RICH LEGG
SALT LAKE CITY, UTAH
I'm a photographer working in Salt Lake City, Utah. This is where I share my work on a regular basis.
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After posting yesterday's rather dreary image of Alyssa, I felt I owed it to her to post a cute one today. These images are from last week's stock session we did in the studio. As I said before, it is great to be working with her again.
Have a great weekend!
Canon 5D Mark II, Canon 24-105 f/4L lens - 1/160 second, f/8, ISO 100
Had a friend spot this ad today on a local television station's website. Since this is the image that I featured on today's earlier post, I thought I'd share it here.
One project I've added to my list this year is to spend some time re-photographing some of my successful older images in my stock portfolio. The reason I have been doing this is to have my images keep up with the ever-growing megapixels of images and changes in style.
The two images above are an example of this. The top image was shot in my studio back in January of 2008. Since it was shot with the original Canon 5D and cropped, it is only available at a maximum size of large on iStockphoto. The new image which was recently photographed, while still closely resembling the original, was shot with a Canon 5D Mark II and is available in sizes up to XXL.
Another thing about the difference in the images worth noting, is that while Alyssa's 2008 hair style is not quite out of style yet, her current look is more current with today's style.
Lastly and a bit embarrassing to admit, the post-processing of the new image is much better in my opinion (especially the isolation) compared to the original.
It will be interesting to compare how the new image fares in the sales department against the very successful original. Since it has already sold in the first few hours it was available, it is off to a great start.
It's no secret to photographers in Utah (and many outside the state) that I'm good friends with Nicole Young. In fact, I'd like to think that my Canon 5D Mark II was influential in her recent switch from Nikon to Canon.
Last month Nicole began increasing the frequency of her blog posts at nicolesyblog.com, and I have been impressed with the quality of writing and instruction she has been providing. With that being said, I thought I'd take a moment and encourage my readers (whom I REALLY appreciate!!) to head on over there and check out what she has to say. I especially like today's post and comments about whether or not using Photoshop makes you less of a photographer.
P.S. I know her blog is good, but please don't forget about this one once you leave :)
I spent this morning in the studio photographing one of my favorite models, Alyssa. I will forever hold a special place in my heart for her, since she was the very first model that Michelle and I paid to work with us on stock images back in '07. Her images have been very successful. In fact, as of right now she is featured in two of my top three selling images on iStockphoto.
Due to some geographic and life changes, we had not worked together since nearly a year ago. But things are different now and we are back creating stock images. We spent today's session revisiting some of our themes from '08 and shooting some new ones. While taking the pics was a lot of fun, what was even more enjoyable was catching up on life with a such a wonderful person.
Welcome back, Alyssa! I truly look forward to what we will create in 2010.
Canon 5D Mark II, Canon 24-105 f/4L lens - 1/160 second, f/8, ISO 100
After spending years using mainly softboxes for my lighting, I recently added a 16" Beauty Dish to my kit. Even though the modified light is fairly similar to what I get with my small octabox, it is just enough different to require some adjustment to my shooting.
Over the past few days I have done two studio shoots using the dish as my main light source, and I am learning what results I can achieve. Yesterday's post of Julie was captured with the dish placed 3' above the camera position and aimed down at the model. A hair light was positioned to the right and behind Julie.
For today's image of new model Richard, I placed the dish at just below the model's shoulder height and to the right of the camera. The reasoning for the placement was two-fold, first was to create a little bit of 'sinister drama' in the image (think "flashlight-under-your-chin") and secondly to get the light under the cowboy hat he was wearing.
After my first two shoots with the dish, I like the initial results. I look forward to continuing to learn this modifier and work it into my regular shooting.
Canon 5D Mark II, Canon 70-200 f/4L lens - 1/160 second, f/5, ISO 100
Wow, I've had a great response to Tuesday's blog post looking for audience members to be in my massive stock photo shoot. In fact, I've got firm commitments for over 60 people so far.
Since my goal is a minimum of 100 people in the audience, I am still looking for participants. This will be a lot of fun and when finished this will be the picture with the largest group of recognizable faces out of the 6,000,000+ image collection on iStockphoto.
Here are the details:
Date: Saturday February 6th, 2010
Time: 8:00 - 10:00 am
Where: Sugarhouse area of Salt Lake City
Who: Anyone willing to participate (and sign a model release)
Wow, 15 years old. Where have the years gone?
Canon 30D, Canon 24-105 f/4L lens - 1/30 second, f/4, ISO 100
I have had a stock photo concept bouncing around in my head for several months and now it is time to execute that idea. What's the idea? A series of images for my stock portfolio portraying a large audience in a movie theater. And by large, I mean over 100 recognizable faces.
