Tony Richards Photoblog

We've moved!!

2010-04-08T22:47:00.000-04:00

The Tony Richards Photoblog that you know and love has a new address. You can either go to www.tonyrichardsphoto.com and click on the 'blog' link or go straight to the blog at www.tonyrichardsphoto.com/blog.

Portaits and concrete

2010-04-06T22:11:00.002-04:00

One of the buildings in Georgetown has a fantastic undeveloped space full of exposed wires, concrete floors, and randomly painted pillars that was just begging for a portrait session. Melissa was generous enough to pose for the camera in a couple of outfits to create some different moods and attitudes for me. Isaac even jumped in at the end to create a "cool, casual" type of photo. We had lots of fun and I definitely want to shoot up there again.

The Great Outdoors

2010-03-29T23:04:00.001-04:00

I spent a couple days taking in some sunshine and just enjoying some time outside. One of those days was spent at Great Falls National Park photographing some kayakers. One of my goals is to photograph people being active and this was the first step on my journey...

The second day was spent at the Mall. I was there to photograph the joggers who run around the museums and the monuments. Unfortunately none of those photos really came out. But I did shoot the reflection of the Washington Monument in my sunglasses as I was leaving...

Studio Portraits

2010-02-10T21:47:00.000-05:00

Spent some time with photographer Gaston Lacombe in the studio last week photographing Juan Luis and Fabien.

Baseball photo featured in Pixcetera

2010-02-09T18:04:00.001-05:00

This post is only about three months late but that's ok. My baseball photo that won for best student advertising at FotoWeek DC 2009 is part of a featured gallery at Pixcetera. If you haven't visited their site before now is your chance. They have a great selection of galleries ranging from fashion to food to lifestyle:

http://www.pixcetera.com/pixcetera/fotoweek-dc-2009-award-winners/70776

Dancing With Light

2010-02-05T09:18:00.000-05:00

Last week Melissa was kind enough to come into the studio for some dancing photos. Her graceful dancing motions were crying out for some lighting accents. Enter the two flashlights - one in red and one in white. This "painting with light" technique allows a flash to freeze Melissa at the start of her routine while the remaining 29 seconds of exposure only captures the flashlight motion. (click on photo for larger version)

Beauty in nature

2010-01-28T23:41:00.005-05:00

It was warm and sunny today so I decided to grab the old camera and spend the afternoon at Glen Echo Park near Bethesda, Maryland. The area was originally a giant amusement park in the early 1900's and has since been converted to an arts educational center. Many of the original buildings are still being used for offices and classrooms. There is a small creek that runs along the side of the park and feeds into the Potomac River. This is where I spent much of the afternoon - precariously balancing on rocks in the creek trying to get the perfect shot without falling in the water and destroying my ankles or my precious equipment.

This is the first time that I feel my nature photos actually do justice to the real thing. Normally I photograph some pretty trees or water and it comes out looking flat and boring. Somehow everything came together today to produce something that might even make Mother Nature proud.

DC Rollergirls Bout

2010-01-18T18:02:00.006-05:00

Here are a few photos from the DC Rollergirls bout at the Armory on January 16. I had spent a couple weeks photographing the rollergirls during their practices back in November so I was familiar with the league and the action on the track. But I was not prepared for intensity of an actual bout. The skating was fast and the blocking was furious as the two teams battled it out on the track. At the end of the day it was Cherry Blossom Bombshells over the visiting Harrisonburg Rocktown Rollers while the DC DemonCats fell to Scare Force One.

I am currently working on a multimedia piece showcasing the DC Rollergirls and the craziness that is a rollerderby bout. Stay tuned.

(click on photo for larger version)

Washington Wizards

2010-01-09T16:40:00.014-05:00

I am now on month three of my Washington Wizards photo internship. It's been an interesting experience. These large sports arenas are like little cities, and just like any new city it takes a while to get used to the layout. There are places I can go where no one pays attention to me, there are places I can go where I get a stern warning, and then there are places I go where someone immediately escorts me away under threat of violence. Guess which places produce the best photos?? That's probably true for a lot of photography. You gotta have thick skin for this business.

