Christmas Family Photo [Nikon D5, Sigma 24-105mm ƒ/4, ISO 400, ƒ/8, 1/200 – (2) Godox V860IIN + Godox X1NT with MAGMOD MagSphere]

This is a family photo we did this year of our family with my wife’s family. One of our son’s couldn’t be there and had to work with a new job.

To get this final photo required me to be behind the camera saying “Do you want a treat?” to get the three dogs in the middle to look at the camera.

So this is actually the photo I took with me behind the camera.

Here are the steps to then add me into the photo with dogs looking the best.

Open photo with me in photo shop. Open the second photo in photo shop with dogs looking best. Select all and copy the photo of dogs best.

Go to the photo with me in it and paste the other photo on top of it.

You will now have two layers. the top will be the one with dogs looking best and I am not in the photo. See the copy of PhotoShop screen grab.

Now we need to create a mask. Down below the layers click on the mask.

It will now look like what I have screen grabbed here for you. Be sure the brackets are around the mask (white box) and that it is the top photo, which is the one without me. We are going to use the eraser and now erase the empty chair and reveal me.

You just need to brush me in. See the photo of the tools here. Pick the eraser. It has box around it.

Next be sure the foreground color is black and on top. This will let you erase me.

Now if you make a mistake you can then click so that the white is on top and use the same brush and brush back the photo on top.

 As you brush you can see in the mask that what you brush over becomes black.

Now when we I finished and showed the photo they wanted the small dog on the far left to look at the camera as well. So I looked for a photo of the small dog looking great.

So I found this photo and then using the same technique brushed in the dog.

Here the tips you need to follow to make this work.

First put the camera on a sturdy tripod. You want to lock down the composition so that nothing changes.

Second do not change the zoom if you are using one.

Third if you are in the photo use the timer or use a remote to fire the camera. I had left my remote so I set the camera timer to 10 seconds.

Fourth, be sure you have good lighting on everyone. For this photo I used two Godox V860IIN + Godox X1NT with MAGMOD MagSphere. Here is what the setup looked like:

Christmas in Sparta, New Jersey. [Fujifilm X-E3, 18-55mm, ISO 12800, ƒ/4, 1/60]

We are celebrating Christmas in Sparta, New Jersey, this year. This is my wife’s hometown.

She hasn’t been home to celebrate Christmas since 1985. We have spent many years together with my family in North Carolina.

Joey is my brother-in-law, and while eating dinner, he realized my family’s traditions might be different, and he asked me what we did for family traditions at Christmas.

What I am really excited about is that our family is willing to do something different to be part of our family we haven’t had as much time with this year.

Just seeing the decorations around the house reminds me that these are new traditions for us to be exposed to.

Dorie and I went to see The Man Who Invented Christmas earlier this year. The movie is the journey that led to Charles Dickens’ creation of “A Christmas Carol,” a timeless tale that would redefine the holiday.

While you may have some excellent traditions for your family at Christmas, ask others about their habits and why they do them. Maybe you will also learn to redefine the holiday for your family this year.

Maybe the process will bring you closer to Christ, whom this holiday is about.

Only the humble believe him and rejoice that God is so free and so marvelous that he does wonders where people despair, that he takes what is little and lowly and makes it marvelous. And that is the wonder of all wonders, that God loves the lowly…. God is not ashamed of the lowliness of human beings. God marches right in. He chooses people as his instruments and performs his wonders where one would least expect them. God is near to lowliness; he loves the lost, the neglected, the unseemly, the excluded, the weak and broken.

― Dietrich Bonhoeffer, God Is in the Manger: Reflections on Advent and Christmas

Do you have an “image library” for your organization? What is an “image library”? It is a pool of pictures that you commission that will be used in many different ways for mainly internal and external communications. Sometimes, but rarely are they used for advertising.

Today many of those with “image libraries” are hosting these online through intranet or Internet for different departments and even the organization’s agencies to use.

