My little one decided to try baseball to see how he liked it. So far so good. He enjoys the game and training up to now and seems to be a happy camper.
Here are some pictures of his first game. He was really happy when he hit the ball and run the bases.
One of the many joys of being a parent.
This past weekend I tried a simple lighting set up with my daughter Sofia prior to shooting some head shots of Lucca, a cute young actor.
The lighting set up was basically a main light. Paul C Buff Einstain E 640 with an Octabox and a grid on it to better direct the light. The strobe was placed overhead at 45deg angle. Lucca (the model) was holding a small gold and sliver reflector on his lap to bounce light back into his face as a fill. The other light source was a rim/hair light. This was a Travelite 750 fitted with a 10″ reflector and a 40deg grid to avoid light spill and lens flare. The pictures were done with a Canon 5D MrkIII and a Canon 70-200 ef 2.8 IS L set at f8.
Below it’s a simple diagram of the lighting set up for this two portraits.
Getting ready for Christmas? I’ve been having some fun lately
Here is my little nephew wrapped in Christmas lights. We had fun taking some pictures of him.
Kids grow fast. Very fast. That’s what they do. On the other hand I take a bunch of pictures of them and I do that very often. I like to think I do a decent job at keeping up with their growth pictures.
Here are some recent ones. Some are just for the sake of taking pictures, some others are ideas I see online or things that pop on my mind.
Now that Sofia is almost 9 and Sebastian is 5 I can go back in time and find pictures of just about every week of the year. I love that.
I enjoy Kids photography a lot, it’s fun. You sure will not regret all those pictures in 5 or 10 years.
Don’t forget that they will not stop growing and will not be kids forever.
Here are some pictures we did a few weeks back of baby Sophia. Her mom ask for either black and withe or sepia/toned images. I did a little bit of both to see what style she likes better. I think this baby would look great with any finish.
We just went to a fantastic pumpkin patch. Lombardi ranch, located in the Santa Clarita CA area. The place is huge and full of activities for the kids and parents with cameras like me.
My only problem was getting there late by about one hour. As I was parking the car I was seeing the beautiful sun rays hiding behind the hills, my golden hour was disappearing right before my eyes before I was ready. I did carry a few lights and a stand, although not remotely close to the real deal I put 1/2 cut CTO on the flash (orange color gel) plus set my withe balance to cloudy to help warm up the ambient a bit.
The equipment I took with me was a Canon 7DÂ with a Canon EF-S 10-22 and Canon EF 24-70 f2.8L 2 Canon 580EX flashes with Pocket wizards Flex TT5 and Mini TT1 with the AC3 zone controller, one stand, my tripod for the family portrait (don’t trust people any more not crop my head or feet any more) and a remote shutter release.
Thanks for stopping by.
Regards
Alex Elias
I just finished doing a shoot for a newborn baby girl. The session went great since the little one literately slept like a baby.
The set up was quite simple, I used a photography posing table to set the basket with the baby, that made it easy for moving and positioning. The lighting was done with 2 Travelites 750 one with a 11″ reflector set with a 30Deg grid for the background and the other one with a larger Photoflex softbox that was placed very close to the baby on camera’s right. On the left side of the camera as a fill light I used a Canon 580EXII with a 2×2 Lastolite softbox . All lights were triggered with Pocket Wizards Flex TT5 and a Pocket Wizard mini TT1 with the AC3 controller on the camera as the master. The camera was a Canon 7D and the two lenses for this shoot were a Canon Ef 100 macro F2.8 and as Canon Ef 24-70 f2.8L. I used the 100 macro 90% of the time for the session. I set it at f5.6 since I was looking for a rather shallower DOP.
For the post work I used Adobe Bridge to organize and tag the files with colors and stars. From there I migrated the raw files to ACR to do some adjustments and then open in Photoshop CS5 to do the last part. Here I did a few different styles in terms of post work from color, to black and white, duo tones and playing with vibrance and saturation tools.
Thanks for looking.
I welcome questions and suggestions.
Alex Elias
Last week’s family shoot went out very nice nicely. Everyone was ready and very willing to make this work, specially the 6-year-old that turned out to be a star. She sure had a blast modeling and working the camera. She tried a few different looks and also did her own make up, which by the way I think she did pretty good for 6 years of age; For sure better than I would have done.
The equipment I took with me for the shoot was my Canon 7D and although I took about 5 lenses the Canon EF 24-70 2.8 L was the one that I used all the time. Lighting was done with 2 Travelites 750 triggered via pocket wizards Mini and Flex and I fitted the lights with one 48×60 photoflex Softbox for the main, and an umbrella using the bouncing side as a fill. I shot everything at F9.0 and a few at F11 for good depth of field and ISO set at 200. The one thing I must confess is that I left the white balance on auto, I forgot to lock it and now I’ll have to spend a bit of extra time in CS5 with the color correction.
Overall it was a great day and I enjoyed the session a lot.
I Just did some family portraits with a different look. (CLICK ON THE IMAGE TO SEE LARGER) Taking the pictures for the final image was not too involved (aside from the lack of cooperation from my 3 yr son) In this series of shots I used one main light to camera right ( Travelite 750 with a 36″x 48″ Photoflex soft box) on the opposite side (camera left next to the kids) I went with a 48″ x 60″ withe reflector to bounce light and fill in the shadows. I set the camera ( Canon 7D with a EF 24-70 2.8L ) at ISO 100 F9.0 and triggered the strobe with a Pocket Wizard Mini TT1 and a Flex TT5. Later in the shoot I introduced a Canon 580 EXII without diffusion as a hair light to create some separation that was also triggered with a Flex TT5. I set that flash to manual and used a Pocket Wizard AC3 to control the output of that flash.
The overall steps are not to complicated. I used 2 pieces of withe foam core from the arts supply for $5 each. On one I cut a 13″x16″ hole in the center and the other one was left intact. I First took the pictures of the kids inside the frame and then I took mine holding the board without the cut off. The rest was done in Photoshop using layers.
Thanks for looking
Alex Elias
My family
I haven’t posted for a while. Life has kept me busy with good things plus I was practicing a bit on my procrastination.
Here are some pictures I just I took at the park. I could not have asked for a better day and and nicer family to work with, the kids were awesome and everything went just right.
The equipment I used:
Camera was a  Canon 7D. The main lens was a Canon EF 24-70 2.8L  follow by Canon EF 70-200 2.8  IS L  and I took a few using a Canon EF-S 10-22 . As far as lighting I took two Canon Speedlite a 580EX II and 430 EXII with 1/4 CTO on each one 1 2×2 loastolite Easybox  and a 5’x3′ reflector/difuser. The flashes were triggered with one Pocket Wizard Mini TT1 and an AC3 controller and 2 Flex TT5. Using the AC3 controller is nothing short of great, I had one light in group A the other one in group B and controlled each one at will from power up and down to turning on and off or go from E-TTl to manual. They are pricey but they are great.
Alex's pictures and Photo tips 