Anyway, my actual internship consists of photographing the scoreboard but I occasionally point my camera toward the court for a little variety. Here are some samples... (click on photo for larger version)

CDIA Celebration

2009-12-19T13:58:00.003-05:00

We had our last day of school on Friday. It has been an awesome seven months with a great group of people and I'm sad that the program is finished. Here are a few photos from our final class (thanks to Kristen Finn for taking the group shot at the end):

DC Rollergirls

2009-11-24T00:02:00.008-05:00

The lovely ladies of DC Rollergirls were kind enough to let me interview and photograph them a couple of weeks ago. DC Rollergirls is the women's flat track roller derby league for Washington DC and is made up of a great group. Between the crazy stickers and derby gear and unique personalities there was a wealth of material to work with. They were all very nice and patient with me as I kept showing up at the practices to stick a camera in their face. My goal was to document the story of the rollergirls and their league. Unfortunately the story isn't finished as I haven't been to a bout yet to catch the real action. But this is a good start.

Shooting in a giant gymnasium with very little light is tricky. It's even more tricky when that light turns everyone an ugly shade of green. Since they are humans and not aliens from Mars I went with black and white so the focus would be on the girls and not their skin color. Being able to shoot at 6400 ISO also made my life much easier (thank you Canon 5D MkII). It allowed me to shoot with ambient light and avoid setting up a stadium-esque set of lights and corresponding umbrellas.

Skeletons and chains...Oh my!

2009-11-23T23:37:00.005-05:00

Why take a well-deserved Thanksgiving vacation when you can hang out in a dark studio photographing skeletons and chains? That's messed up. At least it was a skeleton with pizzazz and flair and a yellow silk scarf and a purple hat. (click on photo for larger version)

And the winner is...

2009-11-05T23:22:00.000-05:00

"America's Pastime" by me. I spent the evening with my wife Grace at the DC FotoWeek awards ceremony where I was awarded best photo in the "Student Advertising" category. They even gave me a certificate to make it official. It was an honor to be mentioned along side some amazing photographers.

DC Fotoweek answers to be revealed tomorrow

2009-11-04T19:56:00.002-05:00

Tomorrow night is the awards ceremony for Fotoweek DC at the National Geographic Society Grosvenor Auditorium. It is here that I will find out if my baseball photo wins the prize in the 'Student Advertising' category (I should start working on my "I'd like to thank the Academy" speech just in case.) Win or lose, it's exciting to be a part of such a big photography event held locally in DC. The Fotoweek DC organizers have made this event into a photographer's dream: there's the NightVisions all-night shooting party, the photo demo's by some of the top professionals in the field, the portfolio reviews, and the exhibits. Everyone should attend something related to this event even if you're not in a photographer.

Leo In Wide Angle

2009-11-03T12:22:00.009-05:00

Just got the Canon 16-35mm f2.8L II lens this morning and decided to try out some wide angle action on Leo. You can just see the excitement on his face... (click on photo for larger view)

New Washington Wizards photographer for the winter

2009-10-22T12:07:00.000-04:00

I will be the new photo intern for the Washington Wizards when they start the regular season on Halloween night. I'll be there for every home game covering the game itself, the fans, and the general game experience. This will be a great opportunity to flex my creative and lighting muscles. Arenas are basically black holes of darkness with a little light shining on the action so I'll really have to push myself to get high quality photos that capture the moment.

Next time you're watching a Wizards home game look for the short white guy running around the arena with a bunch of equipment around his neck.

Chloe' and Hans Wedding

2009-10-17T19:00:00.008-04:00

Here's a sample of the photos from Hans and Chloe's beautiful wedding last weekend in Newark. Having photographed many ceremonies in incredibly dark churches, I was thrilled with the venue that they used for their wedding. Big windows? Check. Lots of open space to move around? Check. Lots of colorful details? Check.

Created with Admarket's flickrSLiDR.

FotoWeek DC 2009 Finalist!

