Recent Press

A student wrote a nice article about me, following an interview, and posted it on her blog.

Michael Rothermel, a 16-year-old homeschooled student, recently turned his photography aspirations into reality. With the support of his mother and help from many friends, Michael strives to kick off his career by doing “the harder things,” pay attention to important details, skillfully market his art, and wisely manage his business.

Continue reading the article at Teens in the Spotlight.

News of May

It has been an interesting month and promises an amazing ending.

At the end of April, actually, I had an interesting shoot with RM Lewis. He is a great guy, quite photogenic and very funny. Check out his music!

This month I’ve been around a little. York County Envirothon Competitions, and a bunch of personal work. I’ve also been working on getting my business card finished up and printed, editing my website, and getting more work.

On that note, I’m doing some promo shots for a cool guy tonight, some senior portraits for a friend tomorrow and going to prom as the photographer Friday. Should be fun!

Browse Photos in Web 2.0 Style

Whether you’re looking up a specific type of photos on Flickr, browsing Google images for school, or just checking out your friend’s photos on Facebook, Piclens rocks. It allows you to see an endless stream of photographs in a sleek format. You’ll start looking at photos just for the fun of looking!

It has also been reviewed by some prominent people..

“Coolest web photo viewer ever . . . stunning.” — CNET
“Fun and addictive” — Wired
“Gorgeous, a Great Idea” — Macworld
“New immersive approach to Web navigation” — NY Times

If you haven’t tried it yet, you will love it. Check out PicLens today!

How to Make Chocolate Covered Coffee Beans

I was looking for an article how to make chocolate covered coffee beans and found some good ones.. but all text! So here is a short tutorial with photos!

1. Fill pan with 1″ water.

2. Gather your delicious chocolate chips and coffee beans.

3. Put a double boiler in the pan (make sure the bottom does not touch the water in the pan) and put in your chocolate chips.

4. Heat until the chocolate chips melt.

5. Mix coffee beans into the melted chocolate.

6. Spread on wax paper and stick in freezer for a half hour or so.

7. Enjoy!

New Stuff!

There are some exciting changes coming to MRP! Right now I’m working on adding a bunch of new galleries and working out much of the business details..busy, busy!

The image to the right is a compilation of the thumbnails for some of the photos I will be adding to my Events photos collection. I will be adding event photography to the services I offer. Music concerts, parties of all sorts, summer camps, and more!

If all goes well the updates should be up by next week – I’m trying to keep up with my school workload as well. Getting crazy balancing everything, but God is good!

MRP – “Downsizing”

I’ve decided to cut wedding photography out of my generally available services. I will still offer it if someone asks, but I am not going to actively pursue it. I am going to focus on portraiture now – some changes coming to the website soon!

www.rothermelphotography.com

Flash Velcro Modification

After a long trip to Lowe’s (love that place) I exited with 36″ of Velcro. The idea was to wrap the Velcro around my flash head so I can attach light modifiers, but so I am able to take the Velcro strap off. Then, it looks a lot neater, doesn’t lower the resale value, and is pretty darn nifty.

1. Here lie the lovely Velcro pieces, ready to cut. I wrapped it around the flash head to get a feel for the length.
2. Two evenly cut pieces, the other strap I made, and scraps to the left. The one side sticks to the carpet nicely – peel the backs and adhere back-to-back.
3. Here’s the finished products. Sweet and simple.
4. And this is what it looks like on the flash. Start attaching..stuff!

(See the image larger) (Idea credit: Strobist)

An Obsession with Perfection

I think one of the hardest things for me, as a photographer, is perfection. Composition..that’s a big bugger. What’s really hard is when you get to the point where you can’t just look at a picture any more. If you peruse any collection of photographs, you begin to mentally critique and fix them. Even if it’s a family photo that has no thought of creativity in mind, just the documentation.

It gets worse when you view your own photos. Many will die, few will survive. When you cross a certain line, nice just isn’t good enough. Every photo must be perfect. If it doesn’t look good for some reason it’s off to the trash bin. Even the funniest photos with friends are a struggle to keep if they are not that great.

Then there comes the time when you start reverse-engineering everyone’s photos. I can remember standing in the shoe store looking at a large advertisement on the wall for shoes, of course. When you get into lighting you really start noticing little things: the direction of the light (left, right, above), the light source (florescent, bare flash, umbrella, softbox), or the ever classic, natural light. (Who would have thought you could use the sun, huh?) [Of course, Strobist is to blame for my addiction to light.]

But I think you can also reach another region of thought. . . It has taken a lot of breaking down and rebuilding, but I’ve come again to being able to keep some photos which are average quality, but hold personal meaning. It’s still hard at times the accept the norm, but it’s a growing phase.

On-Camera Flash Trick

Simply turn the camera upside-down. Rotate 180 degrees. Your viewfinder will be on the bottom instead of the top – as will your flash.

Simple trick I figured out, but it really changes the photo. See the illustration below for more details. (Click for larger version.)

Keep a Photo Idea Journal

One thing I’ve really started doing is compiling a list of photographs I’d like to try sometime for fun or may actually use while shooting a wedding or otherwise. (I also draw lighting diagrams on violin concert programs, but that’s a different story.)

I found this great idea while from a friend’s blog.
New Model Coming Soon
Hang a piece of baby clothing somewhere with clothespins.. via Abby

I obviously can’t take credit for this idea, but this is just a sample..so you can see what I mean. Writing down ideas is great, especially if you’ll otherwise forget it like me!