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May 31, 2011
the next step – going beyond just posing people
With the recent post on a few guidelines on posing people, I wanted to add the reminder that when photographing people, our final destination isn’t just the posed photograph, but that we should try and capture something about our subject. Something about their personality, or showing some facet of who they are and their lives.
When photographing couples in particular, my accent is on photographing their relationship as well. In addition to the portraits of the couple, I want to show how they interact with each other – playfulness and intimacy. We need to create images which have emotional impact – images that have some resonance with their friends and family when they view them.
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May 29, 2011
how to pose normal, everyday people for portraits
When you work with models, or subjects who are used to presenting themselves to the camera or an audience, it is much easier for the photographer to pose them. The challenge though is how to pose people who aren’t used to pose in front of the camera. Then it is up to the photographer to guide them, and give clear instruction how they should pose for the camera. The question just came up in the Tangents forum - how to pose everyday normal people.
The photograph above is of me (taken by Stephanie Zettl), as I was showing a model at the After Dark photography workshops how I wanted her to pose. Now you may well say that I was showing a model how to pose, and not an inexperienced subject … and some may even say that I am hardly ‘everyday’ or ‘normal’. However that may be, this image neatly underlines my advice on posing.
You need to be able to show your subjects how you want them to pose.
If you’re working with subjects who aren’t used to the camera, then you absolutely need to be able to show them what you want them to do – how to position their feet, their hands, their body and head. Just vaguely pointing, with vague verbal instructions just won’t get you as far as physically showing them.
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May 25, 2011
video clip – using LED video light for photography
Regular visitors to the this website will know that I favor video lights for dramatic portraits. The what-you-see-is-what-you-get nature of it, makes it really easy to get interesting light on your subjects. But it does need some finessing in how you position it for portraits.
Meeting up with Anelisa, one of my favorite models, Jessica and I created this video clip to show exactly how I use the video light for portraits. It also explains my starting point in choosing the direction of light, and also shows how I direct Anelisa during the shoot.
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May 24, 2011
photography – create emotional impact!
While in Cincinnati recently, attending the After Dark photography convention, I walked past Tiffany’s on the way to the restaurants. I was immediately drawn to their window displays. Now, I am usually drawn to displays of high-tech toys and cameras and stuff … not displays of jewelry stores. But these window displays were eye-catching and effective. It made me stop to take a closer look.
The photograph above is of one of the six display windows. And it should be immediately obvious why these simple displays have such impact – there is a very clear appeal to your emotions.
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May 23, 2011
wedding photography – a photo-journalistic style … or more posed?
A photographer who attended the recent flash photography workshop here in New York, asked me an interesting question regarding my wedding photography style. His observation was about how I seemed to consistently get such well-timed un-posed and natural looking images with my wedding photography. Since my explanation seemed to surprise him, and even bordered on being a real aha! moment for him, I thought it could serve as an article here which might interest other wedding photographers.
When asked by photographers about my style of wedding photography, I like to reply that I don’t quite subscribe to the purist photojournalism, nor the traditionalist style. I think my approach is more along the lines of get-the-job-done-alism.
Instead of subscribing rigidly to a defined style, I’m there to give the bride and groom the best photographs I can on the day. And for this, my approach has to be flexible …
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May 21, 2011
using a macro lens for a photo session of a newborn
I had the pleasure of photographing the newborn baby of Jen and David recently. (David regularly follows the Tangents blog!) Aside from photographing the proud parents with their little one, I also needed to get detail photos of the baby.
With detail images, you see even more clearly just how small this newborn baby is, when you show the scale. A tiny hand clasping a finger. Tiny toes gently flexing against her mother’s hand.
For this, a macro lens is an essential part of my camera bag …
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May 20, 2011
off-camera TTL flash
This image of Amy, one of our models at the Treehaven workshops, came up for discussion with the group of attendees. As a straight-forward on location portrait using off-camera flash, it is ideal for an overview again of how easy the ambient & flash exposure metering is.
The basic approach with this portrait was to expose for the ambient light in the background, making sure our subject is somewhat under-exposed … and then to add off-camera flash with a softbox. The first question that came up was – how did I meter for the ambient light?
