Making A Video For A Photographer That Is His Family Historian

by John Tarr | May 7, 2017 | Video For Fun, Video Promotions | 0 comments

Making A Video For A Photographer That Is His Family Historian

I am not sure how it happened but I have been in charge taking our family portrait every Christmas Eve.

This has become a tradition in our house hold.

We are all together anyway on that night to celebrate so it was just a natural thing to do I guess.

Me, running to get into the photograph after setting everything up.

Shooting the portrait with a remote. Smile!

Our family has always been evolved in photography. My dad learned this creative art when he was in high school back in 1970 and 71 shooting B&W film.

He taught all of us kids F stops, shutter speeds and other controls on the camera and how they worked and related to each other.

He taught us the rule of thirds and how important to use this technique in placing all the subject matter in those quadrants.

As a family, we all started a photography studio together.

We shot many weddings going out in two-by-two teams and we would come back with many amazing images from weddings from all over the state of Arizona.

Sometimes, from out of state.

Grandma and grandpa with grandchildren.

Eventually, I and my sister-in-law started our own independent photography businesses.

She has hers and I have mine but we do shoot weddings together whenever we can.

We are a very dynamic team and enjoy working at these wonderful events when ever possible.

The fact that we have a lot of photographers in one place to do our family portrait does not help.

No one listens to me.

They all know its important but somehow they think it will just happen by magic even though the know full well what it takes to get great images.

To many chefs and no Indians.

Me and my family with grandma and grandpa.

I do love this Christmas tradition and the tradition of being the family historian.

I would have it no other way.

My Dad made a fun, short video below that you can watch as we proceeded to shoot the portrait. He used an interview of me and some high speed video with fun music.

I think you will enjoy it!

If You Are A Photographer You Are The Family Historian

Photo Opportunity Outside Your Window

by John Tarr | Jan 17, 2017 | Video For Fun, Video Promotions | 0 comments

Photo Opportunity Outside Your Window

You really do have many photo opportunity outside your window be it a car or home or office or just about any window you can think of.

It is really a window of opportunity.

In my case its my computer room and it has a window that faces the street. I gaze out it from time to time as I work on different digital projects. It keeps me connected to the outside world.

I can watch clouds role in and out and keep visual track of the weather. I can also keep visual track of people walking by and cars going up and down the street.

That is a BIG deal for someone like me who works off their computer so many hours every day. I do not feel like I am in a cave and so isolated like many people that work from home have a tendency to feel.

There are two trees outside my window. One is fairly BIG and bent near the base. I have watched many birds make their home in the tree as well as forage on the bark for insects. I have even seen a woodpecker or two pound away. I have even seen people walking their dog stop and let the dog do its business at the base of it.

None of that prepared me for what I saw a few days ago…

Out of nowhere, a neighborhood kid ran up the side of the bent part of the tree and launched himself into the wild blue yonder. Stunned me at first.

He did it again and then again. By the time I recovered from my shock of his acrobatics, he was gone. It was a site to behold but my only regret at the time was that I did not get a photograph of him doing this stunt.

Great photo historian I am I remember thinking. I missed a great photo opportunity outside my window.

He did it again a few days later but this time I was ready and I yelled at him from my window to hold on because I wanted to get some shots and maybe a video of him doing this aerial feat. I grabbed my iPhone 6s and caught up with him outside my window.

I have been a professional photographer for over 40+ years but I do not shoot much with DSLR anymore since I concentrate on being a graphic artist and web designer now in my new creative life. Plus that darn cell phone takes some amazing images and video’s at the drop of a hat if you know how to use it correctly.

It can be an amazing tool in a pro’s hands. That and the fact that it is so portable and convenient. I am ALL about portable and convenient these days.

The kid was all about showing off for me and the fact that someone was paying attention to him and wanted to take images of him. I had him repeat his stunt a number of times for me as I shot individual frames in high speed like in motor drive from a DSLR but I also shot slow motion video. I figured it would give me chance to try a couple of different techniques with my iPhone 6s

I guess the whole point of this article is that we have opportunities all around us to capture many great images if you just keep your eyes open and your cell phone close. We really do have photo opportunity outside your window.