2009-10-17T13:18:00.003-04:00

FotoWeek DC is an annual photo festival that just started last year. It consists of exhibitions, talks, and contests and attracts some of the top photographers in the industry. Imagine my surprise when I received the following email this week:

Congratulations! We are pleased to inform you that you are a finalist in the FotoWeek DC Awards Competition. This means that your image will be exhibited in one of our FotoWeek galleries in Georgetown throughout the length of FotoWeek DC and you might be the first prize winner in the category you entered. You are also invited to the Awards Ceremony and Reception to be held at the National Geographic Society on November 5, 2009 where the winners will be announced and prizes will be awarded.

I had submitted my baseball photo in to the 'student advertising' category and apparently someone really liked it:

Fun With Props

2009-09-28T21:45:00.012-04:00

Good evening boys and girls,
We had some fun around the photo studio and in the neighboring areas last week. I've always been impressed with the photographers who could turn boring environments into fun images. Who knew a copy machine, water, and a stone thingy could be such great props? (click on photos for larger version)

You're never too old to play with toys

2009-09-18T21:32:00.006-04:00

There are no small roles, only small people.

Photo illustrations with toys are fun. The best part is you can have the little guys pose for hours and they don't complain. I didn't even get to the boombox, the delivery guy, or the police car. I smell a sequel.

(click on photo for larger version)

My beautiful wife

2009-09-13T17:06:00.005-04:00

Studio portraits

2009-08-14T23:12:00.011-04:00

We spent the week doing portraits in the studio at school. There was a wide variety of models (thanks to Sarah, Sarika, and Sanjay for volunteering!) and studio setups to shoot with. It was a great experience to pair up different lighting and poses to bring out the personality in each subject (click on photos for larger versions).

Fun In The Studio

2009-08-04T21:40:00.004-04:00

Here are some old photos from a studio session we had a few weeks ago.

Giant Leo and Little Gaston

2009-08-02T21:00:00.005-04:00

Here's a fun little composition of my cat Leo and my classmate Gaston. The Leo photo was first shot in the apartment and Gaston was then shot in the studio. The studio lights were set up to mimic the lights from the window in the apartment. After that it was a matter of getting Gaston the right size and giving him shadows. Click on the photo for a larger version. (Props to Gaston for being a great model)

Take Me Out To The Ballgame...

2009-07-25T23:11:00.005-04:00

buy me some peanuts and crackerjacks.

Lennon (Bulldog, Not Beatle)

2009-07-19T17:53:00.011-04:00

Here are some photos of Lennon the French Bulldog. He is only 14 weeks old but is already quite the model.

Crazy People On Crazy Bikes Doing Crazy Things

2009-07-15T20:26:00.022-04:00

I was lucky enough to photograph Dwayne Bruner showing off his mad biking skills last weekend. He was a great sport to do all these crazy things with his bikes for 2 1/2 hours on a hot and sunny afternoon. We did one shoot at a mountain biking trail and another shoot at a skate park. (The 2nd photo is Kevin Good filming Dwayne doing these crazy things.)

Washington Monument

2009-07-15T20:00:00.001-04:00

I finally decided to do the tourist thing last week and ventured out to the Washington Monument. It was a perfectly windy day that really made the flags dance:

Happy 4th of July America

2009-07-04T23:11:00.008-04:00

Spurt of Exercise and Landscape Photography

2009-07-03T19:01:00.009-04:00

I was motivated to hop on the bike today for the first time in 2 years. I took a little cruise down to the National Zoo. It was painful but I now realize why everyone raves about Rock Creek Park. It truly is beautiful - plus I was able to get some nice moody photos of a cabin in the park. (photos now available in nifty slideshow format)

Fun with HDR

2009-06-29T14:43:00.010-04:00

This is my first HDR photo and I'm pretty happy with how it turned out. I wish my car looked this fierce in real life. The photo is a blend of the following 4 photos (click on photos for larger version):

Here's the 2 minute lesson on contrast and HDR:
Cameras have much less contrast range than the human eye. As you can see in the first 3 images above, the camera can't get the detail of a bright sky and a dark shadow in the same image like your eyes. Either the sky is too bright or the shadow is completely black (or somewhere in between). By taking one exposure for the sky, one for the shadow, and one for the midrange, I have now covered all the ranges in multiple images. These 3 exposures can then be blended together in Photoshop to get detail in all 3 exposure ranges. This is typically done for architecture photographers when they are photographing an indoor scene with a window. They take one exposure for the dark interior and one exposure for the window and blend them together.

