I am one of the few people (so I’m told) that loved high school and I find myself very nostalgic at the moment.

• I have wonderful memories of being on the debate team and winning lots of speaker awards (very cool mallets for winning) and state championships in my division.  The best part is, I seriously had no idea what I was doing.  I talked fast, I was quick, and I let my debate partner do all the dirty work (research) and I presented it all.  I think he still resents me for it.
• I loved sneaking out of swim class.  I was not a fast swimmer, but I loved being on the team anyway.  I learned “She who swims the fastest does not have the most fun.  She who swims along the bottom of the 13 foot pool with her best friend and successfully sneaks out of the pool to sit in the sauna has the most fun!”
• My fashion and advertising classes (which I loved) may have been the most relevant classes I took to prepare me for “real life.”
• I loved choir.  I mostly loved choir tour.  :)

I drove by Orem High today to take some pictures before it was destroyed and I was too late!  The school’s name was already taken off the building! (Do you see the snow capped mountains?  They are compliments of the Monday’s storm.)  Today was the last day this building functioned as a school.

I happened to go to my old high school right as school was letting out . . . not something I suggest when carrying a bunch of camera gear.  I ran into my niece Betsy (who graduates on Friday) and my nephew Jake in the halls.  They were pretty surprised to see me wandering about!

Each year, the graduating class would nominate people for “Superlatives.”  I had forgotten I was nominated, and found it interesting and funny that I was voted “Most Photogenic.”  Yes, there was a time when I LOVED to be in front of the camera, that was about 10 years and 20 pounds ago.  Now, I just like to be behind the camera.  Maybe the category, “Most Likely to Become a Photographer” would have been more appropriate.  :)

I posted some of these pictures on facebook and it seems like everyone is a bit nostalgic!  Poor us . . . all of our memories will have to remain in our minds.  Our homecoming King from the class of 1996 (Andy Payne for anyone who knows/cares) messaged me after seeing these pics and told me I made a great Homecoming Queen.  I was all, um . . . what exactly made me great?  They way I accepted and wore my tiara?  Not a lot of duties (meaning NONE) if I remember correctly . . .

I saw this chart outside of the counselor’s office and it stopped me short.  I mean, 27 credits to graduate from high school?  Seriously?  Only 27 credits?  Doesn’t that seem like, not enough?  Gosh.  Four years to complete it too.  That is an average of six credits per semester.  No wonder I thought high school was easy.  To put it in perspective, medical school is an average of 31 credits per semester and there are no lame-o-filler-classes with that.  I’m just sayin’!

As I walked through the school, I couldn’t think of one teacher that I really remembered or who had influenced me . . . most of my memories were of my friends and in the cafeteria, which was renovated a few years ago.  I did however, drop into one classroom where I recognized the teacher’s name, Mr. Ashdown.  He was my driver’s ed teacher and had absolutely no recollection of me.  When I told him I was in his class in 1993, a girl sitting in a desk overheard me and said, “Hey!  I was born in 1993!”

Yes.  she just said that.  In that moment, I knew I had been in denial about aging.  Seriously, how can you deny your age when current high school kids were born the year you attended high school, and the actual school itself is going to be torn down because it is is SO OLD?

I must not deny it anymore.  I am aging.  I have wrinkles and some sun spots.

Heaven help me.

Wait, I think I just need a dermatologist to help me get back into the denial stage.

Yes.  I think I like being in denial.

Can I tell you how happy I was to go out with this handsome guy on a photo shoot?

Can I also tell you how happy I was to nail the focus on his eyes, while the tip of his nose and the outer part of his brows are out of focus? Honestly, shallow depth of field can be so great (when the image calls for it) but it can be a huge pain in your side too when you upload your images only to find out the most important features (the eyes) are in soft focus while the tip of the nose is tack sharp.

That is not fun.

More from this shoot later!

Have a great weekend!

No one had them.

You know what they told me? “Gels are a speciality item, and we don’t usually carry them.  You can get a similar effect in Photoshop.”

OK, I know I don’t have a neon sign on my forehead that says, “I Speak Photoshop” but man, I need one.

OF COURSE you can  simulate a “gel” effect on your image in Photoshop.

BUT . . .

