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Tangents

photographers: what’s holding you back?

January 27, 2012

what is holding you back as a photographer?

Over a lunchtime conversation with a photographer friend, the discussion went back to something I’ve prodded her a few times about .. her self-doubt as a photographer. In my estimation she’s a better photographer than she thinks she is, but it is as if she holds back on some decisions to advance her business. Then I asked her, “what are you afraid of?”

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a simple lighting setup for photographing the wedding formals

January 23, 2012

a simple lighting setup for photographing the wedding formals

Photographing a wedding can be pretty hectic at times, especially as it so often becomes the photographer’s de facto responsibility to keep everything on track. The formal photo session specifically is a part of the day that many photographers find challenging. (The other is photographing the wedding processional.)

When photographing the family portraits, you can really help yourself by nailing your lighting. Get it down.  Then you can concentrate on getting the groups together, and concentrate on posing the groups. But your lighting works! Much less stress.

I mostly work with the Quantum flashes since they are workhorses and don’t melt when used hard. They also have a bit more power than a speedlight. But quite often, I like working with a speedlight setup …

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workshops & seminars in 2012

January 18, 2012

photography workshops and seminars in 2012

full-day flash photography & lighting workshop – New York

I will be presenting three flash photography workshops in New York this year.
The first date is Tue, May 22   (follow the link for more details, and to book a spot.)
The other workshops will take place in July and October, with the specific dates to be announced.

Las Vegas mini-workshops: on-location flash photography

These mini-workshops are 4 hours long (1-5pm on each day), and the fee is $350 per person
Mon, Feb 20  ::  Tue, Feb 21
The mini-workshops will be limited to only 3 people at a time. Definitely un-crowded! Therefore these mini-workshops will be closer to being individual tutoring sessions, with a model to photograph. Contact me via email to book, or for more details.

After Dark Photography Education – Dallas, TX – Feb 27-29, 2012

This discount code: NVNP will save you $72 when you register
signing up and more details on the After Dark Education site.

Epic Summit – weddding & event business conference – Lodi, NJ – March 30, 2012

Beyond Just Images – photography convention, Atlanta, GA – April 20-22, 2012 

I’ll be teaching Flash photography techniques; and Amanda Andrews will be teaching how to photograph children & newborns over the course of this 3 day convention.

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award received: Wedding Wire Bride’s Choice Awards ’12

January 17, 2012

I’m in the top 5% of wedding photographers in New Jersey!

Wedding Wired award 2012

Again it is quite a thrill to hear that I won the Bride’s Choice Awards 2012 from WeddingWire! This is the 3nd year in a row that I received the Wedding Wire award being in the Top 5 percent of wedding photographers in New Jersey.

It’s wonderful receiving this recognition, even with the work as a wedding photographer being rewarding in its own right.

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exposure metering – let your background blow out!

January 16, 2012

exposure metering – let your background blow out!

Too often there’s the desire for us to bring the detail in our backgrounds back in by adding flash. But there are times when the image will be stronger if we just allow the background to completely blow out. It especially works in our favor if the background is cluttered, because then by letting the background completely over-expose, we can simplify our composition.

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Instagram

January 15, 2012

Instagram

My friend Chuck Arlund mentioned Instagram to me earlier on last year. Instagram is an iPhone app which allows instant sharing of images, but with a unique way of doing so. I briefly had a look at it then, and uploaded a photo of Chuck … and then promptly forgot about it again. That’s just how it goes with dozens of photo apps on the iPhone, nevermind the zillion things clamoring for our attention every day.

Then over the weekend another friend nudged me again to check Instagram out again, and this time I more carefully looked into it. I then realized it wasn’t just a stand-alone photo app, but rather a photo-sharing social media cosmos based on the iPhone. Interesting. Of course, you can share photos on Facebook, Twitter, Flickr and Tumblr.

You may well say that I’m late to this game, but here I am if you’d like to follow random images that I will post on Instagram in future. I should be easy to find – neilvn

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inspired boudoir lighting

January 12, 2012

Hanging out with my friend Brooke, (NYC boudoir photographer), at yesterday’s workshop, I noticed some of the images on her iPad that she was showing to explain her lighting techniques. The photographs had an interesting mix of gold and blue tones, and I thought the way she achieved it would be of interest to everyone. It might be familiar to regular followers of the Tangents blog. (Oh, Brooke is co-presenting a workshop on boudoir photography, and there’s a discount for Tangents readers.)

inspired boudoir lighting

by Brooke Ismach, New York boudoir photographer

Since launching Inspired Boudoir, a joint photography venture with fellow photographer Laura Eaton, I have been lucky enough to speak quite a bit about boudoir photography. Which means I’m showing boudoir images to photography groups. Consistently, I am asked one question more than any other: How did I achieve the “blue” background lighting in the attached photo. Most photographers guess using gels, but the answer is actually simpler than that …

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wedding photography – using bounce flash outside

January 10, 2012

wedding photography – using bounce flash outside

When working with a couple during the romantic portrait session, there’s the need to bring variety to the images – not just in posing and composition, but also in terms of light & lighting. For this reason I use a variety – available light; video light; off-camera flash and on-camera bounce flash. I really like using on-camera bounce flash since it is such an easy light source to use, always at hand. There was a recent article on using bounce flash outdoors, but I’d like to add another example where I used bounce flash outside a wedding venue. Let’s look at the sequence of images …

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2011 overview – my favorite wedding photographs

January 3, 2012

best wedding images of 2011 – New Jersey wedding photographer

2011 was another busy year for me as a wedding photographer. This slideshow features some of my favorite wedding and engagement session images of 2011.
(Soundtrack courtesy of TripleScoopMusic.)

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2011 in the rear-view mirror

January 1, 2012

a big thank you to everyone

Seen in retrospect, 2011 was a great year, with a number of exciting things happening.

The one thing that I take great pride in is in how many people read and even follow the Tangents blog. It’s both inspiring and humbling to know that a great number of photographers across the world continue to find this website of so much value. This is where the graphic at the top comes in – the number of visitors to the Tangents blog during the Oct-Dec quarter.  During Oct to Dec 2011, there were 446,640 visits to the site.

In 2010, there were 372,000 visits for the last 3 months of the year.
In 2009 there were 251,000 visits for the final quarter of the year.

Again it’s been a massive jump in traffic to this website for 2011.  (As an aside, the reason why I look at the 4th quarter and not the entire year, is that at the start of 2009, I changed domain names from planetneil and it was simpler to look at only part of the year’s traffic.)

So thank you to everyone who follows the Tangents blog and forum, and participate and ask questions and even reply to questions. You all help make this site what it is.

Other highlights of 2011 …

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