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March 30, 2010
using additional off-camera lighting at events
With the Bar Mitzvah boy lifted on the shoulders of his friends at his party, I ducked and weaved to make sure that I kept one of the additional flashes behind him as the group moved. I purposely shot faster than my flash could recycle, so that I could get images with my on-camera flash, and without. It’s easier to do it this way and ensure I have both options to choose from in the edit – rather than trying to switch my on-camera flash on & off while shooting fast.
The colored spots are from the DJ’s lights. The white specs in the photo are the reflective flakes they periodically released from the ceiling, which is now backlit by the flash.
More about the lighting …
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Comments (18)
March 27, 2010
style in photography – intimate / boudoir photo sessions
I did a recent photo shoot with a model, Carly Erin, to expand my boudoir portfolio.
Sometimes you get to work in large spacious rooms or studios. Sometimes you work in smaller more intimate locations. When you work in a tighter, more intimate setting, the choice to include the surroundings or not will greatly affect how you shoot. I made the decision that I didn’t want the location to be identifiable and this affected how I shot …
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March 25, 2010
A photograph of my beloved Dalmation, Brakko, that I owned way back when we lived in South Africa. I used him as a test subject when I tried out my brand-new used flashmeter that I had just bought. The light is from an off-camera speedlight diffused through an umbrella that I lay on the ground. Very simple lighting. That guarded look on his face is because he wasn’t sure about an 80-200mm lens pointing straight at him.
Of the photos I took, I loved this very tight crop, with his eye the only bit of color in the frame .. aside from him not having had a bath in weeks and weeks. ;)
This photo is my entry for the Alive for 365 project this week.
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March 24, 2010
I felt quite flattered when Kerry Garrison asked me to do an interview for his cameradojo podcast. Especially so since I was following in the footsteps of Scott Robert Lim, David Ziser and Syl Arena. My interview - taking your flash to the next level – is the conclusion in the cameradojo series dealing with flash photography and lighting.
You can listen to the interview on the web, or on iTunes.
And if anyone has questions .. you know how to find me. :)
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March 22, 2010
effective on-location portraits, with off-camera flash
When I photograph someone on location, I rely on a simple, yet effective method that will ensure that at the very least, I will get portraits that work. Looking at this method, step-by-step:
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March 19, 2010
pet photography
I had the pleasure challenge recently of photographing this super-cute Jack Russell terrier of clients of mine. Sundae just loves snow! So after one of the heavy snowstorms, we went to a park where I could photograph her acrobatically snatching at bits of snow hurled at her. She was very fast! Even with the Nikon D3 set to maximum burst rate of 9 frames-per-second, I could barely get 2 frames before she was back on the ground.
So there were a few challenges.
- I needed a responsive camera, and a lens that focuses fast. The Nikon D3 and the brand-new Nikon 70-200mm f2.8 AF-S VR II (B&H) took care of that. This lens is surprisingly fast to focus for such a large optic.
- I needed a very fast shutter speed, and enough depth-of-field. A few initial images showed that I was getting movement blur even at 1/2000th of a second. I therefore pushed up my ISO to 800, and settled on 1/8000 @ f5 for the majority of the photo session.
- focusing modes. With the D3 set to AF-C (continuous focus mode), and 51 AF points, I let the camera control most of the focusing for the session. For a few more static images, I did flip to AF-S mode to be sure of exact focus on her eyes.
- I was again surprised by my success rate. To compensate for how difficult it was to get a neatly composed shot of Sundae, I completely over-shot and had to wade through more than a thousand images to pick the best for my clients. Of those, about 250 were solid keepers, so it was tough to pare the selection down further to just give the best and most representative shots.
- exposure metering. The metering was actually the easiest part of the photo session …
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March 18, 2010
My entry this week for the Alive for 365 project, is another photo from the archives which I have posted here before.
Shot in Fujichrome transparency film, I had the window open on the WW2 vintage Junkers I was flying in. Because there was no window glass in the way, I could get a crisp photo of this DC3 following us. The golden glow to the photograph is actually the way it looked. The air pollution is more pronounced in winter due to the fires that burn on the Highveld of South Africa. And here we have the setting sun back-lighting the dust and air pollution particles. Combining all of that with the way that the late afternoon light flared on my lens, is where this photo got that beautiful warm look.
[ Pentax Z-1; Pentax-FA 28-105mm f4-5.6 // Johannesburg, South Africa // June '94 ]
And no, I don’t miss film. Really. I wish I had all my slide film captures as original digital captures. But that’s another discussion entirely.
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March 17, 2010
… is not necessarily quite what was there in the original scene.
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March 14, 2010
bounce flash and catch-lights in the eyes
When working indoors with surfaces that I can easily bounce my flash off,
the question that I always ask myself is:
If this had been a studio shoot, where would I place my softbox?
In a studio-type setup, you’d rarely place a softbox directly over someone’s head as a single light-source. There are two places to commonly place a softbox in the studio .. to left (and slightly above) or to the right (and slightly above) your subject. Which side of your subject is quite often dictated by how your subject is positioned. The simplest and most effective position is so that the light falls onto your subject’s face from the side opposite to the camera’s view. In other words, ‘short lighting’.
With this photo above, the lighting is pretty much just bounce flash, with a touch of available light registering. The boy is standing in front of someone wearing a very dark dress, hence the ‘black background’.
Now, looking at that photo, the large catchlights in his eyes should grab your attention immediately. How did I get those catchlights? The same way you would in a studio .. by the way you place your softbox. So in a way then, these kind of catchlights in your subject’s eyes are near-predictable if you bounce your flash with that softbox idea in mind.
Here I once again used the black foamie thing to shield direct flash from falling on him. I want indirect flash, and I want it directional and soft. Hence I bounce my flash towards the area I want my light to come from. That is how I ‘place’ my softbox. The key here is not to think of your flash as being your light source any more – instead, the area that you’re bouncing your flash off, is now your light source.
The catchlights in the eyes can also be seen in these examples:
- directional light from your on-camera flash,
- formal wedding portraits with bounce flash,
- portrait of Noreen at workshop in Cork, Ireland
- my choice of flash modifiers,
- directional bounce flash,
- the cutie.
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March 12, 2010
[ click on either image for larger version ]
bounce flash and direction of light
An aspect to flash photography that I frequently underline in the articles on this site, is that we need to carefully consider the direction of light from our flash when we bounce our flash. Sometimes we just need to bounce the flash behind us into the room to get soft light. But when we have multiple walls / surfaces we can bounce the flash off, then our choices become more interesting … especially when we do portraits.
This is Carly Erin, a delightful model that I photographed earlier this afternoon. You’ll be sure to see a few more images of her in the coming weeks.
What I wanted to show with these two images, is how the direction that I bounce the flash towards, has a fairly dramatic impact on the final image. I once again used the black foamie thing to shield my flash from directly illuminating my subject. I bounced my flash towards the area that I wanted my light to come from.
Lighting diagrams to show where I bounced my flash? Not this time. : )
Instead, look at the images, and look at the pattern of light and shade, and try and deduce from that where I had bounced my flash. It’s all there in the final images.
Similarly, the approximate camera and (TTL) flash settings and approximate focal length are clearly implied. More important than those relatively inconsequential details, is the direction of light.
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Comments (37)
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