Product showcase; BlackRapid RS DR-1 Double Strap

I just finished up working at the International Food Festival presented by the Kielbasa Festival at the Eastern States Exposition Grounds in West Springfield Massachusetts. What a great time and man did I take a lot of shots! I wore the BlackRapid DR-1 double sling strap for a major amount of time over the course of the past five days and this system is great! The weight distributing should straps make this a very comfortable system to carry two cameras. The shoulder pads do get a little warm, as to be expected, but anything resting on your shoulders will do that. 

The DR-1 works by having a sling on each side of your body and the camera straps hang straight down your sides. The camera is attached to the straps at the tripod mount. For those who use tripods, Blackrapid makes a replacement bolt for the tripod plate so you can keep the mounting plate attached to the camera and still use the sling. The cameras move freely up and down the strap to shoot and there are adjustable stops on the front and back of each camera strap to limit movement. One of the cool things about this system is you can disconnect each side and use them as two single camera slings if needed. It is very adjustable and BlackRapid makes 2 different sizes of the Double.

I carried a Nikon D5300 with a Sigma 70-200MM f2.8 lens and a Nikon D90 with a Sigma 24-70mm f2.8 lens on for the majority of the time with the equipment weighing in at 19.8lbs. I wore the strap for about 30 hours over the last five days with 2 very hot very long 10 hour,  98 degree days thrown in for good measure and another 6 hour wedding shoot the week prior. The DR-1 made this a very easy carry and distributed all that rather weight nicely. The only weird thing about the sling was when using the left camera in the vertical position the strap ends up in your face depending on the length you have adjusted it to. This to me is not a big enough deal to complain about it and I will try different lengths of the sling to feel it out.

BlackRapid DR-1

Overall I would say this is a great product if you need to carry two cameras and would highly recommend this to anyone.

As always, thanks for reading,

E

Kappys Keepers

I know what I want to do when I grow up!

I was talking with my daughter last night on our ride home from swim practice. I looked at her and said, "I think I finally know what I want to to when I grow up." She looked at me kind of bewildered and said "Oh yeah...what?" My answer; "A photographer"

I thoroughly enjoy this path I am walking down. I have not really come across any type of photography I do not enjoy. Every time I shoot, it's different, even in the same situations and settings.

It kind of hit me after a wedding I worked as a second shooter for. As I was driving home that night I was thinking how much fun that wedding was and I could not wait to see what I had gotten for shots. I had to wait a couple of days to view them as I had given my SD cards to the lead photographer so he could import the images. But back to the drive, I started thinking, I was a part of a life event for that couple and my images will be a big part of their memories. That's pretty cool when you think about it. If I could capture just a few poignant shots of the ceremony and reception, that would make, in my eyes, some great memories for the newly married couple.

Well, after waiting for what seemed like an eternity for my cards to come back, in reality I don't even think it was a full day, I was able to get a look at what I had shot. I got what I was looking for.

Along those same lines, when someone enjoys my work enough to buy a print, canvas, acrylic etc, it feels pretty fulfilling knowing that my work will be hanging in someone else's house for them to enjoy.

One of the other things I enjoy about photography are the challenges. Every shoot is different, even if you are back at the same location. The light changes every minute, clouds moving, people moving, reflections, spotlights changing color and so on. Every shot has the potential to be different and you have to adapt to every situation.

I have also always enjoyed people watching. I remember as a kid, going to the Fairfield Mall in Chicopee Mass with my Dad. We would get a hot pretzel from the Bavarian Pretzel kiosk and sit and watch people walk through the mall. Event photography and to a point weddings are just that...people watching. I pay attention and scan the crowd for any type of scene that I think would portray the emotional part of that event. Example; at a wedding ceremony, a person wiping a tear from their face or at the reception a group conversing and laughing.

I have enjoyed pretty much every facet of the photographers job, even editing. This is where I can really bring out my "style". It's long and tedious but the work pays off in the final image. The thing I like about editing is it is not cookie cutter. I can give the same image to 3 different photographers and have them edit it and each one will be unique.

Oh and another cool part of being a photographer is that I get to photograph one of my favorite guitar players this week, Jeff Pitchell. He will be playing at a festival I will be covering, The International Food Fest  at the Eastern States Exposition in West Springfiel Massachusetts, and playing along with Michale Allman, (the son of Greg Allman), Charles Neville, Claudette King, (BB King's daughter), and Sheila Ray Charles, (the daughter of Ray Charles)

So I guess that's all for now. I will be at the International Festival at the Eastern States Exposition grounds from Thursday, May26 through Monday, May 30 for the entire fest so if you go and see a tired, sweaty guy walking around wearing a camera on a red I Shoot Raw camera strap...that would be me. Stop over and say hello.

Thanks,

E

Kappy's Keepers

Common Courtesy

Common Courtesy...it's not something everyone has.

