Get your Dog on

My daughter Lisa and her husband Jeff invited us over for dinner last night. They have two of the sweetest dogs. I took the opportunity to take a doggie portrait for them. Oscar and Nittany don't like to sit still much so we used their bed to kind of contain them in to one small area to get a nice shot of them. I bounced 3 speedlights off left and right walls and one off the ceiling to light my subects.

The Crystal Lake Sychronized Swim Team

I had the pleasure of photographing the senior womens synchronized swimming team of Crystal Lake in Avon Park, Florida last week. They train all winter and do a final proformance for the residents of the park in March. Don't let their ages fool you, these ladies know how to put on a show. They perform an amazing variety of swim techniques all choreographed with music. These women are definately talented and obviously in good shape. Here are a few images from their show. Click on any image to enlarge.

Denton Lake

We took a trip to Florida last week. This is one of the places we stayed at in Avon Park. Denton lake is a spring fed lake and one of the deepest in Florida. A great place for scenic pictures.

Street Scene

Here is a redo of a street scene in Carlisle. We were walking around town at dusk waiting for Chelsea to get out of work so I took few clicks. You can read more about Carlisle here. This image was processed in ACR and Photomatix to give details to the shadows with an hdr technique I am learning from Trey Ratcliff. I find when planning an hdr image it works better if I under expose the images a bit more than usual. This seems to work best for me. Because of the moving objects in this image I did a single image hdr to avoid getting blur in my image.

Workshop...Spring Waterfalls

Spring waterfall workshop will be on May 2nd this year. The workshop will cover 5 area waterfalls. We have two openings available. The cost is $200.00
for the one day. Includes transportation to all five waterfalls, personal photography instruction on proper techniques.and lunch. If you are interested contact us at 716-297-3387 or gary@theportraitgalleryniagara.com

Area waterfalls will consist of Indian falls, Holley falls, Akron falls, Royalton falls, Clarendon falls. This is an amazing opportunity for any level landscape photographer. You must have a dslr camera and tripod, and maybe a pair of rubber boots.

The Mosquito Inlet Light, later known as the Ponce De Leon Inlet Light is the tallest light in Florida. you can read more about the light here: Ponce De Leon Inlet. I took this picture while in Florida last year.

Portrait Lighting

Portrait lighting is a subject that many photographers neglect to learn. There are many techniques and everyone needs to have their own style, but you need to learn good lighting skills too. I took this simple one light portrait of my brother and I think it is one of the best pictures I have of him. I used my Nikon D3 with a 24-85mm Nikon lens and a SB-900 Nikon speedlight. I used a technique I learned from Neil Van Niekirk using his invention BFT the black foamie thing. Basically you are blocking the light hitting your subject from your camera position while you are bouncing your flash off a nearby wall. This particular image utilizes a 3/4 lighting pattern know as Rembrandt lighting. It gives great modeling to the face and adds depth to your image. You can see more examples of this light here: The Portrait Gallery Niagara