Crab Apple

Alright......, so I haven't posted anything in a long while. So I am going to have a bunch of small posts on all of the different pictures I have taken over the last couple of weeks.





This post is on a Crab Apple Tree that is right across the street from my house. It is now spring and all of the plants and trees are in bloom. I walked out of my house one morning on my way to get a bagel and some tea, and this tree just caught my eye. It was a rather cloudy morning but there was a break in the clouds. I ran in and got my camera and this is what I got.........



I especially love flowers and plants. Especially really close up so you can see all of the details. I don't have a macro lens so i just make do with the ones that I have. They work really well for me right now, but I am slowly starting to acquire new and much more advanced equipment. Its a big change from what I used to shoot with, I'm still trying to get used to it.





Anyways back to the Crab Apples, this tree is a huge tree and I only really focused on one part. Just one little branch and then I tried some stuff that was a little higher up. The tree was up on a ledge, and I couldn't get too close to it so I tried my best to zoom in and get wide angle shots. They turned out really well. These are five of 400 shots that I took. They are the best, of course.
















One of the things that I'm not sure whether I can change or try and overcome is when you focus on a subject up close and you can only get a small part of the subject to be clear and in focus. I really noticed it in these shots for some reason. I guess I just never really noticed it that much before............



This is one of my favorites.


Well that's all for this post, I'll try to get a bunch of stuff up in the next week or so. I just have so much to go through, and look at. Anybody with comments or advice please post them, everything helps!


-Kellan

A Crazy Dude I Know........

Here is a link to a blog that my good friend just started. I met him at a summer camp a few years back and he is one of the coolest dudes I have ever met!

He taught me how to do almost all types of fire arts, including poi, staff, and fire breathing. Now I am starting to master all of the techniques and skills it takes to become a fire art performer. He is also from Australia.

So check out his blog, he now has a job with Cirque du Soleil doing stage tech. You really cant get much cooler than that, seriously.


http://danielfulloon.wordpress.com/


-Kellan

Studio compilation

Well I haven't ever posted any of my studio work before so here are a bunch of different shoots that I have done.....

I have done so many with friends and family that there is just so much work that I haven't ever gotten around to posting. I'll start of with Winterball and end with just a regular practice shoot. My friend and I got hired to do portraits at Winterball back in January. We didn't have any studio equipment and barely knew how to do any portraiture work. It turned out very well considering we had never touched any studio equipment before. With the help of a neighbor and Jessica, we pulled it off. My neighbor had worked doing portraits with Sears and Jessica had done a bunch of studio work with Amos, so she knew everything better that we did.

Unfortunately I lost all of the first portrait shots but here are a couple from Winterball.......

The first one was a little bright but it looked good, all of them turned out great though.

I do so many shoots so I'm only putting up the best. I did one with my sister a while back which turned out very well. I really like doing close ups on people's faces. It makes the shot have some feeling and emotion. I've gotten pretty good with doing those kind of shots.....

This is my sister, I tried to get a solid black background. This is when we had only the muslin black and grey background. Its really cool to get half of the face totally dark and the other half lit very softly.

This is one of the more recent shoots I have done. I had just gotten the solid black and white backdrops and a new backdrop stand. I had a friend come over so I could experiment with the new equipment. I didn't have time to use the solid white one so all of these shots are just with the black backdrop.

During this shoot I tried to focus on highlighting a part of the face but having it blend into the rest of the face. Just like the Sun, i guess i could put it that way.

Tried to do the same thing.

This one is just a regular head shot. This one is also by far my favorite.

it is really nice to have the solid backgrounds, it makes it so you don't have to worry about completely taking out the background, as in setting up the lighting a certain way. Sooooo much easier.

These are all of my favorites but more are to come soon....

Please, any comments or advice are a huge help to me and my work.

-Kellan

Russian River

This past weekend was an epic weekend with no limits. My family along with a couple of friends took a trip up to the Russian River for a couple of days and just went all out on craziness and fun. We went up early Saturday morning and came back late Sunday. Its amazing how much you can do in 36 hours..........

One of the first things we did when we got there was we went to explore the banks of the river. We were determined to find a massive cliff to jump off into the water, and of course after about an hour of looking we found one. The only way to get to it though was to swim across the river to other side and climb up. The water was freezing, probably in the 40's. We were able to reach the other side and jump off from the highest point. It was basically like jumping into a frozen lake without the ice. That's why we only did it once.

This is the cliff we jumped off of, all the way to the right. Had to get a running start to get out to the middle of the river.

After freezing our asses off we went back, took a shower, and had a bite to eat. We stayed the night in a little cabin in the middle of a Redwood forest. Its an amazing place and the trees are massive. The crazy thing about really thick forests like the one we stayed in, is that it is dark all day long. You cant tell what time of day it is unless you go to a place where there are no trees. Its definitely very unique. I took a lot of shots in the forest but also ventured off to the river where I got some fantastic shots.

This is some of the moss that grows in the forest. Since it is somewhat on the coast, it is constantly raining or is really foggy.

When I went to the river to shoot it was around the time of dusk. The light was amazing. The river is kinda hidden by the trees so that the light goes right over the top casting light all across the banks of the river.

This is when the Sun was just going over the trees, giving everything else a golden color.




Both of these shots were much later in the evening. I was able to get the reflection in a little stream that was feeding into the river.

I spent that last few minutes of my trip at a little lake that was a mile away from the banks of the river. It wasn't very windy so I worked on some reflection shots. I was extremely intrigued with a little bridge right on the end of the lake which produced a perfect reflection. I haven't really had a major chance to work with reflection before but I think these shots turned out rather well.

I tried to get the reflection of the trees behind the water lilies, too bad there weren't any flowers on them. Turned out rather well though.

This reflection was great! Perfect placement of the bridge and the lighting was terrific.

Well that's about it for this post. Those were the best pictures out of the whole trip. I am working on getting a couple new items, battery grip and a larger picture card. I ran out of space and battery on the first day, so i had to constantly charge and upload my pictures.

Feedback would be awesome! And thank you to everybody who reads and comments, it helps me a lot with getting my name out there and improving my work.

-Kellan