Cat's Wedding

I was a guest at a wedding this weekend. It was a nice change to be able to sit and enjoy and feel no pressure. But don't get me wrong, I love to shoot. Congratulations to Cat, not just for finding happiness, but for being the first of our highschool group of friends to tie the knot. I caught the garter belt, so looks like I'll be next.


Shown is Sarah, Fup, and Chopper. All very important people in my life. Fup's also a photographer. Between the two of us, Sarah may have been a little shuttered out. I tried not to photograph too much. These are my two favorite shots. (Below)



All in all a good day. I'm happy for Cat. I'll be posting more weddings in the next few weeks, but posting as a photographer, not a guest. After all, this is a photo blog, what am I thinking posting personal stuff on here?


ps. Above is one of my best friends Nick. He was the Best Man/maid of honor. He did a great job, looked like a "baller" and had a funny toast. Props nick.

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Did you think that was it? There's about 50 more, fup and I started playing with the wireless flash at the reception for fun. To see more pics from her wedding, visit this facebook album link:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2033562&l=c8653&id=194602817


-Jonny Carroll
Photographer

jdonut photography, LLC
Denton Wedding Photography
We Make Virtual Tours
Denton Wedding Photography
UNT Photography
UNT Photo Club

Playing with gels

my poor dog rocket has been flashed so many times. He's the usual subject for my strobe testing. Last week it was with gels. This is with a red gel on the right, and green on the left, I turned the vibrance down really far. The colors don't make sense at all, but i like the shot. I tried playing with complimentary colors on either side. Learned quickly, that doesn't look good.


However, complimentary colors foreground-background do look good. When I get some more time, I'm going to play more with this manipulation of color temperture. And on a human. Rocket's just so easy, he's always around. I just grab a treat and tell him to stay. He stays interested and still for a short 10-15 minutes, then i have to give it to him, or he'll walk away.



-Jonny Carroll
Photographer

jdonut photography, LLC
Denton Wedding Photography
We Make Virtual Tours
Denton Wedding Photography
UNT Photography
UNT Photo Club

Mother's Day

Went up to Texarcana, TX with my mom for mother's day to take her mother out to brunch.


It's been a while since I've seen her. Last time was at my brother's wedding. She was so happy to see us. I've never seen an old lady so happy, and it just made me feel good inside. This is a lady who I've heard not wonderful things about. Who I used to judge become of her eating and smoking habits. All these judgements went away. All I could see in her eyes was pure joy.



Her health right now is in a fragile state. She's walking with a cain, she's lost a lot of weight. I mean, you have no idea how much. It was great to see her, but then you start thinking, you know, those thoughts. Is this the last time I'll see her? How many years does she have left her? It's sad to think about. I think through photography, ^ that's just who I am. I didn't have her pose for these don't worry, just candid.


Here's my mom. She's still beautiful.
Happy Mother's Day.

-Jonny Carroll
Photographer

jdonut photography, LLC
Denton Wedding Photography
We Make Virtual Tours
Denton Wedding Photography
UNT Photography
UNT Photo Club

Lorraine Sherrill Shoot

It felt like it had been just so long. I had only one shoot dead week and purposely none during finals week. And the dead week shoot was a bridal shoot, so I can't blog those till after the wedding in case the groom come across them. I apologize that I have not updated for so long. Finally had a shoot to upload!


I shot portraits for a friend of mine who is absolutely gorgeous this past thursday. Sarah assisted again. She's wonderful.


just one of my favs from the shoot.


To the left is really nice reflected light, the image on the right was one of my first times to play with gels. I think it turned out nicely. You can see the red light on the dirt.


Video Here:
http://animoto.com/play/9AyVInats8ARPY0IOKh7rg

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To see more photos from the shoot visit here
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2033135&l=89df6&id=194602817




-Jonny Carroll
Photographer

jdonut photography, LLC
Denton Wedding Photography
We Make Virtual Tours
Denton Wedding Photography
UNT Photography
UNT Photo Club

mose EXPOSED fashion show

Shot a fashion show last week (4-22-08). This was a non-commissioned shoot, so with no pressure, I thought I'd play around a bit with lighting. In addition, this was my first time to use 4 wireless flashes at once, kind of what motivated me to go. I was pretty excited. This post gives a small breakdown of it.


Here's me playing with rainbows. The left was from a tungsten back light. the right is one of my strobes. I figured out how to make the rainbow refraction with the stationary light, then transferred that to the strobe. I found several people like the right one. These are cool, but not my favorite, just fun.

This particular one is my favorite. You might notice the lights on above her. The room lights came on for some mysterious reason during one "line" of walks. I liked the lights personally, after quickly making some adjustments I was able to make some nice captures. Then the overhead lights shut off again. While a girl (Lauren) was walking down the runway. A little unorganized, but what ya gonna do.


SETTINGS:

Shutter was at 1/200. I was using ebay (cactus triggers), so I couldn't go much faster. F-stop, 2.8 pretty much the whole time, and the ISO fluctuated, I tried to keep it below 400.

4 flashes. 3 high wattage tungstens. The flashes were not gelled. This was not on purpose. The video guys brought in these lights 10 minutes before the show started and I was in the back. Nevertheless, it worked out fine. The 2 flashes in the "back" were at 1/16th power, the two behind me at 1/4th. all bouncing off the ceiling. Two tungstens behind me, one in the "back".


The 16mm shot on the left shows the set up a little. The different color temperatures of lights is very obvious in this picture, but it's not so horrible of an effect. It might come across as amature to an experienced strobist, but looks cool to the general public (asked around). The right shot was my ideal walking shot.


