Photos: Cave Photo Shoot is Up!

Hey folks,

Just did a very interesting shoot in some cool caves and got some great photos.  I just posted them up on my site and you should check them out!  Here is one of the photos, hope you like it:

Portrait - 35mm f/1.8G

Check out the rest at www.tomhoustonphotography.ca!

Photos: Waterfalls Photo Shoot!

Hey folks,

I just posted all the final edits from the photo shoot at some amazing falls with a very beautiful model.  This was one of my best shoots for sure.  Hope you guys like them and you can check the rest out at www.tomhoustonphotography.ca.

Here is one of the photos:

Portrait at Waterfalls - 85mm f/1.4D

Hope you like them!

Photos: Waterfall Shoot Sneak Peek!

Here are some of the shots from my latest shoot which was shot at an amazing waterfalls!  You can see the two photos of the sneak peak on my website here.  Here is one from the sneak peek:

Portrait - 85mm f/1.4D

Hope you like them and stay posted for the rest!

Photos: Latest shoot is now up!

Hey folks,

All the photos from my last shoot are now up on my website so you should go check them out!  You can go to my site or click Here to go to the gallery.

Portrait - 85mm f/1.4D

Hope you like them!

PhotosL Sneak Peek!

New sneak peek is now up and you should check it out here!

Portrait - 85mm f/1.4D

Hope you like these!

Photos: Country Shoot

Hey,

All the country shoot photos are up!  You should go check them out, I got to shoot in some very cool locations with great models who had tons of energy.  You can check them out here!  They are in the new arrivals section for the next week or so.  Hope you like them and here are some of them:

Portrait - 85mm f/1.4 D

Portrait - 85mm f/1.4 D

Portrait - 85mm f/1.4 D

Stay posted for my next shoots!

Photos: Latest Shoot's Sneak Photo

Hey,

Just tossed up my latest photo shoot's sneak up on my site in the New Arrivals Gallery!  You should check them out and stay posted for more photos from the shoot.

Portrait - 85mm f/1.4D

Hope you like them!

Photos: Lock Shoot

Hey,

The rest of the photos are up now from my last sneak peek I posted.  Hope everyone liked them as much as I did.  I thought these were amazing photos are a great shoot.  So please go visit my site, www.tomhoustonphotography.ca and check them out!  Here is another photo that I really liked from the shoot:

Portrait - 17-55mm

Hope you like them!

Photos: New Photos x2

Hey,

So I just uploaded my latest two shoots on my website (www.tomhoustonphotography.ca) and you should definitely check them out!  They were both a lot of fun and I will be doing another two shoots tomorrow if the weather is nice.  Can't wait.

So go to my site and browse my new arrivals gallery, after ~1 week I will toss the ones I want for my portfolio into the portrait gallery and then put them up on Flickr so you can still see the others if you want.

Here is one of the recently uploaded photos:

Portrait - 35mm f/1.8 G

Portrait - 50mm f/1.4 D

Hope you enjoy!

Tom

Photos: Sneak Peek

Hey,

Here is the last shoot's lovely sneak peek.  I have two shoot currently in the editing stages and I thought I should get a sneak peek for each of them out.  So here is a sample of it but be sure to check the photos out in my new arrival gallery along with my other photos : ).

www.tomhoustonphotography.ca

Hope you enjoy!

Portrait -35mm f/1.8 G

Lastly, stay posted because I will be posting both these shoots soon!

Photos: Sneak Peek

Hey,

Sorry it has been a while since you have heard from me.  I have been preoccupied with my education.

So I have done some photography however have been a little too busy to edit and post and all that jazz however I had some time today to post a sneak peek of a shoot I did about a week ago.  Now that I got my very long sentence out of the way, please check the sneak peek out on my site under "New Arrivals" and I hope you enjoy them.  I will hopefully get the rest up soon so stay posted!

www.tomhoustonphotography.ca

Also I will now put my new photos into the New Arrivals gallery for ~1 week and then I will sort them accordingly into the right galleries after that.

Hope you enjoy and no I have not died.

