I met Baron Batch at a show I was playing with the Hogg Maulies in Lubbock nearly a year ago. I didn’t know much about him at that time other than his work on the football field. That night, I found out he is also a photographer and writer, and since then, we’ve been able to hang out quite a bit, talk shop, discuss life, and eat a few lunches (generally my favorite meal of the day).

Baron’s also highly involved with I Am Second, an organization focused on providing inspirational life stories from a wide variety of people that have re-concentrated their focus away from thinking inward and toward God and a more Christian lifestyle. Baron’s involvement with I Am Second is and has been notable, inspiring a weekly column in the Lubbock daily newspaper and several appearances at organization events across the nation. We’ve talked about this involvement quite a bit, as well as his dedication to use his skills as a photographer and communicator for humanitarian purposes. In fact, he’s headed to Haiti in less than a month to visually document a mission trip he’s involved with.

In one of our recent conversations, I told Baron I’d love to post his I Am Second video on this site, but I needed to have some original portraits to go along with it. We set up a time, shot for four hours, moving from the harvested cotton fields of West Texas to the studio, and produced some nice images. The shot above turned out as our joint favorite, and it was the very first TEST shot of the evening. Some things just happen well as accidents!

I’ll have more about our shoot in an upcoming Field Lighting, but I want to showcase Baron’s message in one of the several I Am Second videos available on their site. Whether you’re religious (no matter what type of religion) or not, we can all appreciate and learn from messages such as this one and the others. In the spirit of the season, I think it’s appropriate to reflect outwardly, realizing there are many, many things about this life that we don’t understand (and don’t have to understand), yet we’re directed to where we’re going at whatever speed we’re moving. I happen to agree with my friend Baron here:

httpvh://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S17t6-YQ7T0

Sorry about the two week plus hiatus. It’s been a whirlwind of shoots, photo prep, and finishing out the teaching semester at Texas Tech. However, as my good friend Sabrina Henry wanted to do, there’s no need to send the search party yet! More to come!

Like a lot of photographers out there, I’m addicted to big light! For most of the portrait work I do, the sun is just not big enough, relatively speaking. I like explaining this to students. The sun is a huge star, not the largest in the solar system, but no lightweight either. However, since it is over 90 million miles from Earth at any given time our orbit, it’s safe to say that the sun acts like a bare strobe combined with a small reflector, which doesn’t throw off the most flattering light in many cases.

Enter the softbox. Ah, yes, that wonderful enclosure of diffusion, that for many photographers starting out is the end-all-be-all of light modifiers. Most softboxes force light to pass through a number of diffuse materials that essentially take a good deal of the initial kick out of the light, and just like clouds do for sunlight, spread the light out. In essence, this creates a larger light source, characterized by softer shadows and more wrapping transitions in to those shadows. Of course, the softbox allows the photographer to more accurately “place” the light in a more focused direction than a shoot-through umbrella (not that there’s anything wrong with this modifier. My go to for a long time was a 50-inch shoot-through).

I mentioned in a post a while back that I would offer some how-to on the above author shot of Stayton Bonner, a colleague and one heckuva writer! This is another benefit of big light: just move that source in close and expose for it. The larger the light source, the more wrapping the light, and moving it in closer or further away dictates its size relative to your subject. This particular shot was made with a 48-inch rectangle softbox placed just outside the frame, camera right. Notice that nice wrap of light around Stayton’s face.

The same feel can be found in this particular photograph of a wedding couple I photographed recently. Big light is a quick, and often easy, source of illumination to go to, and in this case, it was such a source while still providing that quality look to the portrait. This was shot with an Elinchrom 39-inch Rotalux Octa softbox, a modifier that I’ve been shooting with more lately. Of course, that super modernistic, ultra trendy, silver chair they’re sitting on adds to the aesthetic as well!

If you’re looking to getting in to artificial lighting, or looking to diversify your lighting with natural light, look for those cases where a big light source can be used. I’ll post more on natural sources of big light later. However, if you are getting in to the game of strobe lighting, a softbox or large shoot-through umbrella should be something you consider having in your toolbox!

Most of you probably know me as a portrait and natural history photographer, but not necessarily a family photographer. Sure, just because I used to have real long hair and a scary beard, we’ll label me as the hippie, one-with-nature guy, ha! You would probably be right most of the time, and for certain, I love environmental portraiture, but every once in a while I get called to do some family photography.

I absolutely love this photograph above! I photographed the Brooks family not too long ago for some updated portraits, and their daughter just hit it right with this one! Luckily, the light and background all came together for a super high-key effect that totally draws those eyes to the viewer! The Brooks won’t mind me saying this, because we discussed it that day, but I have always heard that the hardest things to photograph are children and pets! However, when a moment like this pops up in the lens, you better hope your eye is at the viewfinder and finger on the release!

More blogs to come this week!