Yesterday I did an amazing photo shoot for Sofia Cristina Barbara Brull from Puerto Rico. I felt so much energy and team work on this photo shoot it was unbelievable. It was Sophia’s first time in front of the digital camera as a model and it was my first time working with my new “sidekick”, super talented team member, art director and stylist for this photo shoot, Jennifer Oquendo from Miami. Read more…

As the mentors tell me, “The difference between a photographer and a great photographer is that a great photographer always has a camera with him/her.” I’m in this to be one of the greatest that has ever done it; therefore I always keep a camera on me, even if it’s the one from my cell phone.

The image above was shoot at the old Green Parrot / Hurricane Hole Marina on Paradise Island, Bahamas. I took a weekend trip back to the island for a bit and went to dinner with a friend of mine. After dinner we sat at the end of the boardwalk and this image was our view.

It’s easy for you to make a photograph like this, no tricks need, not even a tripod. Back track, back track, okay maybe a tripod is better for to take an image like this using ambient light. In fact using a tripod is the correct way to make an image like this. However, the great photographer didn’t have a tripod at all times only a camera.

Okay let’s get down to the dirty. If you don’t have a tripod find something to rest your camera on where it won’t move; if you have the tripod mount your camera on it. For this image I placed my camera on the boardwalk with my lens cap underneath the lens to level it. Learn purpose of the f-stops, iso and shutter speeds. A quick little lesson: The lower the f-stop example 2.8 what I used to make this image the more light comes into the photograph, the lower the ISO the better quality of the photograph or we can say less less noise in the photograph (I’m a fan of noise but not for this image), the slower the shutter speed the more light that comes into the camera and the higher the shutter speed the less light goes into the camera.

With that said, for this image / for you to photograph an image like this one using ambient light (available light) use a lower f-stop, and a slower shutter speed. Easy right? Go and make some photos!

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DT.

@DwayneTucker add me on Twitter.

I’m settled in Miami, Florida now. This image was a balcony at the Savannah College of Art and Design; I miss my hommies in Savannah and I’ll always have mad love for them. I’ve been running around like a chicken with it’s head cut off lately; I’m actually writing this between my break of my ADFed club meeting at my new university, Miami International University of Art and Design. I don’t think this place will ever replace the connection I had with SCAD, but I’m in Miami and closer to home now!

I decided to post this photograph because earlier, about a few hours ago actually, I showed it to president of the Photography Club at MIU. He saw my work and told me that he loves it. I appreciate the love but I’ve been hearing people tell me that they love my work years ago and I want to push it so much further.

Gad damn I’m so happy that I’ve had Timothy Keating as a professor at SCAD. Professor Keating showed me how to start making photographs instead of taking them. I titled this photograph the, Jumping Lights. Looking back at it every memory, the smell, the temperature, the light level (that’s weird Dwayne), EVERYTHING runs through my mind.

There’s nothing to photographing an image like this one, you can do it do. All you need is a tripod and the basics of photography. Here’s $25.00 from me: set-up your tripod, place the camera on it and remember the higher the f-stop the less light that comes into the camera, the lower the f-stop the more light that comes into the camera.

Remember when you were a kid and your mother took you to the food-store/ grocery-store at night and you squint your eyes to at the over head lights in the parking lot? That same light burst effect that you saw when you look at the light is the image of the light the camera records with a higher F-stop and a lower shutter speed. I think this one might have been something like F-22 and 1/4 of a second at ISO 200.

Go and have some fun and show people your work.

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DT.