VIDEO mose EXPOSED show stills:


direct link for the non-embed RSSers http://animoto.com/play/EerERDAB3IlVqyqmsnVjvw


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what? a jump after all that. Yes, click here or visit the URL below to see my facebook album of 60 pics from the show. The video pretty much covers it tho.
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2032442&l=560e0&id=194602817



-Jonny Carroll
Photographer

jdonut photogrpahy, LLC
Denton Wedding Photography
We Make Virtual Tours
Denton Wedding Photography
UNT Photography
UNT Photo Club

The worst part about bridal shoots

is not being able to post them until after the wedding. Just in case the groom comes across them online somehow. Two great shoots this month, one more on friday. They will eventually be blogged.


-Jonny Carroll
Photographer

jdonut photogrpahy, LLC
Denton Wedding Photography
We Make Virtual Tours
Denton Wedding Photography
UNT Photography
UNT Photo Club

How to shoot lightning.

I grabbed a few more lightning shots the other night. This was my favorite.. I think. We saw a strike hit a transformer and light up so many different colors, it was amazing, but the camera was pointed the other direction. Anyway, as I constantly upload photos to facebook multiple friends see them and ask how I do it... There's a trick. And I'm sharing it with the www.



First off, there is a lot of luck involved, don't get discouraged. It might take you years to get one good shot, and you might only have 1 good storm a year. Us Dallas and Fort Worth folks get about one good storm a week in April and May. I was the opposite, I got the shot of my life my first time out. It's almost depressing because I don't think I'll ever top this shot from 2006, unless I just get really really lucky. But I'll keep trying.


so..

How To:

What you do is find a dark place, and point the camera at that area, in hopes of lighting. The most difficult part is finding a place that is covered, and that shows a lot of land. Lightning is really bright, so you expose for basically a cloudy day.

Here's my usual settings
ISO : 100-200
F-stop : 8.0ish
shutter speed: 20-30 seconds, or bulb

As long as what you see through the sensor is black or dark, your camera records nothing. It only records light, so you just wait for a strike, which lasts usually a fraction of a second. In theory, how ever long the strike lasts, is how long the shutter speed is. It's a neat trick, took me a while to figure out the settings and how to really make it work. Exxperiement on your own to find what you like.

This is a great example. Close to a 20 minute (1200 second) shutter speed, pointed at a lake.



Play around.
You don't nessesarily have to shoot in a dark area. I've had my share of playing with other light, and shutter speeds. Once you understand how it works, you can be a little more dynamic. This is a 20 second shutter, over a highway. This however, is the only one that has come out of mine so far with other lights purposely present. I still find that the car lights and the lights just over the trees over power the lightning a bit.




Be careful.
Know where to bail in case of a tornado, don't try to photograph it. Be smart and aware. Photography wise, make sure that there is no water on the lens, and that you're shooting in raw. The intensity of a strike is completely unpredictable, so you'll want the extra information raw gives you to make adjustments on your photos. And mostly have fun.


JUMP
to see more of my pictures of lightning click here, or visit:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2009255&l=0e3e9&id=194602817



-Jonny Carroll
Photographer

jdonut photography, LLC
Denton Wedding Photography
We Make Virtual Tours
Denton Wedding Photography
UNT Photography
UNT Photo Club

Strangers and a studio.

Last week was NT Preview. Where potential freshman come and check out the school. Being president of the UNT Photo Club, I decided might as well grab a table and promote the club. It was me and David Wixom holding up the fort. We set up a little studio and offered free pictures to anyone, having no idea what we would get.



Some pictures were a lot of fun to take. I might even have to add a few to the portfolio, but I don't have model releases so I'm not sure if I can. We got a fun mixture of different kinds of people. Usually parents wanted pictures, and the kids wanted nothing to do with it, cept to learn about the club and look through the pictures we had on display.

This particular image was my favorite. Their clothing is completely unsaturated, and their two different skin tones mix beautifully.

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to see more pics from NT preview click Here, or the direct link below to the facebook album
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2032391&l=47bb0&id=194602817



-Jonny Carroll
Photographer

jdonut photography, LLC
Denton Wedding Photography
We Make Virtual Tours
Denton Wedding Photography
UNT Photography
UNT Photo Club

Alan (the) Farmer

Haha. My current roomate Alan Farmer was the subject for a photo Illustration for the North Texas Daily today. We did a play on words with his name. I found it pretty funny.


"Photo Illustration. Senior geography student, Alan Farmer finds the farmer inside him for Earth Day." is the caption.

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Read the Article Here. Click the link to see it published and more photos.
http://media.www.ntdaily.com/media/storage/paper877/news/2008/04/22/News/Students.Can.Go.Green-3340389.shtml



-Jonny Carroll
Photographer

jdonut photography, LLC
Denton Wedding Photography
We Make Virtual Tours
Denton Wedding Photography
UNT Photography
UNT Photo Club

animoto videos.

This site is pretty amazing. It makes videos for you, and uses a heck of a lot of AI to do so. You can play around and make unlimited free 30 second videos, or pay a small fee and make full length ones. I decided to make a full length for $3.

As most of you know, I'm a professional photographer, so to really test this site, I chose my smugmug album "family easter 2008", a collection of photos of my family hunting eggs. Potential for major bordom, but it wasn't. See for yourself!


for the RSS users: http://animoto.com/play/DXU0KNcCV82z7Tt7IMOITQ

not so bad huh?

Check it out. Animoto.com. They have a Referral program too!. If you sign up, use this code cxghzfwk to get $5 off the full service, and to get me three free months! 30 second videos are free!

again. $5 off with this code: cxghzfwk


-Jonny Carroll
Photographer

jdonut photography, LLC
Denton Wedding Photography
We Make Virtual Tours
Denton Wedding Photography
UNT Photography
UNT Photo Club