Casey Templeton Photography

My all-time favorite assignment was my “Pigeon Culture” project I produced during my internship with National Geographic Magazine.  To put into perspective how valuable some pigeons can be, auctions are held around the world where pigeons are bought and sold for over $200,000 and races are held in some countries with a top prize of $1 million to the winning flyer.  I explain more in depth in my multimedia presentation about the amazing and beautiful sport of racing pigeons.  I would like to share my techniques, settings, and my approach to three of my 10,000+ images I took during the assignment.

Butch and His Prized Trophies

Pigeon Racer Butch holds his prized trophies

I was kindly invited to Butch Gentile’s home in Spring Hill, Florida for dinner with two of his racing friends.  I arrived and Butch was cooking swordfish with no shirt on.  As the four of us sat down to eat, Butch still had no shirt on and I knew I had a great opportunity for a photograph.  After dinner, I asked if he could show me some of his prized pigeon racing awards. Continue Reading

Earlier this year, I shot a story on Virginia’s peanut farming for Virginia Living Magazine.  After the article was selected as the September/October cover story, I had the opportunity to shoot the cover image.

Art director Tyler Darden wanted to “keep it simple and clean, yet homespun and comfortable…like peanuts!” I brought my lights and soft boxes in case we needed the additional light but my first approach on any shoot is to keep it as simple as possible. I try to use available light and only add external light when necessary.  I shot with a Canon 5D Mark II and used a 74″ Impact reflector to reflect and diffuse the available light. The camera’s live view function is crucial on shoots like this for nailing focus points and white balance, and allowing the art director to look over your shoulder to preview framing.

In this picture, Rob is using the large reflector to diffuse the light coming in from the skylight and the small reflector to cast a shadow on the back of peanuts.

As you can see, this allowed the peanuts in the foreground and in focus to really pop while the darkened background would allow the cover text to read better in the layout.

Rob used Aperture to download, preview and select potential images with the art director.  We then connected our Macbook Pros over the wireless network  to transfer the selected images. From there, the art director dropped the images directly into the InDesign layout and chose the one that looked best with his cover composition.

This workflow allowed the art director and I to be sure we nailed the shot even before we broke down the set. I just picked up the magazine and I couldn’t be happier with the outcome.

I love helping out photographers just getting started. On a daily basis, I get questions from other photographers about improving their images, running their businesses and determining their pricing. Being only 25, I am just getting started myself and have a lot to learn. I also know there are many photographers out there that are doing this much better than I am. I did not attend a photo college but instead I started learning this business by calling, emailing, assisting and visiting seasoned photographers and asking their advice. Rarely did I pull out my portfolio and push photos in front of them. I was seeking their advice so I just shut my mouth, and opened my ears.

The biggest piece of advice I can give you if you want to be a successful photographer is 

“be a better businessperson than you are a photographer.”

This sounds counter intuitive, but if you want to make a living from photography, its essential. Continue Reading

drum roll please…..

Twitter winner: @PatrickSmithRVA

Facebook Fan Page Winner: Tina Lujan Gordon

And on day 6, there was rain. Day 7, the clouds opened up and made for a perfect helicopter ride over Maui and Molokai.

You guessed it, I am not a certified diver… yet. So the Maui Ocean Center is the best I could do. Still, it is a huge challenge to take something that is photographed by 1000’s of people a day and make it your own. Its a tougher challenge than you might think. Maybe my next trip back, I will be certified and I won’t be cheating like this!

Want to win a 20×30″ canvas print of one of these? See here: http://z.pe/hvd

I will be giving away three 20×30″ canvas prints from my trip to Hawaii, one to a Twitter follower, one to a Facebook fan member and one that is open to only entrants in the Richmond area. If you win, you chose the photo to be stretched and mounted.

There are two ways for you to win:

1. Become a fan of Casey Templeton Photography on Facebook and simply leave message on the wall. This is also available to current fans.

2. Follow Casey Templeton on Twitter and RT the following message for a chance to win:

Follow @caseytempleton & RT this for a chance to win 1 of 2 20×30″ canvas #photography prints from #Hawaii info: http://z.pe/hvd

JUST ANNOUNCED! Additional sponsor and third print!
FRAME NATION (@FrameNation) will be providing the stretching and mounting of the two canvas prints and also sponsoring the giveaway of a third print which is open only to Richmond entrants. The winner of the Richmond drawing will receive a $50 FRAME NATION gift certificate in addition to the canvas print.
FRAME NATION ”Design Global. Frame Local.” is Richmond Virginia’s custom framing boutique and the area’s source for contemporary & international frame design. Located in Richmond’s historic river district.

Winners will be selected at random from eligible Twitter followers and Facebook fans when the contest ends on August 26th.

Mahalo!

I have never seen so many stars in the sky as I do in Hawaii. I only hope this photo conveys a fraction of the beauty.

I actually find Hawaii one of the toughest places I have ever photographed. This may sound funny but I have always explained to aspiring photographers that their job is not to photograph something beautiful and automatically think it will make your photo beautiful, you need to find something and make it your own. Take a photo that the person next to you would not recognize because you added your style the situation. Here in Hawaii I find that I don’t see many things to take photos of because there is no way for me to make it better than what I see. I drove/walked around this morning for nearly 90 minutes and did not take a single photo.

In addition, I HATE sunset photos; seeing them and taking them. But, I am trying to force myself to get over that so here is my first go at a sunset.