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Tangents

on-location portraits – the progression of an idea

August 26, 2010

on-location portraits – the progression of an idea

I had the pleasure of photographing musician Anne Drummond for her promotional portfolio.  (I also happen to be photographing her upcoming wedding.) The photo above is one in a progressive sequence of images, moving towards a final few photographs that will work in this setting here …

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direction of light & choice of background (part 2)

August 21, 2010

positioning your subject – direction of light & choice of background

Taking cover from the rain under this awning, we ended up in the same spot where I took this available light portrait of Anelisa previously.  Looking along the wall at the same angle, the black paint of the wall reflected the light from behind, completely changing the character of the background.  Since the available light was low level, and not flattering, we added some light from an off-camera flash in a softbox …

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direction of light & choice of background (part 1)

August 20, 2010

posing your subject – direction of light & choice of background

Reinforcing the ideas from a few previous posts,
we’re going to look at that intersect where everything comes together:
- direction of light,
- choice of background,
- posing your subject,
- positioning yourself.

When we work with our subject – whether a family member or a model or anyone we’re photographing – then we have the opportunity to control at least a few aspects to make the final photograph more successful …

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lens choice for wedding photography

August 18, 2010

wedding photography – choice of lenses

With this recent review of the Nikon 24mm f1.4 the question came up about which lenses I use when photographing a wedding, and how I use them.

How do you juggle the various lenses you have for weddings and decide which ones to bring to a wedding and when to use them? Do you carry them all and just use them when you feel, or do only take specific lenses knowing what the wedding/venue will be like and know in advance that you will certain lenses at various times during the day?

Choosing which lens to use while photographing a wedding, is obviously an extension of your own style. It affects how you want to portray your subject, or the scene, through choice of depth-of-field, perspective and angle of view … or even through some special effect, such as a fish-eye lens or tilt-shift lens.

While the specific lens you use for any shot might be motivated by stylistic choice, there are also practical matters that come into play.  Sometimes the lens I choose will simply be the one already on my camera.

I also like having a wide arsenal of lenses available to me to use.  There is a reassurance in this idea, that I have the best and fastest that is available.  I want any limitations that exist, to be my own as a photographer, not because of my equipment.

So here’s how I juggle lenses and cameras …

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tutorial: high-speed flash sync

August 2, 2010

high-speed flash sync / auto FP .. vs .. normal flash

There have been a number of questions about high-speed flash sync (HSS), and how it affects the output from your flash.  There were also some questions asked about high-speed flash sync with this recent post where we tried to reverse-engineer a photo.

I decided to do a series of comparison photos, so we can actually see what happens before, at and beyond maximum flash sync speed.  And we can also see what happens with high-speed flash sync. To do this, I set up very simple portrait lighting using a single speedlight and a large umbrella.  A simple white paper-roll backdrop, and our model, Rachel. Here is the setup in my dining room …

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looking for the light

July 31, 2010

photography technique – looking for great light

This afternoon I walked around the Princeton campus with a couple, Renee and David, looking for cool spots to photograph them.  I noticed the spread of light on a wall coming through an entrance way …
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flash & ambient light – reverse engineering an image (2)

July 27, 2010

My friend, Josh Lynn, just posted this spectacular wedding photograph.  It does look like he used flash there, so I thought this would make a another good example to see if we can ‘reverse engineer’ a photograph in terms of his settings and setup.

I first had a guess at how he set this up; and then had a look at the EXIF data, and this revealed the true story.  See if you can decipher this image yourself, without scrolling down at first …

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available light portrait (model – Anelisa)

July 22, 2010

photographing people – available light portrait

While 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 ..

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photographic composition – look at your background!

July 18, 2010

improve your composition in photography – be specific about your background

The 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 …


[ click on the photo to see a larger image ]

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photography questions & answers

June 30, 2010

photography questions & answers

Like pretty much anyone who maintains a site diligently, I check my webstats daily.  I want to know where traffic is coming from, and how people reach my site.  I need to know the referral sites. Of specific interest are the search phrases people use, and then end up on the Tangents blog.  To check what search phrases are used, I use Google Analytics and Woopra.  Woopra is an amazing real-time analytics program.  I can see the moment someone lands on my site, and could track their progress through my site in real time.  Right down to the screen resolution they’re using.  Astonishing.

But I digress. Looking at the search phrases used, I can see that some photographers are looking for a specific answer.  That answer might be hidden deeper down in an article; or might only be tangentially answered.  So I thought it might make for an interesting regular post where I directly answer some of those questions.

As an aside – Google absolutely dominates over Bing, Yahoo, AOL, Ask or anything else out there.  Google accounts for approximately 93% of all search engine traffic to my site. Yahoo makes it at about 4.5% of search engine traffic to this site, with Bing coming in third at 1.7%

btw … some people really really can’t spell.   I’ve seen every possible permutation of the word “aperture”.  And the word “flahs” isn’t actually spelled that way.

Okay … let’s look at some of the questions.  I selected 10 as a first post on this theme:

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