3 NYC photo sessions .. « Neil vN

3 NYC photo sessions ..

June 30, 2009

Flashy Photo Sessions in NYC 06-19 from Neil van Niekerk on Vimeo.
[ if the video is choppy, let the clip buffer completely first, or turn off HD ]

On Friday June 19th, (along with my assistant, the-other-Neil), I met up with 3 models in New York for a photo session with each. The intention was to try out different lighting techniques, different equipment .. and just to have fun and see what we can come up with.

First we roamed the Meat-packing District and Greenwhich with Aleona and Laura Lee, and then later on met up with Sasha in Brooklyn. This video clip will be a glimpse of working with three gorgeous models in an ever-fascinating city. Enjoy! : ) I think what might be interesting with this video, is to see the wider view in relation to the resulting image.

Some of the images have already been posted here, and you will see more of them over time. And some will eventually appear in a book on the topic of off-camera lighting to be published next year.

The lighting ranged from just available light, to using off-camera Q-flash with a softbox, and later on with Sasha, some video lights. A flexible approach that allows for divergent results, helping to keep the final mix of images fresh.

The equipment:
Nikon D3; Nikon 24-70mm f2.8 AF-S; Nikon 70-200mm f2.8 AF-S; Nikon 200mm f2 AF-S

Amazon.com Widgets

20 Comments »

Killer video Neil. Seeing you shoot makes learning techniques that much easier to understand. Keep em coming!

Comment by Tom K. — June 30, 2009 @ 5:15 pm
Wow, Neil! That was breathtaking. Thanks for posting the vid of you at work.

Comment by John W. MacDonald — June 30, 2009 @ 6:10 pm
LOL I had no idea you had an accent :)

Excellent video, learned a little bit in that actually.

Comment by Rene Skrodzki — June 30, 2009 @ 9:55 pm
Hi Neil,
A big thank you again for sharing a fantastic video which allows a better understanding of how you set you shots up.

I notice the video stream defaults to HD content under Firefox browser (haven’t tested it with IE yet)
With the video being played in a small window what is your thoughts on changing the default video stream to SD and allowing the HD switch if a user requires it?
This would help reduce the data bandwidth on the server hosting your site.

Either that or quickly ping the user, who is requesting the video content, to gain their computers connection speed, a script can then decide which stream to use, either HD or SD.

Hope this is a helpful idea,
kind regards.
David

Comment by David — June 30, 2009 @ 9:56 pm
Throrougly enjoyed it! Have been following your posts for a while now, and first time I’ve seen you allow us to linger more into your shoots, and expose us to more of the equipment you use.

Make us (me) feel a lot closer to you and your creativeness, that being photography. Applause and thank you. I look forward to seeing more posts that allow us to connect more.

Comment by Tim C. — June 30, 2009 @ 11:55 pm
Awesome video, and awesome results as usual. It’s good to see how the photos came to be, even if it’s just a glimpse.

That 200mm f2 is monstrous, by the way. But the results are mindblowing. It’ll also blow up some wallets.

Comment by Danny — July 1, 2009 @ 12:38 am
Neil
Very Cool video. I cant wait for your book, any idea when it will come out?
John

Comment by John — July 1, 2009 @ 11:48 am
Neil,

Now thats what I am talking about !

cant wait to see more of your video’s, if you could include your thoughts about why you chose the direction of your flash, if its fill or overpowering main etc, this would be very helpful !

Love it – got my first shoot while being filmed next week on a live TTD – eeek

dp

Comment by David Purslow — July 1, 2009 @ 12:16 pm
neil,

you are awesome! thank you so much for giving us insight as to how a shoot is done. your blog has greatly improved my photography and dared me to use flash (that is when my pictures started to pop!) when will your book be coming out? i’m definitely buying it.

Comment by Laura — July 1, 2009 @ 2:15 pm
Laura and John … I have the pre-release copy of my book already! So I guess the book will hit the shelves in the next few weeks. I’ll announce it properly when it does.

Neil vN

Comment by Neil — July 1, 2009 @ 3:11 pm
What is on the lens hood of the 70-200? It looks like it has flames painted on the side at 0:54. That would be very cool.

Comment by Justin — July 1, 2009 @ 9:05 pm
Justin .. I use my lens hoods as storage space for strips of gaffer tape, and for pieces of gel for my flash.

I didn’t use the gels on this shoot, but they are always handy to keep around.

Neil vN

Comment by Neil — July 1, 2009 @ 10:10 pm
Keep feeding us the videos.

However, would like to know the following
f-stop, shutter speed, and were you on manual or aperture preferred mode.

Do you ever use program mode?

Last but of great interest -
you were wirelessly setting off the light box, but what was that sync cord I saw briefly in the video? Was your transmitter not positioned in the hot shoe of your camera??

PS – thanks for the fast reply re my SB-900 question.
I’m going crazy how I am missing an SB-8000. Dammit, 2 in 2 years.

Happy 4th of July

Comment by RON LEMISH — July 2, 2009 @ 7:52 am
Hi there Ron ..

I will post some of the images (and a few others) over time, with more of an explanation. I always feel that just the settings alone doesn’t impart that much information .. as opposed to an explanation of the method and thought-process.

I’m nearly always in manual exposure mode on my camera .. and when I work with flash it *has* to be in manual mode on my camera, especially when the flash is manual.

As for the sync cord you saw, it is part of the Quantum wireless system, as explained in a previous post on the portable lighting set-up I took with me when I photographed a wedding in Las Vegas. (It’s seen here in this photo on the Canon 1D mk3.)

Neil vN

Comment by Neil — July 2, 2009 @ 2:09 pm
Neil

This is great – thank you. I pre ordered your book months am looking forward to getting my hands on it.

In the last session with Sasha where you have the sun setting in the background – did you use any flash or is that just available light.

Is that the Medium Photoflex softbox in the first shoot that you mentioned in a recent post.

Cheers

Comment by Jason Smith — July 8, 2009 @ 3:57 am
Hi there Jason ..

The images of Sasha that is so heavily backlit was with the available light only. Also the photo of her where I used the decrepit van in the background, was also just available light.

In both those instances, the light falling onto her face was soft and even, and I didn’t need to use flash. Nor did I want to balance my foreground exposure with the background.

And yes, it is the Medium Photoflex softbox that I used here.

Neil vN

Comment by Neil — July 12, 2009 @ 6:09 pm
Neil

As TomK says up top, using the videos is a great tool to reinforce your blog posts.

Where you using just one light in these shoots?

Oh and does that softbox also have an internal diffuser? I’ve recently bought the Lastolite Ezybox which comes with two and really knocks the flash output down.

Comment by hoddo — July 15, 2009 @ 11:48 am
Hi there ..

Where I used flash, it was just the single light through a double-baffled softbox. It does bring down the exposure .. but the Q-flash (with the diffuser disc) has a tiny bit more power than a speedlight, so that does help. And then I can always pop the Q-flash’s diffuser disc off for more power.

Neil vN

Comment by Neil — July 19, 2009 @ 3:40 pm
All your pics got their subject in the centre of the frame, why did u do that?

Comment by Paul — September 29, 2009 @ 11:30 am
Paul .. that’s how I preferred the composition to these simple portraits at the time.

On the subject of framing .. how would you have framed them differently?
Mechanically constrained by the Rule of Thirds?

Neil vN

Comment by Neil — October 1, 2009 @ 4:58 pm