McNally is an absolute master at it. I picked up his book "The Hot Shoe Diaries" and now believe that it is possible to make stunning photos with small strobes.

Anyway, I've been putting together a make-shift studio in the basement that hopefully before the summer ends will become a more permanent version and started using some of the tricks that I learned to make some 'studio' type shots.

Here are some of the ones I like the best...

This little beauty is my wonderful (and very patient) daughter Taylor. It's great to have a model living right in the house. She isn't really a model but we definitely treat her like one.

The other beauty is my charming (and equally patient) wife Shelley.

These were all shot with a Nikon D700 with a 24-70 mm 2.8 or 70-200 2.8 in the studio using one SB-800 for light shot into a bunch of different diffusers. The shots on black had the SB-800 shooting into a 4'x3' piece of white foamboard (slightly camera right) and a silver reflector on camera left to bounce some of the light back into the shot. I used the 70-200 on those shots. For the shots with the white/grey background, I shot the SB-800 through an umbrella (camera right) and used the silver reflector to splash a bit of light back in.

That's it for now. More to come.

Racing Time Again (Finally!)

After seven long months of hockey-only photo action I finally got back to the race track this weekend.

I was at Mosport in Bowmanville, ON on Sunday to shoot the NASCAR Canadian Tire Series race and while it wasn’t the top-end NASCAR series that I like to follow, it was still fun to get back to the race track.

I’ve been to Mosport before to shoot stock cars and the AMLS weekend so I knew what I was in for but it didn’t take long for me to realize that my legs aren’t in ‘racing shape’ yet. Trudging around the track with a back full of photo gear is a good way for your body to remind you that you haven’t been working nearly as hard as you thought.

It was a perfect day weather-wise and turned out to be a great day for shooting. Andrew Ranger won the race while J.R. Fitzpatrick, who was in the NASCAR Truck race in Michigan on Friday, finished second.

I was shooting the race for the NASCAR Nationwide Series program for the race in Montreal in August. The features I’m working on are mostly focused on the younger drivers that are having success in the series so the podium finishes for Ranger, Fitzpatrick and Anthony Simone worked out perfectly for me.

I’m usually not a big fan of watching road course racing but Mosport really offers up some great opportunities for shooting. There are 10 turns and a couple of long straightaways so the angles are only limited by how far your legs are willing to travel.

I also got the chance to try out a new 70-300 VR zoom lens that I picked up last week after reading great reviews (Moose Peterson talked me into it through his blog post – hope he’s on commission). I used it a bit but my D300 was acting up so I mostly used my 200 2.0 VR on the D700 body. For some shots I used a 1.4 teleconverter to get a little closer to the action. From what I saw so far, the 70-300 focuses quickly and is very sharp.

If you are interested in shooting car racing, Mosport is one of the best places to do it in Ontario. Even if you don’t have media credentials, there are literally hundreds of places to shoot from. It’s a great place to fill your portfolio with pro-type images – especially with a lens like the 70-300.

Hall delivers big moment

Taylor Hall may be one of the best junior hockey players in the country and despite being just 17-years-old, the Kingston native delivered one of the most memorable moments in this history of Windsor sports on Friday when he scored the overtime-winning goal in the deciding game of the OHL championship series.

Hall was the OHL and CHL rookie of the year in 2007-08 and followed up with another outstanding season this year. But he stepped up his production even more in the playoffs, including 13 times when he recorded multiple points in playoff games. He scored 16 goals - including 10 even strength - during the Spitfires' inspirational playoff run and was the obvious choice to win the Wayne Gretzky 99 Award as the most valuable player in the playoffs.

No offence to John Tavares, Matt Duchene and the other outstanding group of prospects for this year's NHL draft, but with the wheels, scoring ability and knack for scoring big goals that Hall has shown, I suspect he would be the first overall pick this year if he had been born two months earlier. Unfortunately for the NHL - but to Windsor's benefit - Hall isn't available for the draft until next summer.

He just might get another OHL championship before then.