Tim Engle 8/27/17 Tim Engle 8/27/17

Friday Night Lights

I’m so excited to have football back! Along with photography, fitness has been another huge part of my life. This year I was asked to help with strength training for my son's varsity football team. I grew up in the gym starting at age 13, picking up weights for a membership and am still there several times a week. So, I was very happy to help the team and share some of my experience. It's funny, because when I was in high school and training for football, we used medicine balls, climbing ropes, and pushed my friend's truck in a parking lot. Fast forward to today and we are using the same stuff, except we switched the truck for a sled.

Anyway, I was very pleased to see the boys come out on Friday's game and dominate physically! I hope it keeps up. The big test will be in the next few games.

Final score from Friday was Casa Roble 56 - Bella Vista 0.

I’m so excited to have football back! Along with photography, fitness has been another huge part of my life. This year I was asked to help with strength training for my son's varsity football team. I grew up in the gym starting at age 13, picking up

Tim Engle 12/28/16 Tim Engle 12/28/16

Good Day Sacramento Visit

I was honored to be part of a segment on Good Day Sacramento on December 23, 2016 featuring getting better results from your iPhone. It took me a day to prepare for the show with some help from Action Camera in Roseville and to line up a model to use for some examples.

I was asked by Bethany Crouch from good Day Sacramento come in and talk about getting the most out of your holiday photos using your iPhone. It makes me really nervous doing live tv, but Bethany makes it so easy and helps me to feel comfortable. I could never do it without her. I was joined by my good friend and model Amanda Pacheco. We have worked together for quite a few years now and she just keeps getting more beautiful!

Thanks to Action Camera in Roseville for setting me up with some cool tools!

The first segment went over some tips on taking better images with your iPhone

Keep Your Lens Clean
Change your perspective
Move in (Manually)
Photograph Reflections
Shoot Outdoor Christmas Lights Before It Gets Too Dark
Backup your images

For the second segment my favorite place on earth (Action Camera) gave me some cool accessories to show off. These are the items we discussed on the show.

From Action Camera

Holga LED light - $34.95

Flexipod Max - $14.95

Keychain Tripod - $4.95

install mini 70 - $139.00: $40 rebate on now

DJI OSMO Mobile - $299

Ring Selfie Fill-Light - $11 to $19 : Amazon

LED Camera Video Ring Light - $90 : Amazon

Anker Battery Pack - $ 39 : Amazon

I must say that the staff and anchors at the morning show could not have been nicer. After watching them for many years it was great to meet them in person. I did stick around a little bit and make some on set images

Ken Rudulph, Julissa Ortiz, Amanda Pacheco, Bethany Crouch and me..

Tim Engle 10/20/14 Tim Engle 10/20/14

Gear Bag

It has taken me years to build up my arsenal of equipment, but most of the time I use a small fraction of what I own. I am a Nikon shooter. I received a Nikon camera as a middle schooler and just built my gear around that first camera. Throughout the years, I’ve shot 35mm, a medium format Bronica, and finally DSLR. I sometimes miss my 35mm as the digital cameras only have so many clicks in them before they give up.

I get a lot of questions from other photographers asking what kind of gear I use. I always like to point out that it’s not about the equipment you own, but your ability to use what you have that makes a good photographer. The lack of expensive gear should not be the limiting factor in creating your images. My images over the years have been made with minimal gear, sometimes with just a flashlight and an iPhone. Knowing how to use the gear you already own is the most important thing I can emphasize.

It has taken me years to build up my arsenal of equipment, but most of the time I use a small fraction of what I own. I am a Nikon shooter. I received a Nikon camera as a middle schooler and just built my gear around that first camera. Throughout the years, I’ve shot 35mm, a medium format Bronica, and finally DSLR. I sometimes miss my 35mm as the digital cameras only have so many clicks in them before they give up. I've found that I use the Nikon D4 the most, because it seems to keep up with me better than any other camera has. I also prefer AlienBees’ products, as their customer service has been extremely easy and helpful to deal with over the years and I’ve had two of their lights for over 18 years. The rest of my photo equipment is a mishmash of various brands and manufacturers that I’ve collected over the past 20 years.

