I’ve been shooting a lot of portrait photography recently. I shoot for business people, actors, students, people who are doing online dating.

Here is a shot from last week of Dr. Karen Peters of East Bay Naturopathic Clinic. As you can see, she’s really beautiful. However, she was terminally camera shy. She hates having her photo taken. No problem! I’m generally a relaxed person. We chat, we shoot, we keep shooting we keep talking. Eventually people will either relax, or I catch them in-between moments. You can’t be stressed all the time, and I’m fast.

Photo © Alex Schoenfeldt 2012. All rights reserved.
Alex Schoenfeldt Photography

Every year around Easter my daughter and a group of my closest friends go camping at the Indians campground in the Los Padres National Forest. It is one of the best parts of my year. I often do some photography while I’m there. This time, the fun stuff was putting a strong IR filter on my lens and getting some long exposure shots of the Arroyo Seco river.

This photo is a 25 second exposure (I know, my previous post is a long exposure shot too, must be the flavor of the month.

It was just after a storm, so I got some shots of clouds as well.

All photos @ Alex Schoenfeldt 2012
All rights reserved
San Francisco Photographer

Kate got married outside at night in the middle of winter (barefoot too, and sh was really hoping for snow!) at the Ahwahnee Hotel in Yosemite National Park.

I had two cameras. One of them on me with a flash to capture the wedding as it happened with good lighting. But I knew that this alone would not convey the full impact of being outside at night, so I had a second camera on a tripod. I used 15 second exposures to capture both the light and the feeling of the wedding. In some of the images, you can see me and the flash my camera produced more than once in the same frame.

I’ve included not only 15 second exposure images, but also a few of the “regular” shots from the wedding, for context, and because I like them.

All photos © Alex Schoenfeldt 2006. All rights reserved.
Yosemite National Park Wedding Photography

Yesterday I posted a candid street portrait taken with a bellows lens by Lensbaby in the mission district in San Francisco.

Here are two more photos from my experimenting that I think hold up. They are a lot more dramatic in their effect, as they were taken at a wide open aperture. (yesterdays shot was f With a bellows lens and a wide open aperture, the amount of detail in the photo that is truly in focus is paper thin. If you like that effect of not is another story, but I think it works in these two.

All photos © Alex Schoenfeldt 2012.
All rights reserved
Alex Schoenfeldt. San Francisco Bay Area Photographer.

Today I was walking around the Mission in San Francisco getting some random street shots with a trick lens on my camera. The lens is made by a company called Lensbaby. It has bellows on it and it rotates in strange ways, creating interesting effects with focus.

I had lots of fun with the lens, and I got some weird shots, but this was the one that I think holds up the most on it’s photographic merits, and not just because it has trick effects.

Photo © Alex Schoenfeldt 2012. All rights reserved.
Alex Schoenfeldt Photography

This photo was taken at a child’s birthday party. There was a tea party (back when that meant a party where you drink tea and not a political movement) and a treasure hunt and face painting.

The girl in the photo is obviously of Asian descent. I think her heritage is Korean, but I am not sure.

For me the thing that sells this photo is her unblinking intensity. She’s a pretty little girl, and she is staring into your soul, perhaps finding it wanting.

Photo © Alex Schoenfeldt 2007
Alex Schoenfeldt Photography
San Francisco Bay Area Event Photography

There are a few of my favorite shots from a recent Bar Mitzvah. The Bar Mitzvah ceremony itself happens on the Sabbath, so I am not allowed to photograph the ceremony at this Temple. During the rehearsal I had free reign, and after the rehearsal we got some shots in the temple and we wend down the street for some shots at a rose garden. Sometimes I do shoot the reception after the ceremony, but this time I did not.

I love all 4 of these photos, but I really love the last one. I find the poses and placement of the kids in the frame to be visually dynamic and exciting.

All photos © Alex Schoenfeldt 2012. All rights reserved.
San Francisco Bay Area Event Photography

At the park on a nice sunny day with my daughter and some friends. Zaria is laying down on her mom’s la, and the sun is hitting her pretty blue eye just so.

This was one of those grab the camera you have with you moments, which was my phone. The iPhone does pretty well in macro mode actually, and it can digitally zoom for an even better effect.

Photo © Alex Schoenfeldt 2011. All rights reserved.
San Francisco Photographer

In my theme this week about some of the other types of photography I do. I also do product photography.

In this case, “Art Photography” might be a better description, but not in the usual sense of the photo is a piece of art (it may be, but not the point) but in the sense that I am taking pictures of pieces of art. The photos below are Chinese antiquities.

The first one, above, is a ceramic sculpture. Forgive my ignorance about what I’m showing. I just know that the client said it was worth $4,000.

The second shot, above, is jade, which is notoriously hard to photograph.

The last two, above and below, might be the oldest human made object I’ve ever handled. He said from about 2,000 BCE. The second shot (below) is a detail shot of the pictographs under the handle.

all photos © Alex Schoenfeldt 2012. All rights reserved.
Alex Schoenfeldt Photography

Most of my photography has people in it. I do weddings, events, Bar and Bat Mitzvahs, family portraits, group portraits, headshots, and whatever else I am forgetting, but usually there is a person in the picture.

That does not mean that photos with people is all I do. In a few hours I am shooting product photography in San Francisco. If the product is visually appealing to me I’ll post some samples. I also shoot architectural interiors and exteriors. Here are some interiors I did for a talented architect last month.