Tom

Also I have another shoot waiting to be edited and posted after this so there will be another one coming shortly (fingers crossed).  So please keep checking/reading my post and peeking at my site.

Photos: Sarah's Flower Series Extras

Photos: Sarah's Flower Series Extras


Just did a shoot with the lovely Sarah and the shots turned out really well.  It was the first real studio shoot I've done in my studio (unless you count me sitting in front of my magazines as one).  I was really impressed with the photos and since my review of the 35mm DX f/1.8 lens is so popular, everyone should be happy to hear the 35mm will be my new studio lens for full body shots.  Personally I want my 50mm to be my main portrait lens but it is not wide enough to get the full body in the frame so the 35mm it is.


I was really happy with these shots and I hope you are as well.  I will start showing my Flower Series photos when I have enough of them to be called a series.  Two doesn't count as a series yet.  So in the mean time here are some other shots form the shoot!

Portrait - 35mm f/1.8 G 

Portrait - 50mm f/1.4 D

Portrait - 35mm f/1.8 G

Thank you for viewing and I hope you enjoyed them!

Photos: Studio Self Portrait

Hey,


So personally when I get something exciting I usually try to use it as fast as I can.  This case I wanted to use my studio after I had it setup so... I did.  I had this idea after thinking I wanted to review magazines I read since I find some are better than others and thought I would share said info.


As I was thinking about reviewing magazines I thought about doing a photo like this and so here it is.  I will write a review of the magazines I have read probably tomorrow if not for sure this week sometime.

But before I do the magazine reviews I thought I would toss up this photo since I liked it:

Self-Portrait - 17-55mm

Hope you like the first photo up that is taken in my studio.


Just a warning I will probably toss this photo at the top of my magazine review since it is me and all my magazines to date.

Photos: Fall Makeup Shoot

Hey

Just posted the Fall Makeup Shoot photos on Facebook and Flickr.  I really love the final products of this shoot.  The Makeup Artist, Leslie Emmerson did a great job with the makeup as well as our planning we did into the clothing and the other finer details of the shoot.

Really impressed with the models, they did a great job especially since it was fairly cold that day.

So here are some of the photos and be sure to check them out on Flickr and Facebook:

Portrait - 50mm

Portrait - 105mm

Portrait - 105mm

Hope you love them as much as I do.

Focus: Nighttime Portraits

Focus: Nighttime Portraits

I decided to write this after my experience with doing a portrait shoot at night.  I wasn't planning on the shoot being at night however by the time the makeup was done and we got to the location, the sun had already punched-out for the day.  I just want to go over some of the things I learned and maybe you have already learned these things but if not here you go.  So, my setup.

So I had one light stand and umbrella with me since there was a lot of walking involved.  Because of this I had my SB-600 on the stand and the SB-900 on my camera as a master/flash.  I used my 50mm, 105mm and the 17-55mm during the shoot.  

First off I was using my SB-900 for a AF assist light with the IR light or however that sensor works.  You can use your external Nikon (maybe other brands but I only have Nikon flashes) flashes to shoot a beam or red light at the subject to have your camera focus in darkness.  It is a great function and tool to have however it still is very hard to pin-point someone's eye through your viewfinder in the darkness.  The red light helps but it is still difficult however I got much better with it from practicing.  

After a couple of shots my SB-600 started making some funking beeping sound that didn't sound so good.  So I assumed because it was the very cold that night getting to it, so I turned it off and just used my SB-900 on camera.  This worked and I didn't need the SB-600 for what I was doing anyways.  Nevertheless I was still disappointed in the SB-600.  Moral of story, I'm glad I bought the SB-900.

Something that I didn't have that could have been nice was a flashlight.  Since I wasn't planning on it being dark I didn't bring one however I am sure it would have been nice.  I didn't need it per say however if you do not know your kit well and need help finding things then a flashlight of some kind would be good.  I am lucky enough that I know where everything goes and have a good routine of where I place lens caps and batteries and other small easily lost pieces.  