When prepping for a shoot, I go through in my head or on paper (depending on the size of the shoot) what gear I will need, as well as thinking about any potential problems. This exercise helps me to make sure that I pack all the things I'll need. Some of my most common obstacles are lack of existing light and VERY limited shooting space. My Rogue flash benders are a huge help when this happens. They are very compact and put out really nice light. I also walk into many photo locations not knowing what I will face. I try to be prepared for the unexpected. I do this by having backups for my equipment. If I’m using wall powered strobes, I’ll bring a battery backup and small battery power flashes, just in case I don’t have access to power. I even bring canvas to block out a window in the event that the natural light isn’t right for my images. While my experience allows me to think on my feet pretty quickly during a shoot, I am always relieved when I’ve packed my bag well.

So here goes.

In The Bag

Think Tank
Airport International™ V 2.0 Rolling Camera Bag
Nikon D4
Nikon D810
Nikon 50mm f1.8
Nikon 85mm f1.8
Nikon 180mm f2.8
Nikon 105 micro f2.8
Nikon 24-70 f2.8
2 Nikon SB-800
Nikon SB-700
Metz AA AF-1
Phottix wireless remotes
Macbook Pro 15in
Sekonic light meter
4 Justin clamps
2 LED panels
Hoodman magnifying eyecup
MacBook Pro 13inch
WD My Passport 1TB drive
LED Lenser P7
LED sense P4
CamRanger
Rogue FlashBenders
Rogue Grids
Rogue Gels
JamBox
Vagabond Portable Power BY Paul C. Buff

Gum

Thanks Christine Alward for making this image!

Tim Engle 8/3/14 Tim Engle 8/3/14

Color Shift

I've been interested in traditional ways to shift colors in my images. In a time when it's so easy to add digital flare it's hard to come up with ways to shift the image without relying on the computer and committing to a permanent shift in the camera. I like to see the if I can get as close to the final image as possible in camera. For me it keeps me in a tight visual string or style.

To this end, I have been experimenting with shooting through colored glass and objects. I find myself constantly on the lookout for interesting color or shapes to try.

I’m very pleased with this set of images! Christine and I made these a few months back at the Preston Castle. The light at this location is amazing and it always provides ample room to shoot. I found a small piece of red glass that matched her red lips. The glass was perfect for this set. I love the saturation and color it gave and with Christine’s posing this turned out better than I could have imagined!

It’s now part of my bag of tricks.

Nikon D4

ISO 800

85mm

f3.5

1/500

Tim Engle 4/7/14 Tim Engle 4/7/14

The New HTC One - Pre Production

As I’m sure you noticed in the last post, the crew list was pretty extensive. This project was no small feat.

The pre-production process took about a month, and even if we had wanted more time, it would not have been possible to get it. The phone was shipped from Taiwan under lock and key and was on a very tight schedule to make all of its appearances as there where only 4 in existence at that time.

After reviewing the production notes, there were obviously 2 things I needed to do right away. I had to build my team and I had to start location scouting. The idea for the shoot was to follow 5 young people through their weekend in a metropolitan area, specifically San Francisco. I quickly realized the scenes that HTC wanted were also available here is Sacramento. There was also the issue that the original schedule had us shooting in December which meant most of San Francisco was decorated for Christmas.

Kody, Christine and I went out and shot location images of our city to send to HTC and they agreed Sacramento was the perfect backdrop for the project.

Upon the decision being made that we would be working in Sacramento I was able to confirm the rest of the team and get to work reaching out to local businesses and resources. From city agencies, to restaurants, to casting agencies we had everything we needed to start building the schedule and the storyboard.

Even though California was having a beautifully sunny winter, there was concern that some of the outdoor shots would be disrupted with bad weather, so we also had to put in place backup plans for all the outdoor shots that could be implemented the day of shooting.

The next step was to cast the models. We had the pleasure of working with Amber Collins of Cast Images. There were 5 characters we had to cast in this project. Amber built some galleries for HTC to look through based on their descriptions and we had our models selected in no time at all! Sacramento has some amazing talent!

Now that we had our models I could send the wardrobe details and measurements to Simone to start pulling wardrobe for the project. We were given very specific requests for each model based on the character that was created for each of them. We scheduled a fitting and sent some images to HTC for final approvals.

So that was it, I had my team, my locations, the models and wardrobe, I had the storyboard and shot list on repeat in my brain. It almost felt like planning a wedding, all the pieces were in place and the last few days were spent waiting in anticipation of putting it all to work.

Next up, a behind the scenes look of our week long photo shoot!