Duane Ellison Photography

Tsunami Surfers...

noreply@blogger.com (Duane) — Fri, 20 May 2011 03:50:00 +0000

My dad and brother formed a surf band called the Tsunami Surfers that has been playing in and around Bakersfield. Last weekend they played the Kern River Spring Festival located at Hart Park. It was a great opportunity to connect up with them and to have an opportunity to photograph the event. They have put a tremendous amount of effort in the group and sounds pretty tight.

The venue was a pretty tough location to photograph with harsh back lighting and a very attractive fence in front of the band but I think I was able to work around it and get some pretty nice shots.

To minimize changing lenses on this I just used two (2) Nikon D300s with the Nikon 17-55 2.8 AF-S DX and the Nikon 70-200 2.8 AF-S VR attached to each body. As mentioned above the lighting situation was pretty complicated and to keep things simple I would meter off the concrete floor using exposure lock to prevent the band from being under exposed.

The only thing I forgot?

Earplugs...

Heather...

noreply@blogger.com (Duane) — Fri, 13 May 2011 06:09:00 +0000

I had a great opportunity earlier in the week to photograph Heather who is a local model here in town. She is expecting later this month and we have been trying to coordinate schedules for a few weeks now to do a shoot. With time running out (she should have the baby literally any day now) we set up a time after work and decided to take advantage of our local California City Central Park.

It was a great time and we walked away with some really nice images to include some really special ones such as the one at right with the rainbow in the picture. Luckily Heather noticed that and we were able to take advantage of it!

A walk in the field...

noreply@blogger.com (Duane) — Sun, 10 Apr 2011 06:01:00 +0000

The weather is really starting to change around here! The fields are starting to bloom and every day this week I've driven past these rows of wild flowers growing everywhere and I've had this image in my head to create. We took the opportunity to bring the kids out here and spent about an hour playing around in the flower fields. It was pretty cool and everyone had a great time!

This image was shot with a Nikon D300s with the Nikkor 70-200 F/2.8 lens set at 5.6.

Shrimp and Sausage Boil

noreply@blogger.com (Duane) — Sun, 03 Apr 2011 02:21:00 +0000

I did a bit of food photography today to capture the results of a shrimp, sausage, potato and corn boil. It is a very colorful (and tasty) meal. We pulled all the ingredients together and staged the shoot to include even fresh bread in the background. It was really fun to shoot (and eat) and the images came out exactly what I was looking for.

The lighting configuration was fairly simple and straight forward. I had a medium Photoflex Softbox overhead and a grid spot shooting across the screen from the top right of the frame. Both modifiers were powered with Alien Bees AB800. I put the Nikon 50 1.4 AF-D lens on my Nikon D300s and shot the scene at F/9 for a bit more depth of field.

Adventures in photography...

noreply@blogger.com (Duane) — Mon, 28 Feb 2011 07:11:00 +0000

I took the opportunity to take a break today and that resulted in a photo boondoggle that ending up bring me back to Paramount Ranch in Agoura Hills California. It is really a neat place and this is the third time I've been there. Every time I go I find something new and exciting about the place. I hope you enjoy the images, just click on the one above and you will go through the selects from the day!

This was all done with a pretty light setup that included one of my Nikon D300s, Nikkor 17-55 2.8, my old Bogen (Manfrotto tripot) and newer Giottos MH-3000 Ball Head. This little setup worked out very well and enabled me to stay "focused" on the composition I was looking for instead of lugging what would have been a very heavy camera bag.

New Shoot!

noreply@blogger.com (Duane) — Mon, 07 Feb 2011 07:49:00 +0000

I had a really great photo shoot with Jessica McGoldrick and a new model Brian Bailey. We have been planning this shoot for a few of weeks now and Saturday was the day that everything came together. I was able to secure a great location that provide a wonderful space to setup a temporary studio. It was a long day of shooting but we went through seven wardrobe changes from casual, business and formal evening gown and tuxedo. We did shots with Jessica and Brian together (like above) and then individual shots. We were able to do various themes and it was really a wonderful shoot. I have a lot of images to go through and they are really coming out great!

