Life The Last Few Weeks - Procrastination and

May 11, 2014 by Daniel Jester

I haven't been too good about writing these weekly updates so far this month, so here is the highlight reel to cover the last couple of weeks

Adam and I went on a little lunch time adventure in the foothills surrounding the studio. Found this gem.

Jack likes to pretend to play games where you pretend to drive

Jumping Jacks has a cool room with an underwater theme and black lights that make your lipstick look cool

Alesia dyed her hair purple and we took pictures in the kids bedroom. Pro tip, give your kids the room with the best light

Jack's school has their annual Fiesta last weekend

We all got together to celebrate our mothers

I took a new portrait of Hannah in the same style I have of Jack from around the same age

New Hair, New Headshot

May 07, 2014 by Daniel Jester in Portraits

New hair for Alesia calls for a new headshot! Shot in the backyard, one speedlight to the rear and camera left, and a reflector bouncing light back into her face.

Losing My Reflection - Shooting Sunglasses for Minimal Post Processing

April 25, 2014 by Daniel Jester in Product Photography, Tutorials

Carefully setting up your set can save you a lot of time and trouble in post when shooting and editing sunglasses.

Shooting sunglasses can be tricky. You want to see a good representation of the shape and style, but most lenses on sunglasses are curved and have a tendency to reflect everything in front of them. Editing out reflections in lenses may seem pretty straight forward, but the subtle gradient of many lenses can make it tougher than you might think. This set up will give you virtually no reflections and a great looking shot of your sunglasses, right in camera.

Behold, the boat

Note the light placement. I used a beauty dish here for ease of set transition, but two softboxes would work well. You are essentially bouncing light back onto the glasses from the front and back sweep. If you are getting milky looking frames, add a… — Note the light placement. I used a beauty dish here for ease of set transition, but two softboxes would work well. You are essentially bouncing light back onto the glasses from the front and back sweep. If you are getting milky looking frames, add a flag to keep some of the softbox rom spilling directly onto the glasses.

This is the set up used by the company I shoot for full time. One of the benefits of working in a production studio is that you get to work with other photographers and share ideas on how to tackle certain issues. The sunglass boat is one such instance.

The idea here is to build yourself a "boat" out of white seamless paper, with only one hole big enough to fit the lens. This way, everything around your sunglasses is white and will reflect as seamless white in your lenses.

Carefully cut a hole in the paper to allow just the lens through. This will keep your reflections to a minimum.

This set up will eliminate reflections for quite a few styles of sunglasses. Aviators and similar styles may reflect the lens itself, but that is far more manageable in post than most other reflections.

Note the use of white gaffer tape to tape the seams. This prevents the small paper overlaps from reflecting in the lens

This set up has the added versatility of being able to shoot straight on and at an angle, or back shot in one set with out needing to move fill cards or fancy footwork.

Life This Week - Life LAST week: Disneyland

April 24, 2014 by Daniel Jester in Life This Week, Fuji, Street Photography

I'm a little late on my weekly life post, but here it is. 100% family Disneyland photos.

***WARNING*** This post is photo heavy, even for me.

First things first: Feed the kids. Jack would need all the energy he could get. Flo's in Cars Land at California Adventure is THE place to eat.

Stopped for a quick family photo in front of the boardwalk. The employee that took this photo took the time to compose us and made a really nice family photo. Thanks man!

Saw Buzz Lightyear and Jack was excited to get a picture with him

Then Jessie came and we got to witness this little moment between cartoon lovers

All Jack wants to do when he grows up is drive, thus Autopia one of his favorite rides

A) I think I found a secret target B) We broke down for a few minutes :)

This was the first trip that Jack was tall enough to ride the 40" rides. He was so excited to ride Star Tours!

The last ride of the trip was the Casey Jr. Train, note Jack clutching his light sabre for dear life

Life this week - Chipotle.....again

April 13, 2014 by Daniel Jester in Fuji, Life This Week, Street Photography

This week was interesting. Things were very very busy, but not a lot happened. The studio was slammed with product and people. Between visitors, temps and a lot of big handbags events coming up, it was a crazy week, but outside of that, not much to speak of. We went to Chipotle again...

Chipotle. We can't stop and we won't stop.