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Tangentsavailable light portrait (model – Anelisa)July 22, 2010
photographing people – available light portraitWhile unloading lighting gear from the van to shoot a last few images for a certain section for my next book, I turned around and noticed the way the light fell on Anelisa. Beautiful portrait light. The (cropped) pull-back shot will show why ..
photographic composition – look at your background!July 18, 2010
improve your composition in photography – be specific about your backgroundThe impact in this photo of Jessica relies equally on her looks and pose, the lighting, and the background. The background was very specifically chosen by how *I* position myself in relation to my subject. The background was out of focus neon lights in Times Square. I composed the photo very tightly with a 70-200mm lens, set to 200mm. With this, I can select exactly what I want to include in the image. For comparison, here is the wider shot, so you can get an idea of the mélange we had as a background …
Filed under: composition,flash photography,general photography,off-camera flash,technique — Neil vN @ 6:08 pm
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alive for 365 – week 23June 17, 2010
Green Point Lighthouse is the oldest Lighthouse in South Africa. I liked this juxtaposition of the older colourful lighthouse, against the drab blocky modern building. The tight composition reduced the urban landscape to geometric patterns. This was shot on slide film (Fuji RDP 100) at sunset, hence the bold golden colours. This photo is my entry this week in the Alive for 365 project. Nikon F90x; Nikon 80-200mm f2.8D // Cape Town, South Africa; ca. 1998
composition – framing the shotJune 4, 2010
composition in photography – framing the shotIn composing a photograph, what you exclude from the frame, is as important as what you include. With this portrait of Anelisa, I noticed that at this angle, the light reflecting off the black-painted wall created a warm glow of light behind her. With the receding lines of the bricks, I immediately composed the photo to exclude everything but our model and the specific background. A very specific background. Looking at the edges of the camera’s viewfinder, I eliminated everything that could distract or didn’t add to the image, such as the shop fronts in the background. (This image could perhaps still be tightened up with a minor crop in the edit. But this is the full frame as I had it in the camera, so I had to go with the usual 2:3 ratio.) The lighting? Just the sunlight reflecting off the sidewalk that flooded the area with warm soft light.
photographic composition in editing ..May 26, 2010
composition in photographyIn composing an image, it isn’t just a matter of placing your subject somewhere in the frame. This is true for whether you go by the rigid restrictions of the Rule of Thirds, or whether you like a more central composition .. or a composition with a lot of negative space .. or whether composition is more in the way you instinctively react to the scene and subject in front of you. Equally as important as where you place your subject, is what you include and what you exclude in the frame. With photographic composition you have to look at the edges of your frame. I really prefer getting it right in camera – composing for that 3:2 ratio. But it isn’t always possible. Sometimes a different crop works better .. say a square crop. With this image of our model, Catherine, standing inside this massive sundial, it made visual sense to use the shape of the sundial to dictate what the final composition should be. (This was photo taken during the most recent workshop on flash photography So let’s look at what was excluded in the crop …
Filed under: composition,flash photography,lighting,models,technique,workshops & seminars — Neil vN @ 11:34 am
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effective on-location portraits .. (model – Anelisa)March 22, 2010
effective on-location portraits, with off-camera flashWhen 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:
Filed under: composition,flash photography,general photography,lighting,models,photo shoot — Neil vN @ 4:59 am
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alive for 365 – week 8February 25, 2010
This enigmatic image of the courtyard behind the Palais Royal in Paris, I was captivated by the architectural art, and waited quite a while until ‘something’ happened. This was in the days of still shooting transparency film, and not digital where you can shoot something near endlessly. I had to wait for the shot … and when these two women walked across the frame, I waited until the moment when I felt they were in just the right spot. For me, in this photograph they are visually in a position where your eye follows the lines in the frame. If they had been in a different place such as between the rows of striped pillars stumps, then your eye would’ve stopped there. Instead your eye now roams across the image.
Filed under: alive for 365,composition — Neil vN @ 3:26 pm
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quintessentially inappropriateMarch 1, 2009Some sayings in photography are thrown out there so often that they’ve achieved a life of their own, and become truisms that are summarily accepted and then perpetuated. Actually, I was going to name this post clichés in photography, but that would imply visual clichés. But tastes differ too widely, and I wouldn’t want to be the Style Police and dictate to other photographers which subjects and approaches are deemed cool. Besides, I think the world could always use more photos of pretty girls sitting on train tracks. So here they are – things that make me grind my teeth: 1. ”you have to know the rules to break the rules” And here’s why … (more…)
tilted compositionsMay 31, 2007
I am not a huge fan of tilted images, and I see it as an unfortunate visual ‘tic’ when I notice entire wedding galleries by other photographers where pretty much all the images are tilted at a very specific angle. That just means that little thought went into composition, and that composition and holding the camera has become a reflex action .. which just happens to include a 30′ tilt to the camera. I tend to keep horisontal and vertical lines exactly that way … horisontal or vertical. But sometimes a tilted image just has more impact than one that is completely level. And it has been a “feel” thing for me. I never bothered to analyse why or when these images seemed to work better, since I have an aversion to over-intellectualised analysis of photography … and in this case composition. I feel that composition should be an instinctive reaction to the scene and subject.
Filed under: composition,technique — Neil vN @ 6:11 am
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a composition guideline
Problems with composition … Also, focusing screens of manual focus SLRs have the split-image prism or microprisms in the centre. Most auto-focus cameras also focus on whatever subject is placed in the middle, although the current generation of top-end auto-focus cameras have multi-zone focusing. Inevitably most camera users photograph their subjects that way – looking at the main subject, dead center of the frame – with disappointing results.
Filed under: composition,technique — Neil vN @ 5:45 am
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