STUDIO Thursday

The highlight of my day today was finding out that two of my photos ended up on espn.com, mlb.com, yahoosports.com, chron.com and a few other sites. It was great news for me. The links are:

http://www.chron.com/sports/photogallery/Astros_host_Giants.html

http://scores.espn.go.com/mlb/photos?photoId=2293911&gameId=290805118

http://houston.astros.mlb.com/components/game/year_2009/month_08/day_05/gid_2009_08_05_sfnmlb_houmlb_1/av/fgallery.html

http://sports.yahoo.com/mlb/teams/hou

http://www.sfchron.com/cgi-bin/object/article?f=/c/a/2009/08/05/SP14194C08.DTL&o=1

http://www.insidebayarea.com/sports/ci_13001208

http://www.statesman.com/sports/content/sports/stories/other/2009/08/06/Giants-Astros-Baseball_3.html

Moving on to what I learned today

I spent the day in the studio with Mayra Beltran in the studio today. Although I've been shadowing in there lately, I haven't done any of the work. Today Mayra sat back and had me set stuff up and shoot the photos while she graciously answered questions, gave me tips, etc. It was a great experience for me.

We shot photos of cleaning products and then a shadow box for two illustrations that two different designers were doing. She also let me do some shots of her to practice on people, all of which were deleted by her request. It was really good practice for me though.

I learned how to set up the lights, how to take them down, the correct exposures and settings for shooting objects, where to place things, etc. The list goes on, and on, and on. I don't know what I would have done if I hadn't been given the opportunity to work with Mayra today though, she was very helpful in making suggestions as I shot products and her to practice in the studio.

I actually had a really good time hanging out with Mayra. She is super nice, and again another amazing photographer that I'm having the opportunity to interact with down here. I met her for the first time today and we got along really well.

I'm hoping to hang out with her some more while I'm down here and learn some of her tricks and trades.

I talked to Johnny Hanson today also. I was asking him about shooting photos of people or things when there's not a whole lot going on. He said you shoot until you make a photo out of it. You look for different angles you look for different view points. And you don't stop until you get the shot. My next question was what if you only have a very short amount of time? His answer was simply - buy time. Tell the person you almost have the right shot. Show them what you are doing. Tell them that if you can have a few more minutes you can do more with the photo. Work it, and get what you can. But really look he said - because if you don't look, you won't see. In the five minute conversation I had with him, I gained a lot.

It was a good day. I came home to the house full of cousins, which I love. Megan and Jesus headed off to Megan's going away party and I stayed home to put the girls to bed. I got lots of hugs and kisses and read them stories. There's nothing like the innocence of children.