eli turner

Aruba Sunsets

admin — Fri, 29 Jan 2010 04:36:39 +0000

From the freezing blizzards in Maryland and Massachusetts we briefly escaped to an oasis of an island with perfect sunsets every evening. White sand, crystal clear blue water and deep orange skies are the perfect recipe for relaxation.

Boston city skyline at sunset

admin — Tue, 19 Jan 2010 03:59:23 +0000

The Great “Snowpocalypse” of 2009 delayed our family vacation to Aruba by two excruciating days. Who’d have thought a mere 20 inches would delay flights. After many, many hours on hold we finally got an American Airlines agent who had the brilliant idea to route us through Boston. “Really lady, you don’t think it makes a little more sense to fly away from the storm.” Having grown up in the Hub I knew for sure that if it was this bad in DC then Boston would be a nightmare. However, as my wife can confirm, I’ve been wrong before. In the end it all worked out great. We took a freezing cold water taxi ride across the harbor, dined at the historic Durgin Park restaurant in Fanueil Hall and as a bonus we were treated to this amazing sunset/moonrise.

Big Storm Comin’

admin — Sat, 19 Dec 2009 06:33:20 +0000

The rumor is that a major storm is heading our way and threatening to drop up to 18″ of snow. The best thing about snow in the DC area is the absolute panic it causes. Grocery stores are mobbed by folks storing up water and firewood. Gas stations develop lines because there won’t possibly be any fuel left on Monday when the snow melts.

Snow beginning to fall in Silver Spring

Holland in the leaves

admin — Tue, 15 Dec 2009 03:12:55 +0000

Had a few minutes with my daughter the other day and we got some nice shots.

Jackie and Keith

admin — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 03:42:40 +0000

My cousin Keith and his beautiful bride Jackie tied the knot this past weekend at the Tower Club in Tysons Corner, VA.

Trip to Melrose

admin — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 03:57:31 +0000

After many years I finally had the chance to go back home to Melrose, MA and visit some friends I hadn’t seen in a long time. We all have kids around the same age (see below) and it was awesome to finally meet them. I had an amazing time catching up with everyone and I’m kicking myself for having put off traveling back for so long. We’re definitely going to have to make this a habit.

Melrose Trip – Images by Eli Turner Photography

Swinging with friends

admin — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 05:57:14 +0000

My friend Fozia asked me to take some portraits of her young daughter and her three close friends. The girls would be going to different schools next year and the mothers all thought it would be a good idea to have a nice keepsake. As you can imagine keeping four 5 year olds in one place long enough for a group portrait can be a bit of a challenge. Fortunately there were swings and other fun obstacles everywhere. These images were captured in all natural light with a 50mm lens.

Bethesda Storm

admin — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 04:50:27 +0000

Bethesda Storm, originally uploaded by eliturner.

Big, creepy clouds swept over suburban Maryland last week. There was a threat of hail but ended up being just a lot of thunder.

Mrs. Maryland 2008

admin — Sat, 06 Jun 2009 04:36:41 +0000

Our good friend Siobhan Davenport won the Mrs. Maryland America Pageant 2008 and I was honored when she asked me to take some headshots for her in her crown.

Even though it drizzled on the day we scheduled to shoot the overcast skies provided us with some amazingly beautiful light. Instead of trying to recreate the light myself indoors I gambled a little with the weather and decided to set up the background outside on her front porch. The cloudy sky acted as a gigantic softbox and I supplemented it with just a small flash unit over the camera for a little “eye pop.”

CLS Test 1

admin — Thu, 21 May 2009 03:20:55 +0000

Ever since I’ve started shooting with the Nikon D2x and more recently the D3 I’ve kind of avoided ever really learning or fully embracing the speedlight control system Nikon calls the CLS(Creative Lighting System.) Basically it uses a series of pulses of light from the on-camera speedlight to control one or several off-camera speedlights. I’ve cautiously employed this system on weddings in manual/dumb slave mode but after reading Joe McNally’smost recent book The Hotshoe Diaries I’ve decided to start playing around with the possiblities of the other modes.

My over-sugared nephew and son were willing test subjects for this little experiment. Holding one SB-800 in my left hand(with the sensor pointing towards the on-camera flash,) another SB-800 on the body as the master and the D3 in aperture priority mode in my right I tried to get a sense of how it all works. The on-camera flash was set to — so that it would not fire and only control the hand-held which was being told to fire in TTL mode.

I found the results a little eractic, but when it worked it worked well. Tilting the camera up or down just a small amount, seeing a little more or a little less sky, caused the sensor to make extreme adjustments to the exposure and the flash output. As with all things there is a bit of a learning curve but I hope to figure this out soon so that I can continue to keep carrying less gear on my jobs. As I learn more I will post more.

(click to view images)