Cliché Friday – Shooting on set

©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

Prioritizing

©Rob Nitsch – click to enlarge!

Sometimes photography and life do not get along.  After many weeks of unpacking and settling into a new life on the right coast, I found I was spending less and less time shooting.  Which is contradictory to the reason we relocated.  Although I was doing a lot of work for my photography and art production, like putting together what I consider a dream home office and designing print materials, I wasn’t actually getting behind the lens.  So on Friday I got to spend the morning with August.  I decided to combine our play time outside with a photo shoot.  It was really important for me though, that play time was the priority not the photos, So I went into a semi-photojournalistic mode.  I made sure I wasn’t out there posing August, I was just documenting our morning.  Many times I put down the camera and jumped into the fun.  The session was a success for both of us, August had a great morning on a beautiful autumn morning and Dad broke his photographic dry spell.

Something small and something tall

©Rob Nitsch

Talk about pre-visualizing an image, when Sarah and I started planning our trip  across country months ago, this is the photo that immediately came to mind for me.  Even though we were planning stops at all these amazing National Parks and scenic locations this was the photo I knew I wanted, A low angle shot of August in the redwoods of California.  Funny too, This was the photo I knew I had to get, but I wasn’t sure my 24mm would capture it, so not only did I need to make this image but I needed to get a wider lens too!  Funny how that worked out for me.  To make this, we put August up on a felled Redwood and I got nice and low so that I could capture the perspective of these monstrous trees.  I went with the natural light, seemed like the right choice for a natural setting like this.

 


Settings :
ISO 400 : 16mm : 0 ev : ƒ/2.8 :1/250

Amusement Park Photography

©Rob Nitsch

​ My wife and I have a long history with amusement parks. About fifteen years ago we were both working at the biggest amusement park of them all, down in orlando florida. That is where we met and fell in love. I’ll let you guess which park I am talking about. Our careers as cast members is long past, but we still love traveling to these destinations. Now that we have a young boy our love of the parks has been rekindled. One thing that goes hand in hand with amusement parks is photos and photography is what has brought you to this blog. Shooting in these locations takes a certain skill set and a lot of imagination! Continue reading