Mass is the centerpiece of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra’s 2008-2009 season and celebrates the 90th anniversary of Leonard Bernstein’s birth and his enduring legacy.

I was commissioned to cover the rehearsal this past Tuesday and the performance held last night. This production features nearly 250 performers with the BSO divided into two different orchestras with two organs and nine percussionists, the Morgan State University Choir, Marching Band, Peabody Children’s Chorus, plus the cast of dancers and singers. For more information visit Bernstein: Mass — A Theatre Piece for Singers, Players and Dancers from the BSO’s website.

Without the ability to use flash, the key to getting the shots in this low-light environment is to combine my f/1.8-f/2.8 lenses, plus high ISO.

I can finally say, “Yes, I’ve shot an NFL game.”

I’ve shot many high school games, a college game, but they don’t compare to the NFL Experience.   To those who shoot the NFL regularly, it’s probably old hat for you, but for me it was like getting to fly first class after riding in coach all my life.

The first thing that really surprised me was how big these guys are.  Not sure where these guys hang out all week, but I’ve never seen people this enormous at the grocery store or mall.

Photographing the game is pretty much the same — except the players move so much faster, and passes get to their intended receivers (or defensive players) in a blink of an eye.

I got the rare opportunity to shoot photos from a Blackhawk helicopter and I thought I’d share some of the images from the flight.

The flight took off and landed from Edgewood, MD.  The mission was to fly over Fort McHenry for the Michael Phelps celebration.

I had never been in a helicopter before, and I must say, it was an awesome experience.

The framing of the shed I am building.

For the past six weekends, I’ve been building myself a storage shed in my backyard. This past Labor Day I finally completed it and started loading it up with my junk stuff.

I had been taking photographs all along it’s progress and in looking back at all of the images, I thought I would share a technique I use to balance both the indoor and outdoor light.

This first image was early on in the framing stage.  You don’t think of this as an interior photograph, but if I had just exposed for the sky, the framing would have been underexposed, and you would have seen no detail in the framing at all.   Alternately, if I tried to properly expose the framing, the sky would be blown out.   Solution — balance the light with your flash!

Above is a photo I took (after moving items from the garage to the shed) on Labor Day using an on-camera flash with a diffuser. Obviously, it’s not a beautiful home interior photograph, but the technique is similar to what you would use.   I manually exposed for the window — which rendered a very dark picture with a small, well exposed, rectangular portion (the window).   I then fired up the flash and set no FEC, leaving it at +0.   The flash did all the thinking for exposure of the inside of the shed, leaving the well exposed window!

Next time you are photographing a kids party, family gathering or real estate indoors with a window or open door in your background — take a moment to expose for the bright outside light, use your flash (or several flashes for real estate photography) and then fire away.  Your pictures will look great without a big white, blown out window — but rather the scene as your eyes see it.

This is the continuation from Part 1 of the wrestling team poster project done using a green screen. In part one, I explained how I used a green screen to put together a team picture.

The next stage was to provide some sample background images to be selected for the final poster.  I submitted for review, ten different images, from pastures to buildings, for potential candidates for the final poster. Coach Watson and his staff settled on the stormy clouds version. In addition, he let me know that one of the original wrestlers has transferred to another school and would need to be removed. With the removal of that wrestler, I then rearranged the other guys to balance it out.

Coach Watson wondered if I could add a bolt of lighting to the sky. I played around with Photoshop after Googling for help inspiration and technique from others. I personally like the poster without the lightning, but the coaches loved it, and wanted it included.

The final step was to add the text, and get the final OK.  Once approved, it was time to send the final image to the lab to print the posters.

This was a fun learning experience, and would gladly accept another project that could utilize the green screen.

In fact, I am going to start utilizing this technique for doing T&I (team and individual). No more ugly bleachers or gym stages in the backgrounds. Another benefit is that there is no need for everyone to wait around for the entire team to show up — I’m sure the parents will appreciate that aspect.

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