You can tell a lot about a person by his underwear.
Rachel Bilson
Boxer-Clad Professional: Gets Certified
Listening to a podcast on business and marketing recently, they made a point of writing catchy headlines. So there you go. Boxer-Clad Professional: Gets Certified! I’m grateful that you chose to click, rather than scroll by. Your reward is a photo of me in my boxer shorts working on a problem required to pass the technical exam for certification as a “professional” from the Professional Photographers of America, the accrediting body.
In my defense, it was Sunday morning. And by the way, this is Thanksgiving morning and I’m writing this in my boxers… (I’ll try to work up something special for Christmas.)
In Case You’re Curios
In case you are curios, I’ll describe what I’m doing.
It all began last July. Work was real slow so I made myself a candidate for professional certification. I passed the 100 question written exam in August. Then I ordered the kit for the technical exam which included three sheets of grey poster paper, a 14″ manikin, a white Styrofoam ball, eight crayons and a black sharpie.
The test specified the paper should laid out three deep and the base of the manikin 8 inches from the front. The image must fill the frame with no floor showing. Since I was using studio strobes, the white balance was set to 5500 kelvin. The main light was camera left and the fill light was behind the camera.
So, this is number 1 of 3 different images for which I was required to submit the raw files. Camera raw is exactly the photo taken. No adjustments of any kind. (Any time a photo is retouched or modified it becomes a different format like tiff, psd or jpg. And raw contains all the data that went into making the image.)
Given the above conditions, the image was to be shot at f13 leaving me to calculate a 3:1 lighting ratio for the exposure.
In the raw format, this image was tested for proper exposure with minimal clipping in the shadows and highlights.
Fun Fotos
I found those last couple paragraphs “testy” for me to digest during the exam and to write in simple terms for this blog, so let’s talk about something fun.
We celebrated Patty’s 65th birthday at the Hard Rock Resort in Puerta Vallarta Mexico. And for our entertainment we caught a demo match of professional volleyball players. There were 4 women and 2 men. Applying my skills, I attempted to capture the action. It looks like the sand explodes as they jump and their muscular bodies are well defined by the late afternoon sunlight.
Final Thought
Happy Thanksgiving. I hope your day is blessed.
Your friend,
Mike
Congratulations on the certification! So I’m guessing that pants are not on the PPA course gear checklist?
No on the pants, but I heard they are considering making black Under Armor cross trainers mandatory per a suggestion from some photographer in St. Louis.