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Strobist Sessions: Peterson Chiropractic Staff Photos

The Grand Architect of this Website — Thu, 20 Oct 2011 14:22:00 +0000

Earlier this week I was asked to take some photos of the Peterson Chiropractic staff. The staff assumed that I was going to roll in with a point and shoot camera or something because they were blown away when they saw all of the strobes I had drug into the physical therapy bay. I used two white lightning X3200 strobes (one with a 48 inch octobox LEFT and a 72 inch Parabolic Umbrella RIGHT), two Canon 580exII’s (one directly behind the TRUE STRETCH cage and one right towards the cage with a grid.) I used a cooling gel on the rear flash to give the cage a cool blue look. I jacked up the shutter speed and set the ISO to “L” to help knock out the ambient light from outside. I then balanced the inside lights and added some people and we were good to go. We took one serious shot for our website and then took some funny ones to send to Dr. Peterson’s son who is serving in Afghanistan. Overall, they turned out pretty well for how quickly we shot them. I did a tad of post processing on the serious shot and the rest are straight out of the camera. It’s nice to have our own in-house pro photographer, an I’m more than happy to lend my services to a wonderful staff that takes such great care of Dr. Peterson and me. More blogs coming soon, like I said in the last blog, I’ve been shooting up a storm! -Barnezy-

Run and Gun Head shots for Securian Advisors Mid America

The Grand Architect of this Website — Sun, 25 Sep 2011 14:04:56 +0000

This past week I switched my “chiropractic hat” to my “portrait photographer hat.” My good friend Paul Smith at Securian Advisors Mid America in Tulsa mentioned to me that they were wanting some headshots taken for their new website and he thought I might be a good fit to do it. I was scheduled for an hour or so to shoot 15-20 head shots. This is a fairly short amount of time to get great head shots for someone like myself who does not do a lot of portraits. I was running late because I left my backdrop at home and had to drive all the way back to get it (I’m a total professional.) But I got setup in less than 10 minutes and we went to work. I was in a very small office and did not have room for all of my lights so I literally was bouncing my bear 580exII flash off of a tan-colored wall. It worked great for being in a pinch and no one would ever know that I shot these with just one soft box.

Overall, they all turned out very nice and hopefully the advisors will like them. I processed the images in Portrait Professional 10 and turned the images around in less than 24 hours. It’s kind of nice to switch hats every now and pretend to be a professional photographer. I could not do it full time, but I thoroughly enjoy it when I get a chance to do it! On another note, I shot the Oklahoma Warrior Dash yesterday at Turkey Mountain in Tulsa and will post images today or tomorrow. We’re also actually making progress on the installation of our basketball goal and we could actually be playing on it within 7-10 days…. I’m keeping my fingers crossed. That saga has got to end soon enough! That blog will be a fun one to say the least! I have all of my insurance contracts now and am starting to see more patients every week. We’re finally picking up some steam and I’m ready for a busy fall! The weather is absolutely beautiful here, get out there and enjoy it! -Barnezy-

Cleveland Chiropractic Fall Photo Shoot

The Grand Architect of this Website — Sat, 30 Oct 2010 16:05:13 +0000

Last weekend I was commissioned to shoot some family photos for Cleveland Chiropractic students. I absolutely would not have taken on this project alone, so I recruited my good friend and fellow photographer/strobist; Alan Yoder. We had just finished 10 days of board reviews spanning over 60 hours so our brains were a bit fried. We started outside and had just got our lighting the way we wanted when the rain came down. We moved everything inside and dropped a black backdrop to finish the rest of the families. Wouldn’t you know the rain stopped and the sun came out the second we set up. Besides that and a few misbehaving little boys the shoot wasn’t too bad. The photos are available for order HERE. It wasn’t our finest work, but given the circumstances and the 15 minute time slot per family, I’d say we did alright for our first multi-family shoot. On another note, my wife had shoulder surgery yesterday where they repaired her labrum and tightened her capsule. She’ll be in a sling for a few weeks but I”m confident she’ll bounce back pretty fast! The weather is beautiful, get out there and enjoy it! More stuff coming soon! -Barnezy-

Kalenna and Shan’s “Bow Portraits”

The Grand Architect of this Website — Fri, 04 Jun 2010 13:36:34 +0000

Kalenna is a friend of mine from chiropractic school and she’s been after me for a while to take photos of her and her bow. You see, Kalenna is a competitive bow shooter by trade and shoots for Hoyt. Her brother is sponsored by Hoyt and is also a competitive bow shooter. Kalenna’s husband Shan, is also a competitive shooter but shoots with a Matthews bow instead of a Hoyt. My good friend Alan Yoder and I took Kaleena and Shan out to the bow range at the Shawnee Mission Park for some photos. We started with some traditional “couples” pics with the exception of carrying bows. As the sun went down, we pulled out the strobist equipment and went to work. We wanted to create some “EDGY” bow pics that would show the competitive nature of the couple. We actually shot a few of them with the bows in full draw with a broad-tipped arrow on board. I would not have tried this photo with any one else as it could have been extremely dangerous. I used the “live view ” mode on the 5D Mark II so that I would not have to put my self in the general vicinity of the arrow. Alan did a great job helping me light the shots but I wanted him to have a little fun as well. After 10 minutes of “EDGY” shooting I gave him my camera and told him to have some fun. He took no more than 7 or 8 photos and came up with a spectacular shot. His is the last photo in the sequence. I have some new DSLR video gear arriving today so I will do my best to put a little something together this weekend. I’ve always been intrigued by the magical look of “film” video, so I’m gravitating towards shooting more with my 5D Mark II and less with my video camera. The difference is unbelievable! On a different note, I performed my first outpatient physical yesterday which constitutes me as an official outpatient intern! This has been a long time coming, but it’s been well worth the effort. I hope you all have a safe weekend and enjoy the weather. Get out side and do something! -Barnezy-