If there is one thing I have learned in school, it is to shoot perfectly, and use Photoshop as a tool to enhance, not as a crutch, to do the job you should have done during capture.

Fortunately, I was able to track down some gels at a photo super store in SLC and had David pick them up on his way home from work.

This image was my first attempt using gels:

This is straight out of the camera.  No Photoshop here folks.

This diagram shows how I lit the first image: I used two white shoot through umbrellas with tungsten hot lights, and on the back I used another hot light with the gel wrapped around it with a white diffusion panel in front of it which acted as a diffuser and a white seamless backdrop for my glass.

I liked it, but I thought the composition needed a bit more, so I added our wedding rings and decreased the saturation on this image when I edited it in RAW.

I thought I’d try out the blue gel as well.  The reflection shows up nicely on the glass.

And here is the same shot with the red gel.

This diagram shows how I photographed the above images with the rings.  The big difference is bare bulbs on my subject.

If you are interested in trying this at home, check out my set up shot to see how it all came together:

Gosh, gels are fun and I can feel the creative potential just welling up inside of me.

For now, this is a  peak at what I’m working on:

Gosh, too be that skinny, toned, and graceful.

Maybe in my next life?

For one of my classes, the assignment was to shoot a “magazine cover” using a softbox.

Well . . .

I don’t exactly have a softbox . . . (it was optional for the class, I opted not to get it right away)

So I had to improvise using a diffusion panel, which works well, but it’s still not a softbox.

Anyway, this is the magazine cover I came up with:

Why did I pick to shoot a “golf magazine?”  It certainly isn’t my love for the game, or my natural ability at it either.

It was CONVENIENCE.

AH!  Did I just admit that?

Let’s see:

• Wardrobe?  CHECK
• Props:  CHECK
• Hair and Makeup?  CHECK (more like a non factor for this shoot)
• Model: CHECK

And so, the concept for my magazine was born.  :)

I asked my father-in-law if he had any “golf” magazines I could look at (for research and ideas) and his jaw dropped to the floor and he replied, “Are you serious?”

Yes.  I guess it is that shocking that I would be asking to look at golf magazines.

Now for the set up shot:

I used two hot lights with beauty dishes to light the background (if your subject is lit and your background is not, a white background will turn a shade of gray which I certainly did not want) and one hot light with a beauty dish and a white diffusion panel in front of David.

Let me tell you, our garage is one poppin’ place around 11:00 PM on weekend nights.  :)

On Friday night, Hannah and I went to the musical “Singing in the Rain” in Lehi to see my good friend Bethany who starred in it. This was Hannah’s first play, and let me tell you, SHE LOVED IT. She giggled, and rooted for everyone. We were splashed by real rain that fell from the ceiling, and that was probably her favorite part along with all the singing and tap dancing. She was so giddy with excitement, her little body was about to burst, and part of the “bursting” was confessing her undying love for me no less than 98 times . . . that was my favorite part. Now she wants to learn how to tap dance so she can join a musical too.

On Saturday, I had an idea hit me over the head. It was like a persistent itch: I had to execute my idea to relive my brain of this cool concept.

I called Brian. (Naturally, I expect him to be available anytime I’m struck with a concept to photograph.)

I left him a message telling him my idea. I told him to clear his schedule for the next couple of hours because I was the most important thing in his life right at that moment.

Ahem. (Usually when you have to spell something out, it’s probably news to other people.)

He called me back, telling me he was on a plane, just about to take off.

Um . . . Hello? What part about “clear your schedule” wasn’t clear? And, to add insult to injury, he was off to meet his new girlfriend’s parents. (He meets EVERYONE’S parents . . . this is not serious yet.) I know my new rank now.

On Saturday afternoon, David and I went for our first barefoot run. He toughed it out and actually went barefoot for the majority of the run. I was smart and wore my five fingers from the start. It was our first “date run.” It was actually fun, and totally apparent that David is in way better shape than I am.

Saturday night, we finally got to spend some time with our good friends Marshall and Jill. They live five houses down from us now, (this is a crazy coincidence, since we haven’t lived in the same city or state for over a decade) but it took three months for our schedules to align. We had such a great time chatting, and just hanging out together. It really is amazing how everywhere you move, there are cool people everywhere you go. We’ve been fortunate to make life long friends everywhere we’ve been. Marshall and Jill have been part of our lives since we’ve been married.