We had two great assistances Jennie Kinney who stepped in at the last minute to handle the makeup and Mike Cassidy who was instrumental in keeping everything running. Unfortunately Mike had to leave part way through the shoot so he wasn't available when we did the group shoot as the last shot of the night.

I ended up using all of my studio lights to light the set and it worked out very well. I also incorporated the new Eye-Fi Pro X2 8GB SD card sending medium sized JPG images to my Apple iPad 32GB running Shutter Snitch. In the shot above they are using the iPad as a prop but Brian and Jessica are really looking at the shots coming downloading automatically. Shooting tethered is a wonderful thing and shooting wireless to the iPad is truly a life-saver. We were able to use that instant feedback to fix clothing and set errors and to allow the models to see what was going on.

As I said above it was really a great shoot and I want to thank Jessica, Brian, Jennie, and Mike for their hard work and all the effort and energy they brought to the set! You all were wonderful!

Bail Bonds, open for business!

noreply@blogger.com (Duane) — Mon, 31 Jan 2011 05:09:00 +0000

I have driven past this place on the way home a few times, especially at night, and I've always wanted to take a moment to try and capture it. So this night I decided to pull over and see what I could do. Night scenes are always a little tricky and with the lights, passing cars (shooting across the road) it was kind of an interesting exposure balancing act. In the end I did get what I was looking for. They kind of messed me up with the flood lights - those where new - but it still worked.

Bottom line, and moral of the story, when you see something you want to shoot you probably should stop and do it... Before they add the floods!

Impromptu idea

noreply@blogger.com (Duane) — Sun, 30 Jan 2011 06:19:00 +0000

I was trying some test ideas with my daughter Deanna when she decided she wanted to do this pose. It was pretty amazing for me because he was like, "I'm going to sit here with my legs going like this and looking this way, take the picture." I was like, "okay" and it was a pretty neat shot.

Camping...

noreply@blogger.com (Duane) — Tue, 18 Jan 2011 06:51:00 +0000

I had the opportunity to do some night photography a few days ago. One of the themes that I wanted to explore was camping. Since we were going to be spending a few hours outside, in the dark, the idea came up early on about having a  “camp fire” to hang around and stay warm while we were getting a few ideas shots. So, I was thinking, “hmm, so we’ll have a fire I just need a tent!” Luckily my wonderful wife Denise could remember where we put the thing and into the truck it went.

Once we arrived at the location and scouted a few areas, while the sun was still out, we went on our way to create the camping scene. I was pretty happy with the results and I’m hopefully that a designer will be able to incorporate some of the images that were created into their next killer design!

On the technical side night shots are a bit more complicated that normal shots. For one your internal camera meter just isn’t going to cut it (unless it will resolve multi-minute exposures). So most of the shots that night were 3 to 5 minutes at F/8 with the camera set to ISO 200 (the native for my Nikon).

Merry Christmas!!!

noreply@blogger.com (Duane) — Sun, 26 Dec 2010 05:19:00 +0000

Merry Christmas everyone! This has been a wonderful Christmas season and one that I have looked forward to more than in the past. I am just very appreciative of the wonderful family that I have! I’ve been married to my wonderful wife Denise for over 20 years (that is just amazing and sometimes hard to comprehend) and we have three great children Devin who is 11, Desirae who is 9 and Deanna who is 5. It has been a pretty great year and I hope it has been the same for you!

Merry Christmas Everyone!

Health and Medication...

noreply@blogger.com (Duane) — Mon, 20 Dec 2010 05:01:00 +0000

Medications are turning to be a daily routine for many people to fight off infections, reduced the effects of diseases, and to generally keep them healthy. For some it is a routine that they have already been following for years and others it is a new necessity for their life. I was thinking about this earlier and decided to make this photograph to illustrate this theme.

So everyone, please take care of themselves, see your doctor’s regularly and make sure you do what you need to to keep yourself healthy! Hey the year is almost over and we have another one to start!

