a rainy-day wedding

A lighting strike in the background as a groomsman makes a mad dash across the rain-soaked path … this about sums up the weather we had on Saturday’s wedding. What you can’t see in this image is his umbrella being pulled away from him by the gusting wind.

Here is the shot I was aiming for when I got that lighting strike in the frame …

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Filed under: wedding photography — Tags: wedding photography — Neil vN @ 11:45 pm

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finding something to bounce your flash off …

April 15, 2011

finding something to bounce your flash off

One of the frequent questions that come up, is what to do when there is nothing to bounce your flash off. When working indoors and there are bounce-able surfaces around me, my first instinct is to use on-camera bounce flash. It is easy to use, and the results can look surprisingly good, especially if you consider the minimal effort that went into it. No extra gear to carry around and set up. But when there is nothing to bounce flash off, you have to adapt your technique …

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Filed under: flash photography,posing,technique,wedding photography — Tags: bounce flash photography, bounce flash technique, flash photography, New Jersey wedding photographer, wedding photography — Neil vN @ 8:18 pm

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New to flash photography? Where to even start …

April 12, 2011

New to flash photography? Where to even start …

In preparing the material for the just-completed webinar, Don’t Fear Your Flash, I had given some thought to where I should start with the material. Flash photography on one level is so simple once you “get it” … but from the outside, it can look intimidating and complex. I feel that flash photography is one of those subjects which start to make sense once you grasp a bunch-of-things simultaneously. But how to explain it all at once so that it makes sense?

So I wondered about where exactly I should start the material for the webinar. What should I start a seminar with when I have a 90 minute time limit? Camera settings? Aperture, ISO and shutter speed settings? Manual flash vs TTL flash? Metering for flash and ambient light?

During a test run with the Clickin Moms team who had arranged and hosted the webinar, I had to check voice levels, and was told to say something. I just started riffing on the idea of starting the webinar … and as I said, “where do we even start?” to the imagined audience, it hit me .. that’s exactly what we need to do. We just have to start. We just have to take those first photos!

We can spend too much time caught up in first trying to understand all the technical aspects and all the nuances of lighting. We can be too intimidated by all that to actually use a flash … when all we need to do as a start, is to actually start using the flash!

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Filed under: flash photography,general photography,technique — Tags: flash photography, flash photography tips, flash photography tutorial, how to bounce flash — Neil vN @ 11:40 pm

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recent personal work – Manhattan cityscapes

April 11, 2011

personal work – Manhattan cityscapes

It’s been a long cold winter without much chance to roam around and explore with a camera. The past weekend it seemed like the weather was finally relenting and becoming warmer. Taking to the streets to shoot for myself a bit with no purpose in mind, I ended up with three images that I liked – all deserted New York city scenes. Or in the case of the image above, nearly deserted.

It felt good to let my thoughts roam for a while, getting some exercise and listening to music … looking for anything that visually appealed to me in the camera’s viewfinder.

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Filed under: digital imaging,journeys,landscapes,personal work,Photoshop — Neil vN @ 11:45 pm

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19 questions – an interview with Neil vN

April 9, 2011

19 questions – an interview with Neil vN

If ever you’ve been curious about things such as: if I could, which photographer I would love to shoot alongside with … well, now the mystery is revealed.

As an introduction to the upcoming flash photography webinar, the Clickin Moms group had an email interview with me, wherein I answered nineteen questions. Why nineteen? I have no idea.

But there they are:
19 Questions with Neil van Niekerk

Filed under: interview with NvN,news — Neil vN @ 11:37 pm

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photo session: a lazy afternoon

April 8, 2011

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Filed under: models,personal work,photo shoot,video light — Neil vN @ 9:05 pm

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on a photo shoot with fashion photographer, Angie Lazaro

April 7, 2011

It’s a great pleasure to present this guest spot by Angie Lazaro – a good friend from way back in South Africa. Angie is a fashion photographer in Cape Town. Angie and I became friends at a time when I was still finding my way as a photographer, doing all kinds of freelance photo shoots … and she was still a photography student at a university in South Africa. We’ve both come a long way from those lunch-time conversations at the Full Stop café in Melville, Johannesburg .. and I doubt either of us could’ve imagined where we’d end up over time.

So I really am thrilled to present Angie now where she describes the setup of two photographs during a recent photo session in Cape Town …

on a photo shoot – decisions, lighting, tweaking, ka-boom!

by Angie Lazaro

The two photographs shown here are from a series I shot for a magazine fashion editorial (Top Billing Magazine). The location is a new trendy hotel in the heart of Cape Town – the venue suited my needs in that it had great décor interest and enough space to work and move without disturbing the guests too much. The clothing was about using basics, such as the white t-shirt and classic white shirt whilst making it very fashionable in different combinations. During the first shot we realized the model needed a stronger look, the make-up artist added a fringe which suited the style and overall feel we wanted to achieve. A shoot is all about team work …

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Filed under: flash photography,guest spot,photo shoot — Neil vN @ 1:51 am

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webinar: don’t fear your flash

April 6, 2011

The webcam seminar that I presented on April 12, 2011 – Don’t Fear Your Flash!
is now available for download from the ClickinMoms website, as a 112 minute movie file.

The price: $30.00 – purchase & download via the CM site.

In conjunction with the Clickin Moms forums, I will be presenting a webinar next week, Tuesday April 12th on the topic of flash photography, centered around the idea of getting great results from bounce flash photography.

Clickin Moms is a booming but close-knit community of over 8000 members. 65% of their members are professional photographers, and 35% are either aspiring professionals or passionate hobbyists. What they all share is a commitment to honing the craft in order to deliver extraordinary images for their clients, beautifully capture the lives of their own children, produce works of fine art, or engage in creative self expression.

program description:

A photo session is often a rushed, fast moving event with less than ideal light. But that doesn’t mean you can’t have great light indoors that approaches studio-quality lighting. Join Neil as he explains the techniques to create beautiful images while working fast, yet still getting exceptional results from equipment you already have – your on-camera speedlight.

This is a 90 minute webinar that includes live demonstrations, supplemental images shared on-screen, and interactive Q&A between Neil and audience members throughout the presentation.

when: Tuesday, April 12 at 1:00pm EST (USA)

cost: $30 to watch the live webinar

CM members sign up here.
Non-members sign up here.

After you make your purchase, you will receive a follow-up email containing information about claiming your seat in the live audience. Webinar seats are nonrefundable and nontransferable.

System Requirements:
PC-based attendees - required: Windows® 7, Vista, XP or 2003 Server
Macintosh®-based attendees – required: Mac OS® X 10.4.11 (Tiger®) or newer

follow-up articles:

- New to flash photography? Where to even start …

Filed under: news,seminars & workshops — Neil vN @ 12:49 am

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portrait session – Steinway pianist

April 5, 2011

portrait session – Steinway pianist

I had the opportunity recently of photographing Robert Wyatt, a pianist affiliated with Steinway, at the Steinway offices in New York. This photo was taken as we were set to leave after the photo session was already done. I was immediately drawn to the symmetry of the architecture and the lavish foyer below. The pose and framing was deliberately centered.

For this lighting setup, I quickly pulled out the Lastolite softbox again, and used it as a single light source. It was all that was needed for a simple portrait here. But earlier on, for the actual photo session with Robert, I used multiple off-camera speedlights and different light modifiers to get portraits with impact …

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Filed under: flash photography,off-camera flash,photo shoot,portraits — Tags: multiple off-camera flash, PocketWizard FlexTT5 — Neil vN @ 4:40 am

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