Justin Acuff Photography » World’s Fair Park

Engaged: Stephanie and Wade

Justin — Sun, 18 Apr 2010 18:09:40 +0000

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I’ve been shooting sports almost exclusively this year, so it was a nice change of pace to do some engagement photos for Stephanie and Wade. I will be shooting their wedding here in Knoxville in June. Stephanie was referred to me through another photographer friend who will becoming a dad right around the time of their wedding. This was the first chance I had to meet Wade. We started out at the UT Gardens and then proceeded to World’s Fair Park and Downtown Knoxville. I had one very special request for a photo. Both of Stephanie’s grandparents have recently passed away. After 55 years of marriage, it only took 20 days for them to be reunited. I still have a bit of editing to do, but here’s a few that I wanted to get up as a sneak peek.

Downtown Knoxville Photowalk

Justin — Sun, 07 Mar 2010 13:07:51 +0000

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The University of Tennessee has a great non-credit photography program that is part of the Professional and Personal Development Outreach. During 2008 a couple of my friends were taking classes and mentioned it to me. I love photography and it sounded fun, so I signed up for a few classes. Before I knew it, I had completed the program in a little over 10 months. One of the first classes a student will take is Fundamentals of Digital Photography I. It’s really targeted towards folks that may have just gotten their first SLR and want to learn how to use it or folks that have decided that they want to really understand what they are doing with their camera.

From time to time, I will help out by serving as an adviser on the field trips, especially if it’s a nice day. The instructor shoots Nikon, so he can get a little lost when it comes to Canon cameras. The weather was really nice on Saturday, though it was a little colder than i thought it was going to be. The above photo is a panorama I stitched together to give you an idea of just how many students are in this class. The instructor and two other advisers are in the photo but the rest are all students. Sometimes the students are very shy and don’t ask any questions, though I know they have them. Other times they have questions galore. When I’m serving as an adviser, I usually don’t shoot much. When I shoot, it’s usually to demonstrate the technique or documentary as the photo above. Getting a great photo isn’t my priority. Getting proper exposure is always a priority. Secondary is getting a good composition. With those caveats in mind, below is a few images from the walk.

April and May 09 Summed Up

Justin — Thu, 23 Jul 2009 10:25:13 +0000

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I want to get around to posting some other things, but want to finish these summaries up as well. That is why this post will be about April and May.

During the last few days I was in Brazil, I spent in Recife. There is a really old area near Recife called Olinda that I was interested in seeing. This is the Church of Saint Benedict in Olinda. One of the things I really loved about my stay in Brazil was how well the sky polarized when using a circular polarizer. The sun is really high in the sky most of the day, so it is also easier to get a polarized sky.

One of the subjects that is more challenging for me is flowers. It’s mainly because I get the feeling that it has all been done before. So when I do shoot flowers, there are some very specific criteria it has to meet. How are the colors? Is there another interesting subject? Can this make for an interesting composition? Actually, I’ll consider those with most every shot, but it’s more strict with flowers. For this, I headed to the UT Gardens while the tulips where in bloom. I saw the red tulip in a flowerbed of yellow tulips so I had color and an interesting composition.

For the water fountain shot, I knew that I wanted to do some night shoots of it at World’s Fair Park during what is commonly called the blue hour. The blue hour a time after sunset (and before sunrise) where the sky turns into a deep blue. Another interesting thing that I did not know about this fountain, was that at 30 minutes before they turn the fountain off, it runs through a program complete with music.

This shot at Norris Dam was really neat to get. I had heard that TVA was opening the spillways on several of their dams in the system. Having previously photographed sunrises and sunsets at Norris Dam, I knew the sunrise would make for a good shot. The spillway running makes it even better. I used a graduated neutral density filter to hold back the sky allowing it to go into that deep orange and red but not darken the dam.

This photo was taken while I was waiting for the sunrise on the riverwalk. It provided an interesting composition with the placement of the great blue heron and the arches in the bridge. I got some really good sunrise shots, but being a photo-a-day, I knew I could go back and get a sunrise shot another day, this shot I may not be able to get again.

Coming Soon…

Justin — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 02:51:29 +0000

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I’ll admit it… I have really been slacking when it comes to blogging. So for the next few days, I am going to post some of my more favorite photos from the Photo-A-Day project I am doing this year. After I finish up January through June, I’ll post on some of the lifestyle family portrait sessions as well as some events.

This post will focus on the month of January. I’ll give a little info on where it was shot from and also how it was shot.

For the shot of the keyboard, I set my camera on a tripod and composed it how I wanted it. I had two remote flashes setup and used the Canon timer remote to trigger the camera times 6 times with a 10 second delay between shots. I then proceeded to play. Of the six images, this one came out the best. Since my keyboard is predominately silver anyways, I decided that a B&W conversion of this image would suite it best.

For the night driving shot, I set my camera up on a tripod in the back seat and mounted my 15mm Fisheye lens. I used the timer remote to fire a series of long exposures. It took some experimenting to get this right. I would drive a little bit and then pull into a parking lot to check my photos. Once I got a combination I was happy with, I left it there and drove around some more. If I recall correctly, this was in the old city area.

The shot of Gay Street Bridge is simple, yet a favorite. I love shooting at night time. A subject can present itself in a totally different light (pun intended). Not much to explain in this shot, I set my camera on a tripod and did a long exposure. What makes this shot, is the time it was shot. Several minutes earlier or several minutes later would have resulted in a much ligher or much darker sky.

The group shot was a 26 image stitched panorama. I’m guessing there is somewhere right around 1,000 people in it. By far, my largest group shot ever. For the past 4 years now, I’ve been one of the official photographers for Gulf Coast Getaway, a Church of Christ conference targeted towards college-aged students. To shot this, I was up on the roof of one of the penthouse suites of one of the towers at the Edgewater Beach Resort. I oriented my camera vertically, set my exposure, and shot away. Although I posted this images as the Photo-A-Day, I have a much better image I was able to process after I got home. I have it available here: http://www.justinacuff.net/potn/637772.html.

This is kind of a cliché shot of Downtown Knoxville. I drove up to the top floor of the 11th Street Garage and shot World’s Fair Park, the Convention Center, and Downtown Knoxville. As cliché as it is, an image like this sales.

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The photo of Regas’s sign is quite unique. Since I work during the day, I found myself shooting at night a lot. I really hadn’t planned to shoot the sign, but thought I’d give it a try with an ultra-wide angle lens. From that one exposure, I envisioned doing something similar to my final photo. This photo combined several techniques to give it that look. The first is it was a multiple exposure (7 exposures) HDR image. I tone mapped it, but it still didn’t have this final look I had imagined.

January 31, 2009

Justin — Sat, 31 Jan 2009 20:19:45 +0000

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Rachmaninoff: The Last Concert Sculpted by Victor Bokarov