©Rob Nitsch – click to enlarge!
There is just something I love about trees in the fog. The fog really accentuate depth even when you don’t have a vast open spaces. This really helps in New England, where we have an abundance of under growth which makes it difficult to isolate your nature subjects.
©Rob Nitsch – click to enlarge!
This was an amazing moment. The fog bank was just rolling into my location and the sun was rising behind this tree. When shooting in the fog I love being right on the edge of the fog bank. This fog is thinned out and lets more light through which in turn gives you a lot more detail in the mist. Within moments I was surrounded by solid grey, which is amazing in its own right, but this photo really captures the mornings transition.
©Rob Nitsch – click to enlarge!
Ok, it has been awhile since I have posted and I apologize for that. I have been side tracked with lots of photography jobs, personal artistic development, trips to the other coast and life’s little chores. Last week on Cape Cod we had amazing summer weather and with the warm weather came beautiful morning fog. Well that was more then enough inspiration to pull me back into the blogosphere. Also, I have been really into black and white lately, and fog photos look amazing in B&W, so be prepared for a couple of posts sticking with that theme.
©Rob Nitsch – click to enlarge!One of the great things about living in New England during the late fall and winter is that there is never bad light. When you are down south you really cant shoot from 10 am to 2 pm because of the harsh overhead light. Up here the shadows are always long and the light soft. None of that really applies to this photo, I made it late in the afternoon in Provincetown.
©Rob Nitsch – click to enlarge!This is a nice little lighthouse in Eastham Ma. Loved the sky on the day I shot this on. The jet contrails made a perfect X with this nautical beacon. I must admit I have fallen behind on my posting as I have been working on a huge print job. The good news is I am almost done!
©Rob Nitsch – click to enlarge!
I thought I would throw my hat into the HDR ring. I prefer my HDR’s to lean towards the more realistic side. This is a tree I shot on our trip up to Vermont. three, one stop brackets. It was on the Jenne Farm property. I thought it really captures the twig season up here in New England.
©Rob Nitsch – click to enlarge!I thought I would throw everybody off with that title. Soon enough I will be back to shooting the rustic beauty of New England. For now let these photos from the Virgin Islands warm you up. I don’t know the name of this bay, each one seemed more amazing then the last. This one, though, had a perfect curve to the tree line. It is as close as you can get to the golden ratio curve.
©Rob Nitsch – click to enlarge!
Tomorrow is a travel day for me, so this is kind of a quick post, just because I have to get back to getting stuff together. This is a photo of August having a blast on a huge slide. The location was a apple orchard up near Boston that had some amazing agritainment to go along with our autumn harvesting. One of the side effects that the slide manufacturers keep from the general population is that these gravity rides will build up some major wattage on your offspring.
©Rob Nitsch – click to enlarge!Another self-portrait. I actually have a lot more of these then I thought. It is not because I am narcissistic, I swear!(even though I lived in LA for way too long) Like most other portrait photographers, I tend to spend a significant amount of time on lighting before my sessions. I not only want to know exactly what settings will work for my gear but, I want to know what the range is that I can get away with under the current conditions. I want to know when over/under exposure finally breaks down the image. When doing all this tweaking, I need to take test shots. My wife/photography partner usually comes in towards the end when I am really fine tuning the set up. Before that, I am my test subject. Here is one of my lighting test shots.
©Rob Nitsch – click to enlarge!
OK, Ill admit it, I meant to write-up a post yesterday but I got side tracked with Halloween. Also, I was preparing for playing the role of school photographer today. Yes, I will be shooting the children at Cape Cod Children’s Place today! I am super excited! Needless to say, I scrambled this morning to put up a post. Here is another photo from our Vermont trip. Really is hard to make a bad picture there.
©Rob Nitsch – click to enlarge!This is one of those iconic New England scenes of rural decay. A shack slowly decomposing into the green mountain landscape, contrasted with dark gloomy skies and white birch trees. Thankfully Vermont is peppered with these deteriorating structures, they are one of the regions great photographic resources.
©Rob Nitsch – click to enlarge!This may be an east coast cliché. They say Jenne Farm is the most photographed farm in the US. You may recognize it from a Budweiser commercial, Forest Gump or even the great Chevy Chase comedy Funny Farm. The farm has become a mecca for photographer, especially in the early morning light. This image was captured at sunset. We had traveled up to Woodstock for the weekend, I was so excited to shoot the farm I raced over right before sunset. Lucky too, because this was the only sun break of the weekend. It is not exactly the shot I dreamed of, but it definitely captures the quickly changing weather of New England.