I don't consider myself a "professional" photographer and I don't know that I ever will but I do have some consideration for others.

On Sunday, my family and I attended the Commemoration Ceremony for the 1916 Remembrance Gardens at Forest Park in Springfield Massachusetts for the Easter Uprising in Ireland. There were several Irish Dignitaries, political figures and some famous people at the ceremony, so I thought this was a great time for some more practice for event photography.

Now I stayed away and out of the way of the obvious news crews and "pros" that were getting paid to shoot the event and I also try to stay out of the way of people just trying to get some snapshots with their cell phones. I don't try to intrude on the event and stay in the background and the outer perimeter.

I knew there was going to be a processional into the garden of the important attendees  so I scouted out a spot for myself far away from the other photographers so I would be well out of the way.

So, the parade starts with the Sheriffs leading with the colors and the Springfield Kilty Band behind them. Bagpipers always make for great subject matter by the way. So I pop off a couple of shots of the Sheriffs, I picked a great spot, now here comes the Pipers. This "Pro" walks toward me, I have my camera up and watch him through the lens, he looks directly at me, he plops his monopod down and he stands directly in my view. He watches the band come by without ever taking a shot. He doesn't even look through his camera and then moves on when the band is out of the shot. Come On!!

Again, I don't consider myself a "Pro" but I would NEVER intentionally get in someones shot. I guess they don't teach manners in photography school.

Something else I just had happen is the whole setting up a shot and having the cell phone fauxtographers shooting from behind you thing. This takes the attention of your subject off of the camera and draws their eyes else where thereby messing up your shot.  What people also don't realize is the flash from the phone cold potentially wreak havoc on the photographers shot as well. So, if you plan on mirroring a photographer, please wait untill he/she is done before you try to take a cell phone pic.

 So basically, please pay attention and be courteous to the other photographers in the area and to the fauxtographers too.

Thanks for putting up with my rant.

E

Kappy's Keepers

Be Prepared

Ok...short story here;

This morning, I am writing this on Mother's Day, I was grabbing myself a drink in the kitchen and noticed a bird that doesn't  often visit our feeder, a Goldfinch. I grabbed my camera, which happened to have the correct lens on it, turned the camera on to get a shot of the Finch and had no memory card in the camera. I quickly grabbed a card out of the office and came back to take a pic...click...I looked at the screen and it is EXTREMELY overexposed, to the point where I can't even tell what I took a picture of. I quickly adjusted the settings as I had been shooting in an indoor pool with horrible lighting the day prior and took another shot. Focus was off, not as crisp as I like, just to me a crummy shot, than poof...away goes the bird!

SO...as they say in the Boy Scouts, Be Prepared!

When you go out to shoot, make sure you bring the correct gear, lenses, flash, batteries etc. When you get to where you plan to shoot, prepare to shoot right away. Don't wait until you actually have to use your equipment to actually get set up. Take a test shot right away, then you can adjust before you start your shoot and save time for both yourself and the subject. If you are trying to get some nature shots get ready as well. You never know when something unexpected or something really cool will happen.

I wasn't prepared. Next time I will be.

Thanks,

E

Kappy's Keepers

Don't Delete

With digital cameras nowadays, it is very easy to take a picture and if you don't like it you simply delete it. If you are wanting to get better images, don't delete.

Sure, I do delete some photos, if they are badly out of focus but with the tools available today that is the only reason I will delete a photo.

After a shoot, I will sit down and go through the images I took and go to work on my "Keepers". These are the shots that I immediately like as I look through the days work. Once I am done with those I usually go to bed as it is probably very late. After a while I tend to revisit my past images and usually find some shots I overlooked on the first session. These might have been shots that I wasn't really planning on getting or a shot that didn't fit the type of image I was going for or some over or under exposed shots. I use Adobe Lightroom and Photoshop, and I shoot in the RAW format so getting these over or under exposed images back to my liking is not much of a problem. In fact, some of my favorite images have been either over or under exposed.

Another reason not to delete your images is learning. When you go back and look at what you consider a bad photo you can read the metadata on that image and see exactly what you did right and wrong with your settings. So the next time you shoot in those situations you have the knowledge of what you did previously to adjust properly.

Photography is all about learning. Anyone who readily admits they know enough as a photographer is full of baloney. It is a process of never ending learning. Every time I shoot I learn something new. Whether it be something small like how to work my new monopod or how to shoot in a different light setting or changing my settings as a cloud covers the sun, I am still are learning as I go.

Also, with all the technology out there the "I don't have enough storage" excuse doesn't fly today either. The prices of external hard drives and backup drives have dropped and you are able to store more on these devices than you could even just a few short years ago. So there is really no good reason to delete a pic that is in focus or even out of focus, maybe you could get creative with your postprocessing on that out of focus image.

So in closing, DD, don't delete.

As usual thanks for reading,

E

Kappys Keepers