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The Stock Show

A couple of weeks after our local stock show, the memories are still fresh.

Sparkle

Here is a short movie about a little girl and her pig. I hope you enjoy it.

My Little House on the (Blackland) Prairie

I shot this picture at dusk this past Saturday and it is of my cabin I've been working on for the past six months. While not completely finished, I about 98% complete. I can't tell you how relieved I am to see the cabin this far along. I've spent lots of time and a fair amount of money getting it to this point but after staying in it with my wife and kids at Christmas, it is well worth the effort.

For you camera buffs, I lit this image with three flashes: two are hidden on the porch behind the posts and the third is to the north of the cabin and is held by my brother.

To see the cabin's beginnings, check out http://www.russellgraves.com/blog/2009/06/home-away-from-home.html

Corn, Oklahoma

I love meeting new, interesting people like Gary Reimer of Corn, Oklahoma. When a client calls and needs images, I always look forward to these kinds of shoots.

The inherent challenge of this type of assignment is that:

1. You don't have any time to scout;

2. The people (namely farmers and ranchers) are extremely busy;

3. You have to shoot environmental portraits as well as supporting imagery to fill in the pages of, in this case, a magazine article.

4. You have to do all of this very fast...

So with that in mind, I traveled to Corn, Oklahoma to shoot these images.

When I got there I didn't have to work that hard for locations. Gary's farm was nice and tidy and with recent rains, the landscape looked great.

So in just a few hours, we have to tell what Gary does in order to illustrate an article.

Here we did the various shots of his operation as well as shot some nice portraits with various backgrounds. Since light tells a story all in itself, we did a variety of poses from lighting him with natural side lighting, used a reflector to bounce light back into his face and backlit him with the sun, and then at the end, we used a simple two flash set-up to light him against a dark sky.

The last protrait was a pretty simple set-up (see diagram). In essence it was a three point system (the bright sky, flash one, and flash two). Of course one flash was used to light Gary while the other was placed just above the milo and spilled across the grain heads. Pretty simple and it took just a couple of minutes to set up.

In the end, I think I should have spilled some more light over to the camera left. However, it was getting dark fast, the other flash was at the truck and it was a long way through the milo.

Show Pig Sunday

This afternoon, Kristy and I took Bailee and Ryan to the farm of one of my former students and show pig raiser, Matt Burba.

There, we picked up Bailee's first show pig: a sweet little Duroc gilt that Bailee named Sparkle. Bailee is in third grade this year so she finally became old enough to join 4H. As is customary in our little town, if you are in 4H, you show a pig.

So here we go...

Early in my ag teaching career I messed with show pigs a lot. However, the second half of my sixteen teaching years, I didn't mess with the show program much. Instead, I was in charge of all of our competitive FFA contests. Therefore, I have some catching up to do.

No worries, though. This is going to be fun for all of us.

Shooting Produce

You know, I have never shot any produce images before. In fact, I am not much of a food shooter as it is such an exacting art, I've never chosen to try and tackle such a demanding discipline.

However, on a recent magazine photo shoot, produce was part of what I had to shoot. The day I shot these images was overcast and the sun was filtered through a cloud bank that acted as a hug soft box.

That light was filtered indirectly through the openings in the produce stand which made it soft and turned the colors super-saturated.

Curiously, all of the food was shot how I found it. No artificial lighting or reflectors - just glorious filtered, indirect light.

Case Study - Andrews Rodeo Company

Last Saturday I did a magazine shoot of the Andrew Rodeo Company at Addielou, Texas. While it was rainy and nasty, that didn't set me back too bad. In fact, the overcast day made for some great saturated colors.

The tough part was taking the portrait of the Andrews. Since Bodacious was an integral part of the Andrews Rodeo Company's identity, I felt like it was important to feature a small shrine they had to the bull in their back room.

While space was tight, that wasn't the biggest problem as I kept getting a "hot spot" on the cut out of the bull. To mitigate the spot, I used a dual flash set up. the main light was at camera right and shot through an umbrella and the second light was bounced off a silver reflector to add soft, even lighting - thus eliminating the "hot spot."

The September 2009 russellgraves.com Newsletter

Check out http://www.russellgraves.com/sept09.html

Homemade Models

One of the satisfying parts of photography is taking pictures of my kids. Even more satisfying is when I get to use them for a cover shoot for a magazine. A new magazine came in the mail today and featured Ryan on his first cover. He was in his waning days of being a four year old when we traveled to Palo Duro Canyon to shoot this image.

While I am on the subject, take a look a few other covers that featured mine and Kristy's homemade models.

Panhandle Property

I've been spending a few days photographing a real estate listing just north of my house and what a beautiful place. Located north of Wellington, Texas on the Salt Fork of the Red River, this place has beautiful, rolling sage hills, wooded draws, and even a stand of hardwoods.

I've never fancied myself as much of a landscape photographer but guys like Texas photographer Wyman Meinzer are masters at the craft. However, the chance to go out and hone the craft is great practice indeed.