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 …
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 …
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 …
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.
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 …
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 … (more…)
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 …
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 ..
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 …
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: