The DecisiveDesign Blog

So it has been a while since I posted – I can explain!

You see, there were finals (projects, exams, procrastination, etc etc…), then there’s DallasBarReview (COMING SOON!), and my experiments with Social & Emerging Media… and of course the ever present attempt at becoming a professional photographer. There just hasn’t been time for an update!

That being said… I’ve got a pretty sweet list of articles/posts/galleries that will be going up in the next few weeks:

• UTDallas Portraits (You won’t see these, but dangit, they consume time!) – Editing Stages
• DFW Supras May Meet Track Day @ Eagles Canyon Raceway (ECR) – Editing Stages
• Xoe’s Pregnancy Shoot @ Halford Park – Editing Stages (almost done)
• DFW Supras May Meet Dyno Day, featuring Mel & Yoshi on sexy cars! – Editing Stages
• DFW Supras May Meet Drag Day @ Dallas Raceway – Editing Stages
• Maggie Mae in a playful, fun, sexy shoot – Tentatively Schedules for later this week
• Lone Star Jeep Club (LSJC) run @ BMRA – This coming weekend

This blog will likely be migrating towards more of a “hey, look what Jason is doing” theme, since there are a lot of projects going on at the moment, so I hope any of those that might be coming back for more will enjoy a look into those endeavors with me.

Peace, for now…

Well, I did my first paid shoot this past Thursday!

Those of you reading this that are around me daily are likely tired of hearing about it… but hey, its exciting. It wasn’t anything huge, only a few portraits for the Office of Environmental Health and Safety at UT Dallas, but it’s a foot in the door, and it was, as always, a learning experience.

After receiving an anonymous tip from an old friend, I recently contacted the Office of Communications at UTD and inquired whether they were utilizing a photographer to chronicle all of the new campus improvement projects that are under way.  They contacted me shortly thereafter, I met with Lauraine O’Neil, the Marketing Director, and we discussed working for the university on a freelance/intern basis.  This portrait assignment was presented to me about two weeks after our first meeting.

Utilizing the conference room in the Office of Communications, which is clad with extremely reflective whiteboard walls on three sides and open windows on the other, proved to be a challenge for the university’s strobe lights and my limited knowledge of studio and strobe lighting.  Having that much reflection in a white room doesn’t lend itself to easy, clean, continuous lighting.

The backdrop I used was a 5′x6′ fold-out “cloudy day” muslin that the department owns, which turned out to work pretty well.  I lit the “scene” with two 160W strobes, bouncing one off of a white umbrella and the other off a silver umbrella and through my 42″ Quantaray 5-in-1 reflector’s diffuser.  That’s what they had, so I made it work, even though it wasn’t ideal.  Unfortunately I had to use the on-camera flash to trigger the external strobes because there wasn’t compatible sync cable with the equipment… going to have to pick one of those up – it noticeably hurt the image, causing a hard shadow behind the subjects’ heads.

I went in Tuesday morning to do some test shots and check out the setup, then again on Thursday morning to get it ready for the actual shoot.  My day consisted of two midterms, with the portraits being taken between them… luckily I am pretty good at wingin’ it, and everything, including the midterms, went well. I actually only spent about an hour taking pictures; I was amazed how quick the subjects wanted to get out of there… it’s like they had work to do or something.

UTD doesn’t exactly want me posting any of the images, and they aren’t particularly interesting, but editing them did give me some more experience with retouching skin tones, removing wrinkles, etc. Overall, it was another great experience, even though I don’t want to become stuck in the realm of portrait photography.

Since I can’t show you the portraits, here’s a picture of my awesome pit bull, Harely… enjoy.

• If you don’t know the equipment, always find time to play with it before a shoot (A+ to me for doing so!)
• If you want people to sit down for portraits, you’re likely going to have to force them to do so…
• On camera flash really hurts a multi-strobe setup by causing a hard shadow around the subject’s head – I would recommend purchasing a sync/trigger cable or wireless system if you will be using random equipment often
• Editing portraits can take longer than expected, especially if you’re a perfectionist that can’t stand to leave something untouched
• Jumping into something, and “shooting for broke” does pay off… maybe not every time, but how are you going to know unless you try!