As for things I learned shooting was one to use the lights in background.  I am sure if you have seen other nighttime portraits you have probably seen the out of focus lights in the background.  It creates a very cool effect that I have always liked however this was the first time I had done it in a portrait.  When I first saw the effect of my 50mm at f/1.4 and the bokeh, I loved it.  Here is an example of what I mean from one of the photos I took that night:

Nighttime Portrait - 50mm - SB-900 on D90

Personally I have seen this effect a lot in many photos from christmas trees to street lights but I have never done it in a portrait and I loved it as I mentioned.  So because I knew my model was a creative person I decided to try something fun that I thought would look cool.  So I got her to blow "bubbles" with the out of focus lights being the bubbles.  

Blowing "Bubbles" - 50mm - SB-900 on D90

Another thing I learned is pick someone who trusts you to take photos of at night in the fall.  I say this because it was absolutely frigid that night and I was very lucky that a) I got the model to bundle up in a warm outfit and b) that she was a trooper and didn't mind walking and standing outside in the cold to get these shots.

Now for just personal points, I loved the effect of the lights in the background at large apertures.  However be careful because if I was at f/2.8, the circles turned into octagons (or however many edges it had) and had edges to them... therefore not as cool looking.   I personally really like being in control with the light.  Yes, it was very hard to see what on earth was in your viewfinder but very worth it in the end.  Also I got used to making out the model in the dark with the red light from the SB-900.  I liked the pitch black background you can get with shooting at night.  This shoot was at a park where there was enough open space to not have my flash's light hit anything.  For this shoot I wanted the model in a normal black peacoat however it didn't contrast with the black of the environment.  If you did want to have a strong contrast between colours of your subject and background this is a easy way to get that.  If I got my model to wear a red peacoat for example, she would definitely stick out a lot more. 

So yeah, I just wanted to share my experience with shooting portraits at night because I found I learned a lot in the process.  Therefore why not share what I learned and experienced.  

I hope this helps! 

Photo Shoot: Nighttime Fall Shoot

Hey everyone,

Don't worry, I am still here.  Just super busy is all and some of the good news is some of that busy is photography related.  Woo!  Anywho, here are some of the photos from one of my latest shoots.  I will talk about this one since I had an interesting experience with it but again I will talk about that in another informational post.  So for this one just enjoy the photos and you can go to the Flickr link (HERE) to see more of them at the end of Sarah's Album.  I now am usually placing the newest photos of a previously shot model into their own set instead of having multiple sets for each person.

Without further adieu:

Portrait - 50mm

Portrait - 17-55mm

Hope you enjoy these because I loved actually doing the bokeh thing with the lights with the 50mm being shot wide open.  Too cool.  (I think, for whatever that is worth).

Update: Fall Photo Shoot

Hey,

Just did two outdoor fall photo shoots today and I can't wait to look at the pictures!  My camera is currently thawing in its case so I don't get condensation on my gear.  It did get pretty cold outside however it was a beautiful day.  I will be super busy in the near future however I hope to get a sneak peak soon however that depends on how much time I have and if my camera thaws tonight.

Stay posted for some great photos.  I would like to thank Leslie Emmerson for doing the makeup on the models as well as the models for putting up with the cold.

Photos: Holly

Hey,

Just did a shoot today and the photos turned out nicely.  I will post a link on this post when I upload them to Flickr.  They are up on my Facebook page if you want to check them out there as well.

Portrait - 50mm f/1.4 D

Thank you for looking,

Tom

Update: Country Shoot With Rachel Bond

Hey,

So I have the final set of photos up on Facebook and Flickr.  I hope you check them out because I really love how they turned out.

Hope you enjoy!

Update: Sneak Peek: Rachel Bond

Hey,

I was fortunate enough to work with Rachel Bond recently doing a country photo shoot.  We were worried about the rain however the bad weather held out until we were about to leave.  It was a great shoot and we had a lot of fun.  So here is a sneak peak of what we got:

Rachel Bond - Country Shoot - 50mm f/1.4

Rachel Bond - Country Shoot - 50mm f/1.4

I hope you enjoy these.  And just to note it was very difficult narrowing down what were the best photos to use from the shoot because there were many favourites.  I will toss up different photos on my Facebook Page just because there were so many great photos to choose from.  Stay posted for a link for when I put them up on Flickr.