Photos shot a week ago for some stock usage here at ALERT. The models are Ryan Ludvigson (Law Enforcement 1st Sgt.) and Kyle Horsman. Both are ALERT Law Enforcement grads and are now part of the security team here. The weapons are Glock 17 hand guns, Springfield SOCOM16 rifle with Surefire foregrip and EOTech sight, Remington 700 shotgun with Surefire front end.

I started with a pad of paper and a pen—like most my design projects, I find that old-school technologies work far better than computers to imagine layouts and creative design solutions. After playing with the elements for awhile, I then wrote up an outline for the page structure. The design of the page involves appearances, but the structure is like the skeleton underneath to hold it all together. For this site, it involves a header (the top part), the Main section divided into three columns, and the footer (at the bottom).

Unlike previous designs, I started this one from the beginning as a wordpress theme, which meant that I could see changes and dynamic content right away. I ran a copy of this website on my laptop and was able to see, immediately, any changes, as they happened.

Much of the site code was contained in two files: a single index.php file and a single CSS style file. Using class selectors, I was able to show and hide various sections to craft a simple, slim design package. Later, I separated out the various components of the PHP file into several chunks to make debugging easier.

I wrote more javascript and PHP than normal for this design. I also did more with CSS. The fact that the design is almost completely free of any images and requires a minimal amount of downloads is very exciting for me.

I’ve also added several other features. At the bottom of the left-hand column, there is a selection of links to sites I’ve discovered around the internet. I’ve also created a photos page that allows for much larger photos to be posted and viewed. It integrates with the blog so photos can be commented on and it is backwards compatible with older posts. I have also added quite a bit of material to About.

In the last couple of years, I’ve done a complete redesign like this every six months or so. It will be interesting to see how long this lasts.

I had the exciting opportunity to do a set of photos with the senior leadership for Quest this year. We wanted to go with more of an urban, "grunge" look with a bit of edge. We picked a location on the ALERT campus that looks somewhat rough, set up studio lighting and went at it. Here is a diagram of the lighting setup:

For the group shot, the main light was camera right, about 8 feet, at 1/1 power. I actually pointed the umbrella up so we got light spill on the faces and the lighting rapidly tapered off by the feet. The fill light was camera light, a little behind the subjects, and up really high so I got lighting on everyone.

The individual portraits had the main light at camera right, just above eye level, and the fill light came from behind, almost like a rim light. I should have also added a reflector to pop a little more fill in.

I really like the individual portraits:

I am richly blessed. This is my backyard. Literally! On Saturday, as I was in the final paces of getting my life purpose, this was my view.

I walk out my door, onto the large deck on the back. From there, I walk down a flight of stairs to a red wooden bridge. The pond through a beaver dam next to the bridge then into the stream trickling out the other side of the bridge.

This photo was taken from right on the far side of the bridge. Pretty beautiful, huh?

This was a good feeling. My mindset was just walk into the shot, frame it, and move on. The split second of extra choice was gone. Oh, yeah it was an odd felling at first. Stopped me cold for a second. But then the feet got moving. And then settled into a zone.

From my own experience, I couldn’t agree with this article more. I got started in photography using a Canon Digital Rebel with the 18-55mm piece of junk kit lens. When I bought my own gear, I picked up a Nikon D200 body and then decided on the 50mm f/1.8 lens as my first and only lens. That was all I had for about three months, and while it was definitely challenging it also significantly improved my photography. It was (and remains) one of the sharpest lenses I’ve ever used and my pictures were better because I didn’t have to think about zoom. And invariably I framed better as a result.

Read the article here: http://www.photoinduced.com/archives/956

When it came to actually shooting, I was careful to keep the camera tilted somewhat down; this cut down on the amount of water on the lens. I was able to zoom the lens with my left hand through the jacket; there was enough slack in the sleeve to be able to twist it. The D200, like most of Nikon’s high end cameras, have amazing UIs because almost all of the controls can be adjusted with the right thumb while shooting. While actively shooting, all of the controls I need provide either tactile feedback (where I can feel the setting by the position of the control) or display in the viewfinder. The whole jacket ensemble looked dorky but it kept things dry in an absolute deluge. Here are a couple photos I took with this getup on: (click to zoom in).

For starters, I usually shoot wide, but to get good sports images I needed a telephoto. Something long to get in close. I struggled with autofocus not being fast enough, which I would attribute to a combination of my slow lens (f/5.6 is really pushing it for autofocus) and my non-pro body. I also struggled to track the action going across the field and frame on the fly while being zoomed in. I tried shooting with both eyes open using my right eye on the viewfinder, but this was awkward because I normally shoot left-eyed. Having a monopod to support the camera/lens would be useful and essential with a bigger lens. Finally, the memory card space is a huge issue with sports work, especially when using the motor drive.

So, here are some picks from last night’s Ultimate game (Basic Training):

I felt that the story would be better told in a 10-shot essay. Given the current format for presentation on the ALERT website, this wasn’t really an option, so I chose 5 photos. For y’all here, you can see the full story in 10 shots:

You can note the cool motion-blurred flash effect that I described earlier today.

This was a challenging day of shooting for a couple reasons. First of all was the pouring rain. Typically, when it starts raining, I stay inside. Something about carrying $2,800 of non-waterproof camera gear makes me a little skittish even in a light drizzle. To say nothing of the absolute deluge on Tuesday. I really didn’t want to miss the events though, so I came up with a way to safely shoot in the rain. Look for a post later today on how I did this.

It was also challenging from the sheer perspective of hiking back to the middle of nowhere in lush green wilderness, way off the beaten path. I realized that I love this kind of adventure photojournalism. It is really awesome. I love it.

I’m still discovering all that I can do with my new speedlight. Earlier this week, I was photographing in the Basic Training barracks on a rainy day; not ideal lighting on a sunny day and definitely low light here. I popped my flash on, bounced it off the ceiling and started shooting. This was boring; so I started dropping my shutter speed. Thus coming up with the really cool shots above. For some of these shots, I merely panned, but for a couple of them I rotated the zoom lens during the exposure. The secret to these shots is that the slow shutter speed captures the ambient light and the blurring, while the rear-curtain flash freezes the action.