©Rob Nitsch – click to enlarge!We found this cute guy at the Sugarbush Farm in Woodstock Vermont. He was very friendly and great with kids. My son had a great time petting and feeding him. He even came out of his stall to play with us for a little while. The farm it self had a maple syrup and cheese tour and tasting, but since August knew there was a friendly cow outside, he refused to let us partake. Needless to say though, we had a great time wandering around the property on a crisp autumn day.
©Rob Nitsch – click to enlarge!One of my favorite speedlite techniques, especially this time of year, is to underexpose my ambient light and overexpose my flash. It can put a little extra spookiness / moodiness into your photos. It will also add texture to an other wise bland grey skies that are very common in the colder New England months. I also shoot with a Gary Fong collapsable lightsphere to soften those creepy shadows. All though putting August’s happy face in frame really lightens the mood.
©Rob Nitsch – click to enlarge!This is from one of our senior portrait sessions this season. There are a lot of moving parts doing an out-door portrait session. This was a last-minute reservation, by that, I mean we had less than two weeks to take this from start to finish. Then the day of the shoot rolled around and Mother Nature decided to give her in put. It rained. So we rescheduled, now we had six days from shutter fire to delivery. Well lucky, Mother Nature was kind to us on our second date. It was an amazing day, blue skies with wispy clouds! Perfect. It also helps when your model is a natural in front of the lens also. I have a feeling I will be posting many more photos from this day.
©Rob Nitsch – click to enlarge!I was hired to shoot the exteriors of this lovely Cape Cod house a few weeks back. I love these types of jobs, they make me pull techniques from multiple photography skill sets. I obviously use my landscape techniques to capture the complete property. I use portrait techniques to define the shapes of the structure. Finally, I finish the project with HDR post processing so I can deliver the highest dynamic range and color saturation as possible without stepping over the surreal line. Also, interior and exteriors details can be displayed. The HDR is hand done, I do not use any automated software or processes in photoshop. There is nothing wrong with using automation to create HDR’s, I just like to be selective where I am raising detail from the shadows, this helps me maintain contrast in my image without getting a soft air-brushed look. I will go over this technique in a future post.
©Rob Nitsch – click to enlarge!I love going out and capturing some shallow depth of field detail shots of the natural world. Processing them in black and white really lets me concentrate on texture of I am looking at. I’ll let you in on a secret, this image was made pretty close to home.
Settings:
ISO 50 : 50 mm : ƒ/1.2 : 1/1000sec
©Rob Nitsch – click to enlarge!It is hard not to reflect on your own self convictions when you go to Salem. Giles Corey was pressed to death. It took over two days for him to die. When the pressure from the stones being added to his body forced his tongue out his mouth, his captor pushed it back in with a twig. All Giles had to do was plead guilty and he would not have been put to death. If he was found guilty he would loose his valuable land, actually it would be turned over to the government. He died in full possesion of his land and was able to pass it on to his sons. Corey’s yelled his final words, “More Weight!”
Settings :
ISO 200 : 16mm : ƒ/3.2 : 1/25 sec : No Tripod
©Rob Nitsch – click to enlarge!This weekend Sarah, some friends of ours and I went up to Salem Massachusetts to get a jump start on the season. We had a great time walking around the town and checking out the oddities that inhabit this historical town. This was my first trip to Salem and I must say it was not at all what I expected. It is always described as a sleepy little fishing town, this is not really accurate at all. Actually It feels quite city like. Not down town urban, but very developed. Even though it was what I had envisioned, it was a great trip and I look forward to our next adventure up there.
Settings:
ISO 200 : 16 mm : ƒ/3.2 : 1/5000 : No Tripod
©Rob Nitsch – click to enlarge!When you head out to the pumpkin farms this autumn to pick your own gourds, remember not to pass up those prebuilt staging areas for your family photos. They are everything that cliché friday is about. Even though thousands of people are going to have that same location in their photos, you’re going to get the best image. Why? Because its going to be of your family! (by the way this dosn’t mean skipping the more “authentic” photo out in the orchard. We didn’t miss out on this flat bed truck set on our fall outing and it pay out in spades! It is my favorite capture of the day.
Settings:
ISO 400 : 16mm : ƒ/5.6 : 1/1600 sec : No tripod