Author: scottyalanphotography

I photograph people and document life.

A Yoga Portrait Session

Blog

I recently did photos for a yoga instructor. We had access to a few different spots in the physical education building at Kilgore College in Kilgore, Texas. We decided to do the shoot on one of the raquet ball courts. The head shots were made in a hallway near the raquet ball courts.

All images were created with:

Canon 60D

Canon 50mm f1.8 lens

Yongnuo 565 ex II Speedlight

Vivitar 285 hv Speedlight

60″ Neewer octabox

Camera settings stayed constant at:

ISO 100

1/250 sec

F11

Kodak Portra 400

Blog

I shoot more black and white film than color but when I shoot color I have 3 film stocks that are my go to for different reasons. They are Kodak Ektar 100, Fuji Superia XTRA 400, and Kodak Portra 400. I generally shoot Kodak Portra 400 when I’m doing portraits. I’ll even shoot film and use Portra on paid portrait shoots. Portra is a pretty versatile film and it looks good at box speeds as well as over exposed by a stop or two. Here are some examples of what Kodak Portra looks like. These are unedited photos straight from the film scans.

More Photos made from the Fuji XT 10

Blog

So after investing in the Fuji XT 10 system I ended up with 4 lenses: the 18-55, 55-200, 60mm f2.8 macro, and a samyang 12mm. I had this system for about a year and a half and I had to reluctantly sell it to pay off some bills. I do miss the system and I’d buy into the Fuji system again if I could justify it or had the opportunity. Here are more images that I made while I had that camera.

When I Returned To Film Photography…

Blog

I started photography in 1995 during the film era. Sometime in 2000 my dad handed down his Bronica ETRS camera to me. This was the camera he used for many years shooting weddings and little league baseball team photos. After I graduated photogtaphy school in 2001 I went digital. From that point on I was strictly a digital photographer using many different Canon Cameras. I worked full time and ran a part time photography business until early 2012. I got burned out. I shut down my studio, sold my digital cameras, and sold all of my studio equipment. Several months went by and I started to get the itch to start shooting again but I wanted to do it on my terms, not a clients terms. The only cameras I had were two film cameras. I had my Canon Elan 7e and the Bronica ETRS that my dad had given me. I decided to give a go at film photography again. I figured out the film process (and look) is what I had loved and missed about photography. It was kind of intimidating at first to go back to film, because of course with digital you had the screen on the back of the camera to reference. I remember when I first started taking shots on the film camera I’d look at the back as if an image was going to be there. LOL. it didn’t take long to get back into the swing of things. I had to trust my knowledge of photography, trusted what I had learned, and trusted the camera was going to do what it was supposed to do. Here are a couple of portraits (with off camera flash) that I had made when I first got back into film photography.

Camera: Bronica ETRS

Lens: Zenzanon 75mm f2.8

Film: Kodak Portra 400

Inside my second studio

Blog

Recently I posted a video about the second photography studio that I had. Here are just a few of the thousands of images done in that studio.

Set up: I had painted a 9′ wide portion of one of the walls and floor white. I laid down two 4×8 sheets of tile board on the floor which gives the reflection you see in the images.

Lighting: For a seamless white look I used two strobes facing the background / back wall. I would use 1 strobe and a 60″ reversable umbrella or a softbox for the main light up front. With a 60″ umbrella I could photograph 1 person or a group of about 12. That’s the most I’ve shot at once using that set up in this studio.

Gear: Back then I generally shot Canon for all of my digital work. 90% of the time I had on a 50mm f1.8 lens for portrait work done in the studio. This was done on the Canon 7D.

This young lady was a model who made it to be on one of the seasons of America’s Next Top Model. However, she found out she was pregnant before they started shooting so she had to drop out. A couple of years later she decided to get back into modeling and I helped her rebuild her portfolio.