Nana, originally uploaded by mark.mortensen.

A great image (at least I think) of my 91 year old Nana taken at my parent’s 50th wedding anniversary last month. Last year I took images at her 90th birthday party. It’s always fun to talk with her about her childhood.

Technical Ramblings: Single Nikon SB-900 in 36″ umbrella camera right. Triggered with the on board flash of the Nikon D700 in commander mode. The on board flash was setup to not have a role with the exposure. Exposed the ambient light of the conference room to be -1EV with that of the flash. Post work after my Lightroom tweaks in Photoshop CS4 and the Totally Rad Actions; Bitchin B&W, Oh Snap! (twice), Boring Sepia, Boring Selenium, Dirty Lovin (texture)

Uploaded by mark.mortensen on 12 Sep 09, 4.22PM MDT.

Me, originally uploaded by mark.mortensen.

Just tinkering with my Lastolite Ezybox and the Nikon creative lighting system. This was shot in my office around 3PM. However, kicking the ISO to 200, aperture to f/14 and shutter to 1/320s will kill all daylight.

Technical Ramblings: 1 Nikon SB-900 in a Lastolite Ezybox directly to my side. I was shooting into a mirror. The on board flash played no role in the exposure but acted as the commander to the SB-900. Something to note is even though the on board flash doesn’t play a role in the exposure it still shows up in images. If you are shooting in dark situations the pre-flash will actually mess with the exposure even through they say it won’t. Unless of course my camera is defective and it’s not suppose to show up in the image. Anyone know? Post work in Photoshop CS4 and Totally Rad Actions; My secret recipe for B/W processing.

view profile Uploaded 11 Sep 09, 6.50PM MDT by mark.mortensen.

Jacquelyn, originally uploaded by mark.mortensen.

Spent the Labor Day weekend processing two senior portrait shoots. This is Jacquelyn twin sister of Katie that I’ve posted earlier. Jacquelyn’s session was done at the Garden of the Gods in Colorado Springs, CO.

Technical Ramblings: All natural light. Lastolite tri-flip with gold sleeve down below kicking light up into her face. I can’t say enough good stuff about the Lastolite tri-flip but they just work well and are easy to handle. Photoshop CS4 (of course) and Totally Rad Actions; Oh Snap!, Prettyzier, Pro Retouch and a vibrance layer to punch the colors a bit more.

Uploaded by mark.mortensen on 7 Sep 09, 11.29PM MDT.

Seashell (Spondylus Regius aka Regal Thorny Oyster), originally uploaded by mark.mortensen.

A Spondylus Regius otherwise known as a Regal Thorny Oyster seashell isolated on white. I’ve had a collection of seashells from a friend, Dave, for waaaaay too long, like over a year. Bad friend I am keeping them for this long. However, the intention was to photograph a bunch of his shells for my portfolio and also sell as fine art. The shells really haven’t sold as fine art to well in land locked Colorado. So I’m on a quest to find the right market for these images. Dave invited my wife and I up to his place in the mountains at the end of Sept. He also said he wants the shells returned, go figure. Nothing like a deadline to get me to photograph things. Over the last three days I’ve photographed the 41 different shells I had. This is tiny compared to the 1,100 shells in his collection.

Technical Ramblings: Three AlienBee B800s with 7″ reflectors pointed into a large light tent. One Bee behind and one Bee on each side. The shells are sitting on top of some plexi-glass that is on top of some white foam core board to create the natural reflection. To help with the floating effect the lens is on the level with the plexi-glass. Lots-o-Photoshop with the Totally Rad Actions; Oh Snap!, Punch It! and Good vs. Evil (to gradient the reflection to white on the bottom).

Uploaded by mark.mortensen on 2 Sep 09, 9.48PM MDT.

Gold Plated Aspen Leaf Earrings, originally uploaded by mark.mortensen.

