New Format, New Blog

I have not left the blogging world.  I have simply moved to www.arcusphotography.com/blog using my own wordpress.org blog rather than the .com one.  Stop by and leave some love.

Wordless Wednesday: III

Follow Friday: 3

Newly joined: Model Mayhem.

• Been talking to a lot of a photographers and it’s a great way to meet models and exchange goods (time for photographs).  Good resource for any range of things.

An interesting photographer’s website.

Randomly came across this blogger, accidentally subscribed (meant to just comment) and then find out she was put up in Glamour’s style section.  Pretty sweet.

Just checked out the British Photography Journal’s website.

• Brilliant photography, advice, tips, etc.  Great source for photography news and updates in the field.
  

  Copyright Antonio Bolfo

A great inspiration behind the short!

• She was a photographer and now directed this beautifully dark short with Bryce Dallas Howard (who looks amazing!).

I’m a huge Joseph Gordon Levitt fan.  From 3rd Rock From The Sun to Inception to this!

• I really think great things can come from this and I sincerely hope to get further involved.  The guy’s a genius.

Wordless Wednesday: II

Manic Monday: Reflectors and Sports

…And not exactly together.  This Monday I am bringing you a twofor set.  One using reflectors from natural light but in an indoor setting to bring some much needed light to a high contrast shot.  The other series is are sports shots.  Unfortunately with these I was not equipped with the right lens (I don’t have a telephoto over 135mm… as I never need it typically).  I did get some cool wide shots that are fun but overall could have definitely used a nice 70-200L or something to do the job proper.

The first one is a portrait with the natural light coming in towards the camera and to the side of the person.  I used the gold reflector to knock some of that light back towards her side in order to get a slightly more even exposure.  I still (obviously) overexposed the highlights but my main concentration here was the lighting on her left side.

This second one was more of an even exposure all around with her in the back, dimly lit area.  Again the gold reflector was used to draw some more light into the shot, warming and lighting it up a bit to give it that sundown feeling.

These next two are pretty self-explanatory.  Given the tools I had to use, how could I make a pre-season football scrimmage fun in a photographic sense?  Super wide lenses, gangs of refs, and shallow depth of field of course!

So all in all, after seeing the lighting conditions and such of shooting sports all I have to say is “Bring it”.  When I get my prime telephoto L with a 2.8, I’ll be all over that.

Follow Friday: Ed. 2

Follow Friday in its second week!

• Came across a pretty cool photoblog over at NV|Photoblog.
  • Great portraits, probably my favorite part of the site.  This one and this one are particularly eye-catching.  The lighting in the first one really is exquisite while the latter’s soft and angelic tones are extremely pleasing.  The angelic one really feels as though she could be placed anywhere in time, in any locale, in any universe – fiction, fantasy, or non.  I can see her on the castle battlements alongside Arthur.
• The “Adidas” Camera.
  • Freaking awesome!  Got a really good idea/inspiration from this one.  Time to play in film again possibly?  This guy is a great photographer and has his French/English blog located right here.  Truly someone to keep an eye out for.
  

  Steven Monteau Photography

• 120 MP.
  • Whoa.  I mean whoa.  I don’t even know what I would do with that.  Something amazing.  Sears Tower sized photographs of Scotland.
• And a new musical plug:  Mumford & Sons.
  • They’re original, the stride the line of alternative, folk, and rock.  Very refreshing.

Posted just in time

Wordless Wednesday: I

Manic Monday: Reflectors

Today I shot Brittany and John’s engagement photographs and they are featured on the first Manic Monday.  They were a great couple and really just listened to whatever I asked them to do and came up with a few fun and cool ideas themselves.  My big thing was I just bought a 5 in 1 Opteka reflector kit and wanted to try it out.  I have used a simple translucent on in the past along with lighting umbrellas but I was really hoping to use the “gold” skin-tone warming reflector outside.  It worked rather well, in fact probably too well.  I probably could have gone with the silver or translucent as the setting sun provided a great deal of warmth.  As this was my first time with gold though I decided to stick with it.  I enjoyed the results and think they came out pretty fun!  Elena was a great assistant and essentially held the reflector in whatever direction I asked her too.  It was a very fun setting to use a reflector with the natural sunlight that was out there.

If any of you out there are going to attempt it I definitely would recommend an assistant or a good tripod stand.  Holding it on your own could only work really with a remote timer… and that is a pain.  Also, if you are not in a time crunch just go ahead and take the same shot with all of the reflectors.  Find out which results are best for a specific lighting scenario.  Tell yourself: okay, this worked here but in this situation what would be the difference?   Thinking ahead like this definitely helps you plan for your next shot.

Here’s a couple of the results from the shoot:

Survey to Complete!

Hello all in blogging world.  Please fill out this short survey so I can have a better idea of people’s awareness of Adam Arcus Photography.  It is completely anonymous.

Arcus Photography Survey!

The First Follow Friday!

In taking the Twitter tradition to the blogging world… with hopefully less obnoxiously, less creepy, and with more “oooos” and “aaahhhhs”… I begin my foray into exploring other’s photography (and possibly other interesting things as well).  I think this will help broaden my horizon and maybe show a few of you some fun websites to check out, all the while giving props to some great peoples.

• My favorite photography site at the moment is run by The International Analog Photographic Society: Film is not dead it just smells funny.
  • The site has amazing photographs and amazing photographers.  And the best part?  They’re all scans of film!  My love for film is really what drives me in photography.  After taking View Camera classes in college, I really reeled in the amount of shots I take.  I used to go shutter crazy.  Now if I ever take more than one it’s to make sure someone didn’t blink or to blend some exposures.

• My second favorite photography site is The Big Picture on www.boston.com’s site.
  • They have a collection of photographs usually once, or maybe twice if we’re lucky, a week.  They range from dealing with Afghanistan to Hot Air Balloons to the BP Oil Spill to old collections newly put together.  Some truly heart wrenching, awe inspiring, tear or laughter or both inducing photographs there.  Truly something to look forward to every couple of weeks.

Afghanistan: AP photo Rodrigo Abd

So those are two sites that I know and love and want to share.  Here is a site that I just came across a couple of days ago: 

• Jen O’Sullivan’s Boutique Wedding Photography!  She is extremely talented and very hope inspiring.
  • She really worked hard and followed her dreams to get to where she is and it definitely seems like she deserves all she comes across.  She has an amazing photography tips section of her website that anyone slightly interested in taking photographs seriously should check out.  I know I picked up quite a few tips from here and am excited to employe them!

Well there’s me all ready on my first Follow Friday.  I hope you enjoyed these few and in the future I plan to delve much further out into the photoworld!