"Man Of The Year"
©David A. Ziser

Here is one more image from my film days.  I remember walking into this location and being so intrigued by the architectural features, particularly the ceiling lines.  They seemed to offer the perfect "compositional pointers" for my shot. The previous sentence gives you some insight as to how I create a shot.  I survey the surrounds first, see where the lines lead, and then place my subject into the the image where all the lines seem to intersect. You can easily see that in this image. All the ceiling lines and even the banister all lead directly to the groom.  He is positioned in the bottom right quadrant of the image, and presto, we've got a pretty strong portrait. Lighting is coming in from camera left - a Metz CT-1 triggered with Quantum radio system. Camera specs; Hasselblad 500CM fitted with 40mm Distagon lens, F5.6 @ 1/125 second, Kodak Vericolor 400 film.  Enjoy!  -David

"Sea Mist's Embrace"
©David A. Ziser

Here is another image I posted in the early days of the DPT blog, again without the back story and exposure info.  I only have a few of these images to review.  Once complete, our DPT readers will have all the info on all the images ever posted at DigitalProTalk.  By the way, that's over 625 images.  Anyway, this image was made in La Jolla, California back in my film days while I was teaching a week long class.  I have to say, I love teaching on the west coast - the geography and the locations can be breathtaking.  I was shooting with my fisheye lens and loved how it contoured the water's edge for this image.  I remember nearly slipping into the ocean because of the very slick algae growing on the rocks where I was trying to capture the shot. Notice how all the lines lead right up to the bride and groom.  The choice of lens was a big reason.  With the couple positioned in the top right quadrant of the image, I achieved a nice visual balance in the scene that resulted in a pretty cool wedding image. The touch of backlighting on the couple completed my composition. Camera specs; Hasselblad 500CM camera fitted with 30mm Distagon Fisheye lens, F5.6

"Somewhere In Time"
©David A. Ziser

Here is another image I posted at the beginning of DPT without the details of the shot.  Let me say, this is one of my all time favorite images.  When Matt Adcock over at Flashflavor saw it, he asked me to do a guest post on the shot. It was a very in-depth description of the shot, complete with the very interesting back-story.  You can give it a read right here. Quick cut to Camera specs; Hasselblad 500 CM fitted with 40mm Distagon lens, F8.0 @ 1/500 second, Kodak Vericolor 400 film.  Enjoy!  -David

"Winter Wonderland"
©David A. Ziser

Here is another image I pulled from the early days of the blog before I was supplying all the details of the shot.  This image was made in Sudbury, Ontario - the nickel capital of the world they say. It was pretty darn cold and snow covered everything during my visit. But, as you can see the snow made the shot.  The bride was not standing in snow, but in a cleared area of the parking lot above me.  I was positioned on the lower church parking lot also not in the snow.  My first choice was to grab a wide angle lens for the shot but quickly changed my mind when the bride disappeared in the composition.  I switched to a medium telephoto lens and could see the bride again.  The lighting is supplied by the setting evening sun to my right.  This is still one of my favorite images even though it was made back in the film days.  Camera specs; Hasselblad 500CM fitted with 150mm Sonar lens, F22 @ 1/250 second, Kodak Vericolor film - ISO 400.  Enjoy!  -David

"Cabo Colors #7"
©David A. Ziser

One more colorful contribution from the Cabo trip a few weeks ago. I had several images from that trip that I really enjoyed and this is another.  I was walking back to meet my friends who had walked ahead of me.  I was to meet them shortly.  I was walking back a different street and saw these brightly colored shop windows.  The long lens and oblique angle from which I made the shot compressed the key elements of the scene creating this very colorful composition.  Once again, it’s the simplicity of the bright repeating tones that make this image work. Camera specs; Canon 7D fitted with 18-200mm IS lens at 100mm, F16 @ 1/250 second, ISO 800.  Enjoy!  -David

"Cabo Colors #7"
©David A. Ziser

One more colorful contribution from the Cabo trip a few weeks ago. I had several images from that trip that I really enjoyed and this is another.  I was walking back to meet my friends who had walked ahead of me.  I was to meet them shortly.  I was walking back a different street and saw these brightly colored shop windows.  The long lens and oblique angle from which I made the shot compressed the key elements of the scene creating this very colorful composition.  Once again, it's the simplicity of the bright repeating tones that make this image work. Camera specs; Canon 7D fitted with 18-200mm IS lens at 100mm, F16 @ 1/250 second, ISO 800.  Enjoy!  -David

"Christmas Colors"
©David A. Ziser

I made this image this morning with my new “Christmas lens” I received from LaDawn. The image, I believe, captures what many of us reflect upon at Christmastime – soft, warm colors, twinkling lights, and wonderful pine scents of a live Christmas tree. Camera specs; Canon 7D fitted with Canon 100mm F2.8 IS macro lens, F5.6 @1/30 second (handheld), ISO 1600 (Jpeg). Enjoy!  -David

"Red Lining"
©David A. Ziser

I'm tossing another image up from our visit to Cabo again. This image is of a red fence. Again, during one of our "photowalks" we passed this bright red fence.  It was not in the best part of town which is why its "redness" stood out so vividly to me.  I wanted to only "isolate" on the "red" so I chose a camera position that barely overlapped each of the fence uprights with each other . That enabled me to capture the solid red color with none of the surrounds showing through.  I also like seeing the texture of the fence paint throughout the image. The sunlight highlighted not just the textures of the paint but the fence uprights as well enhancing the repeating elements of the fence's structure.  I "juiced" the color a bit in Lightroom and took the image into Photoshop in order to straighten the lines with the crop tool using the "perspective" feature. Camera specs; Canon 7D fitted with 18-200mm IS lens at 200mm, F16 @ 1/160 second, ISO 800.  Enjoy!  -David