Previously, non-profits and educational institutions commissioned this work due to budget constraints. Still, the need to feed social media with ongoing content is becoming popular for corporations.

When I shoot for an “Image Library” production, the coverage is quite broad—often looking for diversity and showing some of the operations that go on daily. We tend to have alerted departments we are coming at a particular time, and then we capture their people working. We may move them around and even have them change outfits, like asking them to put on a lab coat.

I have recommended that companies subscribe to online services like Libris by PhotoShelter. [https://libris.photoshelter.com/]

You can give access based on passwords or by email/password that gives you protection for your images.

Strong visuals can connect with an audience faster and more emotionally than words alone. Storytelling remains at the heart of good communication. The power of images in modern touch is irrefutable.

The approaches for doing an “Image Library” production vary widely. You can do high-production shoots back to back, where lighting and styling give you high-quality images. This tends to be where the photographer creates images rather than capturing them.

You can go to the other extreme, where the photographer uses little or no lighting and captures mainly what already exists in situations. You are paying for the years of experience of the photographer to capture images within a case.

Sometimes there is a mixture of high production and existing light depending on your organization’s needs.

Doing bi-annual or annual “Image Library” shoots gives your communications team images to help with the messaging you need to be doing to engage your audience.

Roswell Fire Department is monitoring a tree whose branches are in the transformer, causing some arcing from power lines. [Nikon D5, Sigma 24-105mm ƒ/9, ISO 81275, ƒ/4, 1/100]

Just two days ago, the local television stations were predicting 1″ to 2″ of snow possible in metro Atlanta. As you see in the first photo, we had the fire department monitoring arcing of a transformer since the snow had weighted down the branches of a pine tree into it.

This morning I woke up to 6″ on our back porch with the snow still falling.

We enjoyed looking out our back windows to see the snow. Staying warm and seeing the snow is a great way to appreciate the beauty of snow.

Here I was able to capture our Christmas tree, all decorated with the snow falling outside the window.

When the snow started to fall, I went out to get some photos figuring that we were getting that 1″ they had predicted.

I used my Godox V860IIN with the Godox X1NT to trigger the flash-off camera. On the flash, I was using the MagMod MagSphere to modify the light. This let me get a great color temperature on the leaves and flowers as I got in close.

I found it cool to see still evidence of Fall with the snow. We are still a few weeks from Winter.

We are staying warm this Saturday morning and watching the snow still fall.

This morning I had to clear the snow off the top of the bird feeder. The snow had weighted down the top, making our squirrel-proof bird feeder now birdproof.

This morning the snow has whited out our backyard.

We are having all kinds of birds visit us.

Enjoying my time today with nature.

I had a lot of fun this weekend shooting some soccer shots. This is one of my favorite images from the day.

I am lying on the ground shooting with my 14-24mm Nikon lens at 14mm. The guy landed on me once; it might have been with this photo. As Robert Capa said, “If your pictures aren’t good enough, you aren’t close enough.” I was trying to get close to creating more impact with the photos.

The first photo I took was this typical team photo. I picked a location where I had the sun directly behind them and then used two Godox V860IIN and triggered them with the Godox X1NT.

This kept them from squinting.

Then I moved the players around for different poses.

Then I just got lower to make them look more like heroes.

Then I tried another pose.

When you are shooting for the art director they need choices.

I also shot some verticals as well as some action during the scrimmage.

So everything I shot, I tried to get both verticals and horizontal shots for options.

The problem with actual action shots during a game is the light isn’t quite as lovely as when you set something up to get that “poster” shot.

While I could have shot the photos with the two strobes on TTL, I used the manual to get consistent output. When you move to a low angle with more sky, the camera meter will want to change the flash output and the camera exposure. I tried to control it, so it was consistent.

I recommend not always shooting with TTL for your flash. It will get you in the ballpark quickly, but the beat consistency as things move isn’t as good as shooting in manual mode.