Candy Love...

noreply@blogger.com (Duane) — Sun, 19 Dec 2010 07:22:00 +0000

I had the opportunity today to setup a studio shoot to do some table top work. My wife Denise had found these candies, pictured above, that she thought would make a really interesting photograph. She also has some other ideas that she thought we could do once we set everything up.

As you can see these particular peppermint candies are pretty darn colorful and kind of scream Christmas. We spent a bit of time building a little set and a mechanism to hold everything together. The key here was white foam core board, drum sticks (I know, it seems weird) and some painter’s take. This enabled us to keep everything in place while we setup and adjusted the shots.

The lighting was fairly simple with an Alien Bee AB800 above the camera (in line) point down toward the items as a fill light lifted above with one of my trusty Matthews C-Stand. The main light was another Alien Bee AB800 attached with a clamp to the lower section of a regular light stand shooting through an umbrella about 8 feet away. We again utilized tethering to make ensure we were getting the shots we wanted while we were shooting!

The pile of books...

noreply@blogger.com (Duane) — Sun, 05 Dec 2010 08:03:00 +0000

My wife Denise came up with the idea of using her large collection of hard bound books as the back drop for a photo shoot. She has always really enjoyed her books and she recently found some inspiration for an idea from a couple of sites on the net. So today we rearranged everything to make room for this shoot. As you can see from this image there are a lot of books needed to make this shot (and the many various we did today) a reality.

The first part of the shoot was bringing the books need from the back room and removing most of the dust covers so they wouldn't end up in the shot. Then we spent a lot of time putting everything in the right place and taking a bunch of test shots to get everything just right! Once everything was in place we started shooting. The shot above was made toward the end of the session after we had done various situations with Devin and Deanna.

The lighting of this shot was fairly straight forward. I placed a strobe high over head at a 45º angle increasing the distance from the subject to decrease the amount of light fall off. I then placed a fill strobe directly in line with the camera with a medium sized shoot through umbrella to balance everything out. I also shot tethered with Adobe Lightroom 3 which turned out to be critical to make sure everything was in the right place and lighted up correctly.

It was a really fun shoot and I think we made some really cool images!

Photo shoot with Deanna

noreply@blogger.com (Duane) — Mon, 29 Nov 2010 06:55:00 +0000

A couple days ago when I was photographing the roses my youngest daughter Deanna wanted me to photographer her as well. She is still at the age where she likes to be in front of the camera. She was a real trooper during the shoot right before helping to hold the reflector and to mist the flowers. When that was done, and before we started to tear everything down she really wanted me to take her photograph. This shot was my favorite from the session and just looking at it makes me smile.

One thing everyone has probably noticed when trying to photograph children is when you put your eye behind the camera the expressions and poses are lost in that very fake smile and pose. What I did to get this shot was to pull my head away from the finder and interacted with her. It made it a little difficult because I was hoping that I didn't move the camera around and mess up the framing or the focus. A better solution would have been to tripod mount the camera but it wasn't in the cards. The other neat thing about this is that my wife Denise is hold a small piece of black foam core right behind her to make the background go black.

Flowers & Roses

noreply@blogger.com (Duane) — Sun, 28 Nov 2010 06:07:00 +0000

I ran into town the other day, we kind of live in the middle of nowhere, to pick some things up and on the way back I bought these Roses for my wife Denise. She was having kind of a frustrating day and I wanted to do something nice and special for her. I didn't really intent to photograph them but after a day or so they really were looking pretty beautiful so I went decided to capture them.

The lighting setup is a little different because basically I was kind of lazy and I already had the lights in a certain configuration. So I boomed a light with a grid-spot directly over head pointing straight down at the flowers. I then put a medium softbox about 6" off to camera right feathered away from the background to keep it dark. Then for a bit of fill I used a silver circular reflector to bounce just a bit of light back into the shadows.