Finished up a product photography job this evening. The job was for the Rocky Mountain Leaf Company. They offer various plant leafs plated in gold, silver and copper. This was the first major product photography job I’ve shot of jewelry. I’ve learned that shooting jewelry is really hard to keep the stinkin’ reflections under control.

Technical Ramblings: Single AlienBee B800 with 7 inch reflector covered with Glad Press n Seal up and behind earrings. The bee is about a foot away from the earrings. The earrings are surrounded by a light tent and any other type of diffusion material I could find. In the earring there are black reflections and that is the camera lens. Never could figure out how to get rid of that reflection. Post work in Lightroom to adjust white balance, contrast and vibrance. Then off to Photoshop to whiten the paper background to true white.

Uploaded by mark.mortensen on 30 Aug 09, 10.32PM MDT.

Katie, originally uploaded by mark.mortensen.

The other twin from a senior portrait shoot this past weekend. Shot at a local botanic gardens. I like my 85mm f/1.4 because it creates a really dreamy background.

Technical Ramblings: All natural light. Post in Photoshop CS4 and Totally Rad Actions: Oh Snap!, Prettyizer and Wish You Were Here (boosts the greens and blues). I had to mask out Katie’s blue dress because the actions pushed the blue to a neon blue. Neon blue not pretty on Katie.

Uploaded by mark.mortensen on 26 Aug 09, 10.25PM MDT.

Iowa Sunset, originally uploaded by mark.mortensen.

From a trip to North English, Iowa this past summer. I was tramping through a farmer’s soy bean field to get this shot of some corn against the sunset.

Technical Ramblings: I apparently got dust all over my D700 sensor during this trip because this image was a mess of sensor spots. Also apparently the sensor cleaner doesn’t really work in my D700 because of the amount of dust on the sensor. Only Lightroom processing on this image. Some saturation boost but the sunset pretty much looked this intense.

Uploaded 24 Aug 09, 9.57PM MDT by mark.mortensen.

Scream!, originally uploaded by mark.mortensen.

Finished up two senior portrait sessions this weekend. This one was at the Garden of the Gods in Colorado Springs, CO and is not your typical senior portrait. Somehow I don’t think they’ll choose this image for the year book but you never know. The two sessions were of twins but each had very unique personalities. Jacquelyn was goofing off for this image as her twin sister Katie was behind me doing whatever twin sisters do. Tried to give it a scary horror movie look but it was hard because it was originally composed to have a soft pretty look.

Technical Ramblings: Back lit by the sun and a gold Lastolite Tri-Flip for some fill. Just picked up a Tri-Flip after reading Joe McNally’s book and absolutely love this fill device. Brilliant design! Photoshop CS3 and the Totally Rad Actions; Oh Snap!, Boring Old B/W and then some Prettyizer on top to bring back some color.

Dad, originally uploaded by mark.mortensen.

An image of my father from my parent’s 50th wedding anniversary party from a couple of weeks ago. I like this natural look I’m getting out of my father. Something that is hard to do at times.

Technical Ramblings: I’ve gone small strobes lately. This is shot with a single Nikon SB-900 with 1/2 CTO gel shooting through a 32 inch umbrella camera right at a 45 degree angle to my father. The SB-900 is wirelessly triggered with the Nikon D700 flash acting as commander. The built-in flash of the D700 was turned off in the exposure calculation and only the single SB-900 was lighting the subject. After switching from Canon, which by the way has nothing like this built into the camera bodies, I’m still amazed at how much functionality is built into the bodies.

Uploaded by mark.mortensen on 18 Aug 09, 8.11PM MDT.

Copper Plated Maple Leaf, originally uploaded by mark.mortensen.

A copper plated maple leaf for the Rocky Mountain Leaf Company.

Technical Ramblings: A single AlienBee B800 with some GLAD Press-n Seal over the 7 inch reflector for a mini softbox. I have the leaf in a large light tent with the Bee shooting through the open end. This helps keep the reflections down on the leaf.

Uploaded by mark.mortensen on 11 Aug 09, 11.50PM MDT.