I have been putting the shoot together (securing a venue, ordering props, etc.) over the past couple of weeks and I am at the place now where it's time to ask for volunteers to be in the audience. So here are the details:
Date: Saturday February 6th, 2010
Time: 8:00 - 10:00 am
Where: Sugarhouse area of Salt Lake City
Who: Anyone willing to participate (and sign a model release)
What I am looking for is models of all ages to be in the audience. Each person will need to fill out and sign (or if under 18, have a parent/guardian sign) a model release prior to the photos being taken.
I spent Thursday morning teaching my Ten Tips for Capturing Great Photos class to a group of 35 homeschool students. I spend a fair amount of time standing in front of people talking about photography. No offense to everyone else, but the most rewarding group to speak to is children. Their curiosity and excitement about what I do is so cool.
The homeschool group was a lot of fun. I look forward to continuing to share my 10 Tips... talk to local groups this year.
(Photo and Video © Nicole Young. Thanks Niki!)
Yeah, I know... "Another mug shot?!?"
I've spent this week wrapping up my series of stock images in the mugshot/line-up theme (see the growing set here). But now that I've got a mugshot wall semi-permanently painted in the studio, it's just too inviting to take fun photobooth type of shots like this in front of.
Have a great weekend!
The plans have been finalized for the February Photowalking Utah events and they are going to be great. Again this year we will be having two separate but related events. The theme is "Studio Lighting" and since it tends to be a bit cold this time of year in Northern Utah, both will be indoors.
FEBRUARY 11th - Mini Clinic
On the evening of Thursday February 11th, I will be facilitating a mini-clinic at the City Library in Salt Lake City. The theme of the clinic is "Posing and Lighting for Great Portraits". In the session, I will be demonstrating how to shoot portraits using various lighting techniques and get professional results. I will be using a model and shooting with a tethered camera so everyone can immediately see the results.
Date: Thursday February 11th
Time: 6:30 - 8:30 pm
Location: Salt Lake City Main Library - 210 E 400 South, Conf. room #4, 4th floor
Cost: Free
Date: Saturday February 13th
Time: 10:00 am - 1:00 pm
Location: Gateway Community Church, 584 E 12300 South - Draper
Cost: Free (though a suggested model tip of $3-5 is appreciated)
It is always interesting to me to see my stock images in use. This morning I received a text from Kylee about one of her shots that was spotted in the wild. A friend of hers had noticed her riding a horse on a video game cover and told her about it at school today.
The thing about stock images is that the buyer has the ability to integrate the licensed image into their design as they see fit (within the license restrictions). In this particular case, for some unknown reason, they opted to place Kylee's head on the body of the horseback rider. We will never know what made them want to do the head-swap, but we now have a shot of Kylee on a horse.
It's kind of funny, actually. :)
One of the top highlights of 2009 in my photographic life is the photography clinics that I was able to facilitate. In looking back at my calendar I see that I presented on over ten occasions to nearly 1,000 attendees. I can't begin to express enough thanks to everyone who supported these events. I don't profess to knowing everything about photography, but I truly enjoy sharing what I do know.
As we enter 2010, my plan is to continue the momentum of these free clinics. I will be warming up with a presentation to a group in Clearfield Utah next week before kicking off the 2010 schedule of clinics at the Salt Lake City library on February 11th.
If there are subjects you would like to see me cover in this years clinics, please feel free to either comment below or email me at rich(at)leggnet.com.
As many of you know, last year I began carrying a Canon SD780IS point-and-shoot camera with me everywhere I go. The reason I started doing this is to always have a decent quality camera with me to be able to capture shots that I would normally miss by not having my SLR or G11 nearby.
As is pretty evident, the camera's auto functions did their best in adjusting the exposure and captured a pretty bland over-exposed image. After seeing this, I took a few steps to the right and knelt down at the edge of the beach. This alone would of created a better composition, but still would not overcome the poor exposure. Since the camera does not have any manual settings, I had to fool it into correctly exposing the image.
To do this I first composed with the center of the image near the bright horizon and pressed the shutter release halfway down to lock in exposure and focus. Continuing to hold the button down, I then recomposed the shot and pressed the shutter release the remainder to capture the shot.
The result is a much better exposure and quite frankly a very nice image especially considering it was taken on a sub $200 fully automatic point-and-shoot.
Canon SD780 IS - 1/320 second, f/3.2, ISO 100
1. Add 2,000 images to my stock photo portfolio
2. Read 50 books
3. Lose 20 pounds
4. Up the production value of my stock photo shoots
5. Shoot more video
6. Take at least one college class
7. Travel outside of North America
8. Shoot a single stock photo with 100 recognizable models
9. Remodel/upgrade my studio's interior
10. Teach 10+ photography clinics
Unless otherwise noted, all photographs and text copyright 2005-2010 Rich Legg, Inc. All rights reserved.
Reproduction or redistribution in any form without prior written permission is strictly prohibited.