Inspiration...

noreply@blogger.com (Duane) — Mon, 22 Nov 2010 08:20:00 +0000

I had an opportunity this afternoon to just be a little creative and play around. My wife Denise has this thread holder that is full of brightly colored thread hanging on the wall; since it is something that I have thought about trying to photograph it for a while. Today was more about just testing angles and lighting to see if there was a good way to capture what I envisioned. I already happened to have a couple of lights setup on stands and moved them into place to light the area. Obviously I will need to rearrange and cleanup the thread but I think it is something that would make a really cool image.

The boat...

noreply@blogger.com (Duane) — Mon, 15 Nov 2010 11:29:00 +0000

I was searching through some old images from the last year. I was with some friends just taking some grab/scouting shots when we ran across the red board beached next to a small lake. The lighting was just amazing and it made the boat really pop against the background. I've had a few people ask if I somehow added extra light to the scene but it was just natural available light.

Backlite test...

noreply@blogger.com (Duane) — Mon, 08 Nov 2010 05:33:00 +0000

I wanted to try something a little different today. I recruited my son Devin to sit and hang out watching a television show while I did a new lighting setup. I put a strobe behind him with a 20º grid spot and then lit him from the front-right with a large softbox. I was hoping to have the background go a bit darker but considering the room and time I had this is pretty good.

Bottom line it is a really good idea to play with your equipment and try something new. You can learn some great new tricks for the tool kit and although you might not get what you are expecting the effect might come in handy in the future when trying something different. The main idea here, keep experimenting and trying new things.

So the lighting was an AB800 with a 20º grid on a c-stand and another AB800 with a Photoflex Large Softbox on another c-stand. The c-stand for the front was nice because it allowed me to flip the light upside down to get it lower to the ground without having to have a smaller stand.

Story time!

noreply@blogger.com (Duane) — Sun, 07 Nov 2010 05:45:00 +0000

I had the opportunity the other day to shoot a "story time" shoot with the family. It has been an idea that I've had for a while and although it sounds like it would be a simple shoot the logistics of setting everything up and having everyone pause for a moment to read under the production of lights can be a little daunting.

Fortunately my son Devin was a willing model stand-in for me to get everything set up. I also took advantage of the setup to get some really neat shots of him reading his book. I had to joke with him a bit to get the right emotion (that he was really enjoying the book) but it was pretty cool

The lighting step-up is pretty simple. I used a large Photoflex softbox off a c-stand right over and slightly in front of them for the key light and I then used a simple shoot through umbrella right next to the camera for a bit of fill. It was a pretty neat setup and produced some really cute images.

A selection of these images is available in my stock portfolio!

Jessica's Shoot!

noreply@blogger.com (Duane) — Wed, 01 Sep 2010 00:30:00 +0000

I had an amazing opportunity to work with a new model on some concept shots I've been wanting to create. I've run into Jessica a few times and a couple weeks ago I pitched the idea to do a shoot. So after jockeying schedules we made a day and planned to have everything in place for a shoot.

I had found a really neat location that made a wonderful backdrop for her images. We talked through various wardrobe and discussed the location and the concepts for the shoot. She was very excited and very much a collaborator on the final selects.

I also enlisted the help of Mike and Kris and they were wonderful in making this a very success shoot with a lot of amazing images. Jessica also brought her friend Amber who was essential in making the quick makeup, hair and wardrobe changes between sets.

After meeting for a nice per-shoot-lunch we headed out to the location! If was a very busy day and all told I think we shot for pretty much 5 straight hours! We had 6 wardrobe changes and physical moves to the different sets so there was a lot of work going on.

First I have to say I was very impressed with Jessica's modeling skills. The best example is that her first image was just as fresh as her last! She is a true professional and a wonderful model. She was a real pleasure to photograph and I honestly hope we have another opportunity to work together.

It was truly a wonderful shoot and I think everyone had a really great time! None of this would have been possible without a great team of creative people and everything really came together for a wonderful shoot! So I would like to express my thanks to Jessica, Amber, Mike and Kris for helping make this happen!

