Teaser Alert - Guest Blog

Don't ask, don't get.  I've been following Netherlands based fashion photographer Frank Doorhof for some time.  He burst on the scene about 3 years ago in the model / fashion scene.  Trust me people, this is a photographer with skills.  He's active in fashion photography, social media, workshops, podcasts & is now one of Scott Kelby's minions.

This week I emailed him asked if I could write a guest blog post on his very active website StudioFD.  I sent him a sample of my writing, and a link to my blog.  Guess what - he followed up and said "bring it on".  I sent him a draft post this week and tonight he said lets do it.

So tonight I sent him the final post along with images. Fingers crossed it will get posted and then I'll be able to spread some Indianapolis model photography style & techniques to Europe!!

Scott Kelby Worldwide Photowalk

We are from Indiana

I Participated in the annual Scott Kelby Worldwide Photowalk this Saturday.  There were two photowalks organized in Indianapolis.  I went to the one arranged by the camera club that I am a member, the Photo Venture Camera Club.  About 20 photographers showed up on the bright and cold Saturday morning.  A perfect day for street photography.

Most of the group walked up and down Massachusetts Avenue (called Mass Ave by us locals).  It’s an area of trendy restaurants, bars and shops.  It’s also becoming one of the fashionable places to live.  For this reason it’s a great place for urban photography.  However, since this was the weekend for the annual Circle City Classic, there was also a big parade going on at the same time.  A few of the photographers, including myself decided to shoot around the parade.  A good choice.

Cotton Candy Man

You Looking At Me, You Looking At Me?

For this shoot the lighting was very bright with clear skies.  Lots of shadows from the buildings and floats.  I decided to sit right on the sidewalk so I could shoot from a low perspective.  I spent about ½ the time sitting in the sun and then about ½ moving into a shadow of local buildings.  I shot all photos with my Nikon D300s and my AF-S DX Nikkor 18-200mm f/3.5-5.6G ED VR II.  This is a good lens choice for this type of setting since there was plenty of light and I wanted the flexibility to use both ends of the zoom range.  All shots were with my ISO set at 200, Aperture priority, WB set at either sunny or shade presets.  The only variable was my aperture normally around f/3.5 to f/8 depending on the DOF I wanted.

Working Up a Sweat Dancing

Kentucky State Marching Band

Obviously there was NO shortage of things to photograph in the parade, but I focused on shooting people.  I tried to get up close as I could and frame my subjects as close as possible.  I ended up with about 600 shots over the course of 2 hours.  Got lots of really fun shots.  All shots were processed in Adobe Lightroom 3 and a few additional processing in Adobe Photoshop CS5.

SERIOUS Cymbals

Tuba Player

We ended the photoshoot after about 3 ½ hours all meeting up at a local restaurant for lunch and of course to talk about photography.  I can’t think of a much better way to spend a Saturday morning.