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May 17, 2011
high-end wedding album designs
in three simple steps
Album design can be one of the most time consuming parts of running a wedding photography. “How to design a wedding album,” is often one of the first questions that a beginning a wedding photographer asks. And “how can I design albums better and faster,” is a question that seasoned wedding photographers often ask themselves over and over.
Don’t get me wrong, designing an album will always take a fair amount of time. It is one of the most expensive items in a wedding studio and also is the one that will last the longest. Albums are the single most durable photo product around. Prints in albums last many times longer than prints or canvases hanging on the wall. Every time I see a wedding album I imagine it being found in a trunk 100 years from now by a great great grandchild and the look on their faces as they see their long lost relative. They’ll see how young they look, how vibrant and alive they were and it will spark that moment of seeing themselves as something bigger than just their own life.
© Frank Salas – Orange County Wedding Photographer
It’s evident how important wedding albums are. But, it’s also clear that we can’t, as a business, spend all day designing a wedding album. It just isn’t profitable. We can’t spend hours upon hours designing every album. If we did, we wouldn’t be able to take care of our own families. Let me share with you three easy steps that will help you not only design better albums, but design them faster and design them to stand the test of time.
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May 15, 2011
At the recent After Dark workshop series in Cincinnati, my friend Stephanie Zettl surprised me with an image she showed on the back of her D700. She was hyper about it. Really excited. When she explained to me how she shot this, my reaction was, “holy macaroni!” What fascinated me was how she combined in a single image, the world’s oldest camera – the camera obscura, with what is arguably the most technologically advanced camera you can get – the iPhone. But I don’t want to steal from the impact of what she created. Just check the resulting image, and then read the description of how she did this. You just have to be impressed with such ingenuity!
Stephanie, a frequent guest here, is one of the top wedding photographers in St Louis, MO
a nude photographed in a Camera Obscura and lit by an iPhone
Some ideas and concepts come to you instantly, as if struck by a bolt of lighting. Other ideas come to you gradually, building and morphing from past experiences and research.
A few weeks ago I wrote about my experience of building a digital pinhole camera for Worldwide Pinhole Photography Day. The most common response I got from it was “why?”
It’s a fair question. Why do I want to stick a body cap with a hole in it on a very expensive camera and take fuzzy mediocre photos with it?
I personally thought it would be an interesting little Sunday afternoon project that would be reminiscent of the shoe box cameras we made in school. It would be a relatively cheap project (cost of a lens cap and a can of Coke) and I would be able to say I did it – instead of just surfing the internet or watching television and doing nothing productive.
But what I didn’t expect is that I would get curious about the process and start researching about simple cameras and optics. In my research I came across images created by turning hotel rooms into camera obscuras. Camera obscura literally means “darkened chamber” and it is a device used to project an image onto a screen or the wall of a room, by using either a lens or a pinhole. (For more information on camera obscuras, check out the Wikipedia article on the subject.)
The wheels in my head started turning. It would be interesting to turn a hotel room into a camera obsura and project a cityscape on to the wall. What if I photographed a model inside the camera obscura? How far could I develop this theme? What could I create?
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May 14, 2011
After Dark photography education – Cincinnati, OH
In an earlier post I mentioned how impressed I was with After Dark’s workshops & seminar series in Las Vegas. I was invited by Dave Junion to teach at the Cincinnati venue this past week as one of the Mentors. I presented 4 seminars and shooting sessions, and another impromptu demonstration late the one night. It was exhilarating and energizing to be a part of it.
After Dark has a certain structure – 10 areas / pods set up for seminar presentations; and 10 studio bays set up where Mentors can teach in a direct hands-on manner. But all this doesn’t really describe the easy-going flow of activity and learning and sharing that goes on. In that earlier post I described After Dark as ‘controlled anarchy‘. And that is what makes it so unique. You can move around between presentations and shoots, and learn from anyone. You can even ask any of the Mentors or attendees to help you. It’s an incredibly supportive and nourishing environment for any photographer.
Just as cool is that there are studio bays that are open, which might not be busy at any point. You can then mark down that you want to spend some time there. You also get the opportunity to play with a huge variety of lighting gear. You can play around on your own, or have someone help you. You can make mistakes. You don’t have to impress anyone. You just have to learn and have fun with it all …
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