Scouting locations in the desert...

noreply@blogger.com (Duane) — Sun, 08 Aug 2010 06:47:00 +0000

During the late afternoon today I wanted to try and scope out a location that would be good for a later portrait shoot. Denise was kind enough to step in to test out the location. I think the shots turned out pretty good and with the sun going down basically behind her and provided a night rim light on her.

The only draw back to this location is I was really surprised how many vehicles were traveling down this dirt road. I think because of that it would make it difficult for anything other than a grab shot.

I was really happy with the lighting and the look and feel of the shots though. I will definitely have to keep my eyes open to see if I can find a more suitable location and do a real shoot.

Night Photography...

noreply@blogger.com (Duane) — Sat, 31 Jul 2010 18:10:00 +0000

A couple of weeks ago I met up with Mike for a little Palm Springs excursion with the idea of performing some night photography to get some more material for his fine art night photography collection. He had scoped out this area during a previous trip and it was someplace that he wanted to return to.

Fortunately we were able to get there before the sun went down and I had the opportunity to video a little bit of the behind the scenes of what goes into a night shoot. The big things you'll notice right off the bat is that he isn't using digital cameras but instead he is using what he has used for years. Film cameras! It was pretty cool to see the old gear still in use.

Mike has also decided to start doing some time lapse of his shoots and toward the end of the video you will see his first hack at capturing the nights' activities. It is a really cool and you get a good feel of the creation of the image.

Rare boondoggle

noreply@blogger.com (Duane) — Mon, 26 Jul 2010 13:16:00 +0000

Over the weekend I did a rare photo boondoggle with my friend Steve Cukrov who I met through a stock photography workshop I took a handful of years ago. We have been meaning to meet up for a couple of years but up until now we just couldn't make it happen.

I didn't really have an expectations other than just catching up on everything that has been going on. Steve was looking to do some location shooting and scouting so we decided to start our day by meeting at Paramount Ranch which is a place near the Malibu Mountains that is the site where Dr. Quinn Medicine Woman was filmed. That is the place that Mike introduced me too a few months ago and a place I wanted to return too.

From there we just traveled around and wound our way through different areas near Paramount Ranch and even ended up at the Reagan Presidential Library. The library wasn't really what I expected (I was thinking of more photo opportunities) but it turned out to be pretty darn cool.

After a few hours transversing the grounds we made out way to Santa Paula to check out a small train stop. From there we finished the shooting day wandering the area and capturing different views of the town through back streets.

I haven't done a photo boondoggle with no real goal than to be creative for a long while and it was a bit refreshing to just do it. I spend so much time focused on project based photography and it was really nice to have a break!

Factory...

noreply@blogger.com (Duane) — Sun, 11 Jul 2010 18:36:00 +0000

I've wanted to photograph a scene like this for a long time but have been unable to find a suitable location to compose the image. Yesterday I was fortunate enough to spend some time in the Los Angeles area and was presented with this opportunity to capture this image. I ended up stopping at a park and ride near the train and bus station and waited for the lighting to come alive and for the temperature to cool enough for the steam to really present itself. The mixture of different light sources really help tell the story and I think is a valuable part of the overall composition of the image.

This image was capture with a Nikon D300, Nikon 70-200 2.8 lens at 70mm with an exposure of 6 second at f / 5.6.

Happy 4th of July!

noreply@blogger.com (Duane) — Mon, 05 Jul 2010 05:58:00 +0000

Happy 4th of July everyone! I hope everyone had a great day filled with family, friends and great BBQ!

I almost didn't capture the fireworks display but at the last minute I pulled out a camera and did a quick little setup. This was a combination of BULB and F/11 and I just timed the fireworks.

I hope you had a great celebration and took advantage of the opportunity to capture your own great fireworks display!

UPDATE: One thing I forgot to mention that a lot of people seem to forget, do not crank up the ISO, keep it low like 100 or 200 (I just stick with the native low 200 for the Nikon's because that's the sweet spot for better dynamic range). Just think about the fact that you are capturing the light from the fireworks which is pretty darn bright.