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September 30, 2010
David A Williams is one of those photographers who influences everyone who meets him. And I mean everyone. On the Digital Wedding Forum, he is one of the few photographer who gets unanimous praise for his workshops. Stating it blandly like that now, doesn’t quite describe the impact David has on the individual photographers who attend his workshop. The impact often extends past the work and art of the photographer, to the point where it can even affect your views on life. I know, it sounds dramatic, but that is as under-stated as I can manage to be about David.
So there it is – I would urge any photographer who wants to learn, to seek out David A Williams’ work and photography and writings, and if possible attend one of his workshops.
Back to this guest post by David: I was really honored when David offered to write the foreword to my book on flash photography. And I am just as thrilled that David has this guest spot on the Tangents blog today.
personal projects & personal photography
Something I’m often nagging on about, are that we as photographers should be doing private projects – something away from the normal work we all do.
This below image has been germinating away within me for years. It’s a photograph in the style of the ‘Glorification’ paintings, stained glass and mosaics popular after the First World War as memorial or evocative pieces.
The image is 30 inches square and printed onto canvas. As the machine gun in the picture was a fully operating model, I could not photograph at the studio without considerable clearances and permissions and guards, so it was made in between racks of clothes at the military supply area.
I blended the clothes using (I think) Dry Brush in PS and used various layers of normal and textured and desaturated to produce the final image and the cross in the background. Lots of the images and sculptures from that period had a certain ethereal them to them.
The frame was built by myself and my framer out of old fencing, topped with rusty wire. The bottom edges of the frame aren’t quite as clean cut as they seem….
The subject in real life is the brother of one of my brides who had the ‘right’ face that I was envisioning – again influenced mainly by the sculptures I had seen from the 1920′s.
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September 28, 2010
favorite wedding image of the weekend
Walking back to the reception venue from where we were photographing the bridal party, I saw this patch of grass. I knew it would make a great location for the couple with the setting sun in the background. Shooting into the sun though, I was nearly blinded by the bright light and sweat stinging my eyes – so I shot several continuous sequences while moving in the grass. This was to make sure I get at least a few clear images when I finally choose a selection of photographs for the couple.
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September 27, 2010
video light for photography – positioning the light
A light source like a video light is comparatively unforgiving when you look at how easy it is to get beautiful results with flash and a large soft box. The smaller light source (video light) needs to be positioned with more specific intent than the larger soft box.
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September 26, 2010
exposure metering – shifting your exposure settings
When shooting in consistent light, and I have a specific exposure setting that is correct – then changing settings to a an equivalent exposure is as easy as counting the clicks. These clicks on your digital camera – whether aperture, or shutter speed or ISO – change the exposure by 1/3rd of a stop. You can then simply count these up and down to get to an equivalent exposure with a different combination of settings.
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September 23, 2010
pin-up photography – white on white
I had the great pleasure last night of attending a meeting by the Hudson Valley Click – a lighting and photography group in the Hudson Valley area of NY. The motive behind their meetings and photo shoots is to bring photographers, models, makeup artists, hairstylists and fashion designers together on monthly themed events. All designed for learning and portfolio building.
My friend Peter Salo invited me to the 50′s style pin-up photography session that was held last night in Sandy O’Shea’s studio. (Sandy, thanks for allowing us to create havoc.) There were four models, and there were make-up artists and hair stylists.
Along with the photos of two of the models shown here, there is also this pull-back shot of how I set up the lighting for these images …
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September 22, 2010
pin-up style photo session – a hot day
Continuing on with the pin-up series with Jessica, we decided on the concept for this session as ‘A Hot Day’. Skimpy summer holiday clothing; ice cream; a fan (with the blades made whirly in Photoshop) .. and incongruously, one of my cats walking through the set, looking for attention …
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September 19, 2010
wedding day portraits – simplifying composition for effect
With this article I want to reinforce the idea from a few recent posts about being very specific about your composition. By simplifying the image, we have greater impact. We include only what we need to include in the frame to enhance it. Just as important, is what we exclude:
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September 17, 2010
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Please take note – as of Oct 19, Facebook has changed things on us again, removing the obscure link that I mention in this post. So it doesn’t work this way anymore. We’ll just have to wait and see where and when it resurfaces again.
I’m leaving this post up, since there is an interesting discussion on displaying photographs on Facebook, and possible issues this may raise for photographers.
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Facebook tips – checking recent comments
Some will already know this, but in telling a few friends about this, none knew about this … so I’d like to share it here. Also, Facebook keeps changing things on us, so it is quite likely then that many Facebook users haven’t noticed this yet.
If you have a Facebook fan page for your photography (or any other subject really), people can leave comments to the photographs. But quite often it will be a comment on a photograph posted a few weeks or months back. It’s an impossible task to trawl through them all every time and make sure you’ve replied to those you need to reply to. I try to be diligent about it, and always make an effort to reply where necessary.
Then a few weeks ago I noticed a neat little link on the FB fan page … when you click on the Photos tab, you will see a link that says “view comments”. When you click on this, then you will see a list of photos with their comments, ordered by the date the latest comment was made.
An easy way to catch up every day or so with new comments, and keeping a conversation going with your audience / clients.
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September 15, 2010
By now everyone is well clued up about the iPad:
- its capabilities – that it is a ‘game-changer’
- the iPad’s popularity – selling one every 3 seconds in the first three months!
- the iPad’s wonderful display – just look at it. Images just pop off the screen.
- that it is like an oversized iPhone, but without the phone or a camera.
- the Pad’s limitations – that it seemed to have been designed with consumption of media in mind, rather than creation.
the iPad – not quite a review
So this is not quite a review on the iPad. That would be fairly redundant now, 5 months after release. Rather, this is some of the experience of using the iPad as a photographer’s tool.
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September 14, 2010
The final workshop for the year took place this week – the first day again located in Jersey City, with a spectacular view of Manhattan. The second day had a smaller group of photographers practicing on-location lighting techniques in Manhattan.
This striking image of Catherine, our model at the Monday workshop, was taken as a storm was slowly sweeping in. The background was intentionally under-exposed like this to give a dramatic quality to the final image. The light on her was from a softbox, placed to the camera right, and fairly high …
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