The fourth photo is a pure HDR composite of the first three photos. HDR = high dynamic range. HDR is the multiple exposure concept on steroids. Programs such as Photomatix take these multiple exposures and blend them together with localized contrast that creates a gritty, moody feel to the photo. I took this HDR photo and blended it with the 3 multiple-exposure photos to get the final photo at the very top. Crazy, huh?

"Public" Photography

2009-06-21T23:24:00.006-04:00

I just read an article by Marc Fisher in the Washington Post dated June 21, 2007 (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/06/20/AR2007062002354.html). The story was about an amateur photographer who tried to take some photos on Ellsworth St in downtown Silver Spring, MD. He was quickly confronted by security guards who told him that photography was not allowed along that section of Ellsworth. For those of you not familiar with Silver Spring, there is a stretch of Ellsworth that has been turned into an outdoor mall - this is the new downtown for Silver Spring. The county hired a company to maintain this shopping area. This company has a policy that no one can take any pictures of the area without their permission. Their argument is that the street is no longer public land and therefore they can enforce policies related to the pedestrians that walk through the area.

As I said, this article is two years old so I don't know if these policies are still in place. But it seems to me that if I am walking along a city street that was developed using county money I should not be liable for a private company's arbitrary regulations regarding the use of photography. This is not limited to Silver Spring. There are many movies currently being filmed in Washington DC. I have been near the set of two of these movies in the last week. Both movies were being filmed in public - one at the Mall and one on a city street. On both occasions I was told very clearly that I was not allowed to photograph the scene (To be clear, I am not part of the paparazzi. I was more interested in photographing the crew behind the scenes than in photographing Reese Witherspoon for US Weekly). I am very disappointed that individuals feel the right to restrict photography in public when this is a perfectly legal act.

Since when has taking photos in public turned in to such a heinous crime?

Street Photography

2009-06-17T18:04:00.006-04:00

Here are some shots of street photography that were mostly done in Chinatown. The idea is to capture the mood and the people of the city in a candid manner. Notice the black & white effect for added coolness. (click on the image for a larger version)

Hirshhorn Sculpture Garden

2009-06-16T20:41:00.009-04:00

Here are a few photos taken near the Hirshhorn Sculpture Garden. The first two are of a chocolate lab owned by the gentleman that sells t-shirts just outside the garden. Click on the photo for a larger view.

Engagement photos in Ann Arbor, MI

2009-06-14T20:32:00.010-04:00

Here are a few engagement photos that I shot back in May. Michigan has such natural beauty that it's a great place for photography. These photos were taken at Gallup Park and the University of Michigan campus in Ann Arbor.

Fun With Photoshop

2009-06-12T11:38:00.012-04:00

This week we learned the basics of Photoshop at CDIA. While Lightroom is still my true love, I'm finding a place in my heart for Photoshop. One of the beautiful things about the program is the ability to make a composite of two images. The canals that run through Georgetown are lined with rock walls. I removed the center rock and inserted a different image below. This would be a fun way to add a rock "border" to traditional portraits:

Here are the original photos:

CDIA photos, volume 1

2009-06-05T21:09:00.012-04:00

Welcome to the first ever post on Tony Richards Photoblog!

As many of you know, I am now a photography student at the Center For Digital Imaging Arts. The school began as a program at Boston University and now has a campus in Georgetown. Here are a few of my photos from the first two weeks of the program. The first assignments ranged in themes from faces to shadows to motion to color. Theoretically the quality of photos should improve dramatically over the next 8 months until I graduate. Knowing that I could have bought a new car for the price of tuition (maybe not a Land Rover, but definitely a Subaru), I better get something good out of this.