On Sunday, a really nice person got up to bare their testimony (which was really sweet) and they talked about how challenging it was to be in school full time, while their wife was in school part time, and they had a child. If I had heard this before med school, I would have thought, “Oh my! How do you even deal with it?” But, sadly, we are almost POST medical school (did you read that! SIX more weeks!) and I am totally JADED. I looked over at David and whispered, “Whatever . . . try medical school . . . average of 32 credits a semester, and 80 hour work weeks during clinicals . . . did I mention I’m in school part time too and we have two kids?”

David whispered back and me saying, “Where is your compassion?”

You see, that’s the thing, I lost compassion somewhere along the way . . . it could have been when the school screwed us over, not providing nearly enough loan money (this is not an opinion, this is a fact) or the grueling hours David has spent away from us studying, or the FOUR (COUNT THEM FOUR) cross country moves we HAD TO MAKE last year, plus the MONTHS we’ve had to spend apart as a family while David completed rotations elsewhere. My compassion was swallowed up in the process of being jaded by medical school.

I’m trying to be a better person. Maybe my outlook will improve when I see the light at the end of the never ending tunnel of medical school in six weeks.

Let’s hope.

But . . . that doesn’t mean I don’t want to learn how . . .

So here goes my tutorial on photographing still life with two flood lights: a key light and a back light.

This was my first attempt at shooting this lovely toffee.  (It was really hard not to eat it, by the way.)  Notice how white the background is in this image . . . you might be surprised at what it looks like when the lights are pointing different directions.

This was the set up shot for this image above:

Notice how I’m using two lights for this subject.  I am using two 500 watt tungsten bulbs with beauty dishes (the round dishes around my bulbs) to channel and reflect my light in a controlled direction.  I placed my key light (the main light in front) high above my subject to avoid nasty harsh shadows and blown out highlights.  There is not an absolute rule as to where to place the lights because every subject is different.  You have to manually move your light around, paying close attention to the shadows and highlights to determine where to place it.  I placed the second light in the back shining on my very high tech white sheet that I taped to the wall.  (I know, so classy.  Call me lazy, but I seriously did not have the energy to put together my background stand when I set this up.)  Lighting the white sheet made the background very bright (white) and the overhead light lit up my subject.  Remember to move your subject about five feet AWAY from your background to avoid photographing wrinkles and lint.  A shallow depth of field (F3.5 to F1.4 will do the trick) will also throw the background out of focus, eliminating such distractions in your image.

This was the second lighting set-up I tried.  Look at how grey the background is!  I still have the white sheet up, but I turned the back light (the one that was lighting the white sheet) around and faced it directly onto my subject.  No light = dark background.

This is an overhead shot with the same set-up as above.  Do you notice the shadow?  What a bummer, I know.

This is how the set up looked for the two images above.  I turned the light around, and placed both lights at the same height to light my subject evenly.  It worked nice, but seemed to be missing one thing . . . so I tried one last set up . . .

This is it!  The shadow is gone!  Both lights are set up at the same height, evenly lighting my subject, but I added a diffuser.

Ideally, I probably should have diffused both lights, but I was happy with the results.

What do you think?  Do you want to shoot still life now?  I have to admit, it’s really relaxing to shoot inanimate objects because there is no pressure to hurry up the shoot (like with kids!), and you can try as many lighting scenarios as you want without feeling like you’re wasting their time (like with adults), and you’re only dealing with ONE variable: YOU!  Instead of many variables: you, kids, parents, pets, the weather, etc.

It was a lot more fun that I expected (probably because I was so relaxed) and I might start experimenting with this more.  :)

I have a really fun project in the works I hope I can share with you (if my subject my obliges), so cross your fingers because it’s going to be good!  :)

Huh?

That’s exactly what I thought!

I was told I could only use a flashlight, tripod, and my camera to “paint light” on a portrait.

OK.  Are you throughly confused yet?  Because I was for a few days.  I mulled this over in my mind for days and the only thing I knew for sure was this: I had NO IDEA HOW TO DO IT, and I had no concept.

That is a double bummer if you know what I mean.

I consulted my BFF, Google, and came across this incredible video that walks you through step-by-step how to “paint with light.”