Ali got a haircut

The Grand Architect of this Website — Sat, 20 Mar 2010 13:49:52 +0000

Well it’s finally happened…. Ali has traded her beautiful, long flowing hair for a more practical summer hair cut. She has had long hair since we met so it’s been a bit of an adjustment for me if I’m being completely honest. When I see her jogging through the neighborhood or while she’s looking away I’m still not quite sure that it’s her. Since this was such an unusual occurrence, I figured I would take a few photos. And well since my good friend Alan Yoder was present when we observed the metamorphosis of Ali’s hair, I figured I’d snap a pic of him as well. Ali and I have been spring cleaning this week and have thrown away no less than 20 full-sized trash bags of crap. We’ve also given away no less than 10 bags of clothes. I can actually walk through our apartment without tripping on stuff. The next project involves selling our rarely used futon and replacing it with a monstrous multi-shelved rack to put all of my camera stuff on. I’m also starting to buy into the whole “Day after Tomorrow” theory as it was 70 degrees yesterday and then it snowed all night and we’re sitting in the high 20′s here in a snow-covered Kansas City. On a different note, I recently purchased a Lowel video light kit for lighting movies, interviews, etc… Stay tuned for a sample video of these lights in action. They should prove very handy with making wedding videos and videos for my office, etc… I hope everyone enjoyed their spring break…. if you got one! -Barnezy-

Dr. Peterson Portraits for www.michaelpetersondc.com

The Grand Architect of this Website — Mon, 01 Mar 2010 16:56:02 +0000

This weekend I traveled to Tulsa with my wife and Alan Yoder, best friend from Cleveland Chiropractic College. Dr. Kirk Iodice, my chiropractor from Olathe, KS, traveled down for the weekend for a little workshop Alan and I put together. The goal was for Dr. Iodice to learn some advanced Active Release Technique modifications to help him with some of his tougher chiropractic patients. Dr. Iodice then showed Dr. Peterson some functional screens and a few therapeutic techniques to help him be more effective and efficient in the office. As part of this meeting, I was wanting to get a new photo of Dr. Peterson for the new website I’ll be building this spring. Dr. Peterson is unique for many reasons, one being that he uses Active Release Technique (the gold standard in soft-tissue mobilization) in the True Stretch, a stretching device created by Gary Gray, the world’s authority on tri-planar rehabilitation. Because of his unique approach in implementing these two tools, I thought it appropriate to photograph him in the True Stretch device. Whilst getting the lighting setup for the shoot, I used Alan as a temporary model. He is one of my favorite subjects to shoot (you can probably tell why from the photos) and I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to capture his “awesomeness” on film. The following photos are just a few that we shot for the website. Dr. Peterson and I will be attending a Gary Gray seminar in Rhode Island soon and look forward to seeing how they implement the True Stretch there. I recently purchased a True Stretch out of Oklahoma City after seeing the results Dr. Peterson was getting with it. My in-laws were kind enough to house it for me until I start using it on patients in about a year. I hope everyone is enjoying this temporary warm up in the weather. Enjoy the pics! -Chris-

Cleveland Chiropractic Winter Formal 2010

The Grand Architect of this Website — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 21:17:22 +0000

We had the annual Cleveland Chiropractic Winter Formal dance this past weekend and I once again shot the event. We danced the night away at the Crown Center Hyatt hotel in downtown KC. Dinner was good, the desert was great, and the dancing…. well some of it was just plain ugly!!! Even with all of that, we had an incredible time. At times I actually forgot I was working. We set up a makeshift portrait studio with a wall and a few black table cloths. Prints are for sale by clicking on the MENU button that says “Photos” and then by selecting “Buy Prints.” I implemented some strobes via pocketwizards with Canon 580ex II’s and then hit the dance floor. Here are a few pics from the night. Enjoy! -barnezy-

Strobist 101

The Grand Architect of this Website — Wed, 06 Jan 2010 19:15:02 +0000

So my good friend Alan Yoder and I did a Strobist DVD Seminar over Christmas break in order to learn how to use our little speedlights more effectively. Last night we had an opportunity to use our new found skills to create passport-type photos for our national board applications. We got a little carried away messing with umbrellas, softboxes, snoots, gobos, grids etc… Here are a few pics I created in about a 5 minute period. This was my first experience with strobist techniques and definitely my first real portrait I’ve ever done so I’m pretty optimistic about how much more I’ll be able to do by the end of 2010. Enjoy!