South Mountain Portrait Shoot II

If you've seen some of my earlier blog posts, you'll see that a favorite location of mine for photography is South Mountain, since it offers rugged, mountainous backdrops but also a great view of the city. You'll also know that a friend and I were going to take photos at the summit, until I messed things up. But, this is summer vacation, where time is aplenty, so my friend and I went to have another photo shoot on South Mountain, this time with both of us properly prepared. This was also the inaugural photo shoot of my new 35mm f/1.8 fast lens, which I have to say I absolutely love.

After a quick 5 minute hike to the location, we began setting up and figuring out locations. There were torrential downpours of rain the previous night, and the clouds from that storm still loomed in the. So, the initial photos were taken in cloudy conditions.

However, after reviewing photos and teaching my friend a little about photography, the sun poked its head through the clouds. On her urging, we started taking some more photos in a variety of poses, which also included me lying down on rocks with half my body over a 10 foot drop.

After some more photo review, chitchat, setting up, and photography lessons, the clouds covered the sun again, which was starting to get low on the horizon. So, we took some more shots with the available light and then headed back down the mountain without getting arrested.

More pictures, thanks for modelling for me!

South Mountain

Quite a distance from my house, a part of the wild west that once existed before Phoenix remains, encroached upon and surrounded, but still protected. South Mountain is, as the name implies, a mountain located at the southern edge of the Valley (which, now that I think of it, I don't know what the valley's name is; I've seen "Salt River Valley" and "Valley of the Sun" before, but I don't know if any of those are official). While there may be hiking trails running through it, roads running up it, and scattered litter throughout, it's a nice place to go to in order to escape the city and experience the desert scenery. Plus, because of its location, it's a great place to go to in order to see the entire city as well as watch the sunset. Now that I know what I've been missing, I'll definitely be back for more.

My Car

Remember how I said I'd take some good shots of my car and write a feature about it? Well, the feature and all the shots still only exist in the future, but I went to South Mountain last evening and some of the shots I took excite me enough I can't wait to share them. Look forward to a feature of my Honda soon.

South Mountain Photo Shoot

Thanks to school, I have been extremely busy, and while I have time to take photos, sorting and editing them remains a different story. Hence, this blog, about a shoot that happened on the 26th of March.

A good high school friend of mine was in town that week for her spring break. She wants to enter photography and was hoping to learn a little from me, as well as take photos/get photos taken. It was around 4:30pm, and she suggested going to the (kind of) near South Mountain.

South Mountain, relative to Arizona State University and Sky Harbor in Phoenix.Image from Google Maps.

South Mountain, relative to Arizona State University and Sky Harbor in Phoenix.

Image from Google Maps.

Thanks to rush hour traffic, it took around 35 minutes to get to the base of the mountain. But the road that lay ahead was amazing. A little too amazing, to control myself.

As a person who loves driving, this road was heaven. Hence, I drove a little too fast uphill, getting me and my friend kicked off the mountain for the day. So, we headed back down to the base. With the golden hour quickly passing, we decided to hike to a smaller hill, and I taught my friend some basics about DSLRs and photo techniques. After this, with the sun already almost below the horizon, we decided to take some photos. 

 

There was still some light left, and I managed to take some solid photos, which ended up being the "fierce" photos. Although she did not like them as much as the other photos, I really liked these pictures because of the attitude I saw in them. Also, thanks to the sun, the lighting was very nice, creating a sun-glow/shine effect that I like.

Because there were windows, we also took some photos of her looking out of them. First, from behind. Personally, I like these photos because I feel that it conveys a large amount of emotion, as if the photo is about reminiscence of the past, or uncertainty towards the future. I think these will make great monochrome conversions; I'll have to try it some time. 

The first photo is soft, partly out of creativity, partly because the camera did not focus on her hair like I intended, making it rather fuzzy. Instead of trying to sharpen and blend the hair in, I softened the rest of the image to match it, creating a neat effect my friend pointed out to me; her hair looks like flames. While we were at the window, she and I decided to take some photos of her from the other side of the building.

My friend also wanted some photos of her taking pictures, so of course I obliged. I brought my Nikon D3100 with me so that she could use it. It functioned as both a camera and a prop here.

At this point, daylight was running out quickly, since it was already around 7pm and the sun had dipped below the horizon already. But, there were still photos to take, as the building we were in served as a perfect backdrop. Thanks to my tripod and my friend's ability to stand still, I was able use longer exposures to take some low-light portraits without flash or noisy ISO settings.

Although some of the shots came out softer than I would have liked, they were still good, in my opinion. With sunlight practically gone (it was 7:30pm, after all), we decided to head back to Tempe. However, I saw the perfect photo opportunity. I asked my friend to sit on a wooden fence so that she would be facing the remaining light in the sky from the sunset. 

I originally wanted to HDR the images together, but because of the movement between each image, I couldn't do it. So, instead, I decided to create the "sun-glow/shine" effect, as mentioned previously. Because I couldn't decide how soft and bright I wanted the image, I made multiple versions.

With daylight now completely gone, my friend and I headed back to Tempe. While I may have screwed up getting us to the summit of South Mountain, we did come back with some nice shots and increased knowledge of photography.