After I watched it I was all, “YEAH.  (AHEM)  RIGHT.”  I will be the first to admit, this dude is pretty amazing and what he does is completely out of my skill level at this point.

Please watch this.  You will be amazed.  (This video will not work in Google Chrome, so use Internet Explorer or Firefox to watch this.)

Amazing, right?

So . . .

I was feeling pretty lame about my skills after watching this.  I mean, SERIOUSLY?  WHAT THE HECK WAS I GOING TO PHOTOGRAPH WITH A FLASHLIGHT?!

And just as an F.Y.I., photographing someone reading a book in the dark with a flashlight would not have cut it.  But trust me, it crossed my mind several times . . .

For the record, I had no concept for this shot.  I’m normal.  I get creative blocks.  Especially when I have a technical assignment that doesn’t make sense.

All I knew was this:

• The house had to be PITCH BLACK.  (I shot this about 11:00 PM on Friday night)
• I needed my camera
• I needed my tripod
• I needed a flashlight
• I needed someone to photograph

There wasn’t a lot to this equation.

It just so happened that David was home (Yay!  After FIVE LONG DAYS away every week, I get to see him on weekends!) but dog tired.  So I was all, “Hey!  Lucky you!  You get to be the subject in my experimental photograph! You have such perks as my spouse!  Go lie down on the couch, close your eyes, and I’ll take your picture!”

After many lame attempts at “painting him with light,”  I randomly came up with this idea:

The word “LOVE” is written with the flashlight while outlining his profile.

To do this, I turned my shutter speed to BULB (which means the shutter will stay open as long as you want it to) and held the shutter release remote in my left hand while I wrote the letters in my other hand.  I had my f-stop at f22 (so really small), my ISO at 200 (so there wouldn’t be any noise), and I took the flashlight and wrote each letter individually and turned off the flashlight between each letter.  This made for a clean, crisp look between each letter.  The shutter was open for 18 seconds.

David got into the fun, and took a turn photographing me!  As you can see, he had fun making fast circles.  :)

This is another shot of David, with only a flashlight used to  illuminate parts of his face.  The key to “painting with light,” is to constantly move your light source, have your model hold their breath (so avoid blur) and have the room pitch black.

I was surprised at how fun this was and I plan to do more.  Maybe, I’ll try a complex shot like in the video above.  :)  OK, probably not, but you get the idea.

Try it!  It’s fun!

For one of my first assignments, I had to take a self-portrait.

ANOTHER ONE.  AS IN, CANNOT USE ANY SELF-PORTRAITS TAKEN MORE THAN SIX DAYS AGO.

UGH.

Couldn’t they just accept the self-portrait I took over the summer for another class?  Heck, I look the same.

I kept hoping this assignment would just disappear into a black hole.  Maybe we would be assigned a new assignment?  Maybe my twin brother would magically become a TWIN SISTER and voila!  I could photograph my identical twin!

So pathetic, I know.

Taking a self portrait is right up there with getting a root canal.  UGH.  I hate taking self -portraits, or heck, even just getting my own picture taken by someone else is just not on the top of my list.  I really enjoy being behind the camera, not in front of it.  I took several self-portraits this week.  I wasn’t 100% happy with any of them, but that is more personal than it is technical.  I’m like that client you can never please because they’re just not happy about the way they look in every picture.  Nothing to do with the photographer, everything to do with the client.

I have issues.

“Hello camera!  Why aren’t you responding to my trigger?  HELLO?  Do you think I like to do this?”

Then there’s the “straight hair on me” = “drowned rat look.”

And this one where David mentioned I looked a little ticked off in this picture.

Not exactly the message I was trying to communicate.

I ended up submitting the second image.  No word on how I did yet.

Please say this is the last self portrait assignment ever.  PLEASE?!?! 

He is currently in New York.

Rochester to be exact.

This is the very area we lived in this summer.

I miss it SO MUCH.

I even think the snow is beautiful.

Look how quaint it is.  So quiet.  So serene.

I could live with freezing cold New York winters.

I could.  (I’m sure I could, right?)

He should NOT have sent me this picture.

How am I supposed to study for finals when I’m distracted thinking about beautiful New York and the fun times we had this summer when we lived there?