Grandma, Daughter and Mom

A few months ago I was asked to take a quick portrait of a daughter, mother and grandmother in a restaurant while visiting Czech Republic. I had no extra lighting equipment except for my on-camera flash. So I found a piece of white wall, posted the family tightly together and bounced the flash over my right shoulder against the ceiling, with the wide angle diffuser on. This created very pleasant soft light source, even if the ceiling was very low. The final step was to get the right expressions on their faces and to take the photo. Camera spec: Canon 5D mark ii with Canon 24-105 4L at 70mm, F4 @ 1/125, ISO 800.

Ready to Serve

Today I am posting another photo from Hotel Hvide Hus and its restaurant on the 15th floor. I had to balance the outside light conditions with the interior lighting. This was achieved by two speedlites 580EX II. One to camera left with a shoot-through umbrella and another one bounced off the ceiling on camera right. I used tripod this time as I had to carefully adjust the positions of the camera and the lights in order to avoid reflections on the glass behind the waiter. This was little bit tricky but once I was ready and happy with the result, I simply asked to waiter to step in and took this photograph. Camera spec: Canon 5D mark ii with Canon 24-105 4L at 28mm, F6.3 @ 1/200, ISO 100.

Wine at 15th Floor

I was recently shooting some photos at the Hotel Hvide Hus for their web-pages and other propagation material. The hotel is probably the highest one in Aalborg and there is a beautiful restaurant at the 15th floor with view over the city center of Aalborg. The photo in today's post was light by shoot-through umbrella with Speedlite 580EX II high to camera left and another 580EX II at camera right bounced off the ceiling for fill. Both flashes had to be carefully positioned to avoid reflections in the glass window. I used the new Pocket Wizards with AC3 Zone Controller for quick manual adjustment of power right from the camera. The image was cropped in the way to point to the bottle of wine while showing the beautiful skyline of the city of Aalborg at the background. Camera spec: Canon 5D mark ii with Canon 70-200 2.8L IS II at 70mm, F5.6 @ 1/200, ISO 50.

Color Depth

Another image from the yesterday's wedding fashion show. This time it is not a bride but a "guest" with a very nice social dress. I chose this photo because I like the colors in the scene. The blue background and the warm tones on the model and her dress really add to the depth of field as human eye expects to see warmer colors closer and colder colors further away. I tilted the photo slightly so that the lines at the background are not vertical and the photo has more dynamics. Camera spec: Canon 5D mark ii with Canon 70-200 F2.8L IS II at 115mm, F3.2 @ 1/250, ISO 1600.

Bride Fashion

I have visited today the so-called Bryllupsmesse in Aalborg (Wedding Trade Show). Lots of inspiration for wedding dresses, music, photography ... it is clear that the wedding season 2011 is starting soon! There was a small fashion show there too where I was taking some photos. The background behind the catwalk was not very attractive so I moved myself to the side where I saw some blue lights at the background and this was one of the photos that I took. I like its simplicity, rim lighting and nice triangular shape of the wedding gown. Camera spec: Canon 5D mark ii with Canon 70-200 2.8L IS II at 125mm, F3.5 @ 1/120, ISO 1600.

Aalbog Skyline

Let me finish the series of panoramas I was posting recently with the one from my home town of Aalborg. It was taken from the 15th floor of the Hvide Hus Hotel. It is created from 9 vertical shots in the full resolution of the 5D mark ii, resulting in a huge resolution where the long edge has more than 15000 pixels and the JPG file at 95% compression has about 45 MB. It is impressive how much detail 5D mark ii can record. Camera spec: Canon 5D mark ii with Canon 24-105 4L at 45mm, F8 @ 1/200, ISO 100.