|
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.
(more…)
Comments (6)
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!
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?
(more…)
Comments (10)
April 19, 2011
Last year this time, Stephanie Zettl, a more-than-occasional guest on Tangents, wrote an article with instructions on how to turn your D-SLR into a digital pinhole camera. The article was quite successful in that Gizmodo USA, Japan and Australia referenced the article! Well, Stephane is back with a follow-up article. Stephanie is one of the top wedding photographers in St Louis, MO.
digital pinhole photography day
I know what you were thinking. You were worried that we would forget World Pinhole Photography Day. But fear not!
For those of you that want to put it on your calendar, World Pinhole Photography Day is the last Sunday of April. It will take place on April 29th in 2012.
(more…)
Comments (5)
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!
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 …
(more…)
Comments (10)
March 10, 2011
I am super-thrilled to have Frank Doorhof as a guest writer on Tangents. Frank is a highly regarded Fashion photographer based in The Netherlands, whom I had the pleasure of meeting last year. We hung out the one afternoon, photographing a model in Coney Island. What I found particularly interesting, is how our approach to using flash and ambient light differ. Distinct styles and techniques. Quite an inspiring afternoon.
Please note: with this blog post, the images aren’t illustrative of any particular part of the writing, but are there to showcase some of Frank’s work.
And with that, here’s Frank …
on learning the essentials of photography
by Frank Doorhof
I met Neil during my trip to New York where I was going to teach a 3 days workshop. Before the workshops I was having a lot of fun with Neil during an impromptu photo-shoot that was arranged by a mutual friend of ours – thank you Richard! – and found Neil to be a lot of fun although he did scare the living you know what out of me when he stopped his car in the middle of the road to remove a piece of paper from the windshield, however I though he was getting out of the car to get into a fight with a very obnoxious driver behind us…. Yeah Neil I still wake up at night screaming about that one!
When I was asked to write a guest post for Neil’s blog, I was thinking very hard about the subject. Neil already has some nice tips and articles on lighting online so adding to that would be just adding something that’s probably already there, so I decided to do it little bit differently …
(more…)
Comments (9)
February 10, 2011
For the second in a series of three articles on wedding album design, we have Stephanie Zettl, who is fast establishing herself as one of the best wedding photographers in St Louis.
the other related article is:
elegant & profitable wedding albums, by Fundy
why create a wedding album?
Ever since I started my business I have always included an album in our collections. Occasionally we will produce the rare “shoot & burn” but I really try to shy away from them. (Shoot and Burns are when you only deliver the digital images on a disc – no prints or albums are provided)
I believe an album should be provided with all collections because we are all losing a bit of our photographic legacy as images get achieved into the dark recesses of our hard drives. Having access to digital files is important. Sharing photos on facebook and your iPhone gives people a lot of pleasure and is a good thing.
But there also needs to be a hard copy that will survive the internet and the computer upgrades. There needs to be something that the bride and groom can touch and feel and show future generations. There needs to be something that will survive and create their personal legacy. I truly believe that people deserve good photographs and albums that their children and grandchildren will be able to appreciate.
(more…)
Comments (10)
February 9, 2011
Albums can be one of the largest profit centers for both wedding and portrait photography, or it can be a logistical nightmare, overloading even the most dedicated photographer. Digital albums can be both a blessing and a curse. We are free to design whatever we or the client wants, but we are also the design studio.
As the first in a series of articles on wedding album design, we have Andrew “Fundy” Funderburg starting us off with some ideas on helping you increase profits and decrease your work load in an ever difficult business climate.
Elegant, profitable wedding albums
© Finao Albums
Clean and Simple Sells
When digital albums first came out, everyone jumped to put as many flurries, borders and backgrounds as we could on the page. It was natural, some of these things were cool, some of them were painful to look at. The end result was simply, we were spending a lot of time designing busy-looking albums.
(more…)
Comments (10)
January 26, 2011
The release of the Nikon version of the PocketWizard MiniTT1 and FlexTT5 has been so slow that you’d think interest would wane .. but they are finally hitting the market, and interest is quite keen. Everyone is hopeful that the Nikon version won’t be plagued with RF interference problems like the Canon 580EX speedlights have been. Initial reports are very favorable though!
Stephanie Zettl, a wedding photographer in St Louis, who has written guest spots for us before, managed to get hold of an early release of the new PocketWizard units. Here is her initial test report. I might add, her review here is more subdued than how she gushed over the phone about how easy the pocketwizards were to use! I hope to get hold of a set soon, and will follow up with my own review, but in the meantime, here are Stephanie’s observations …
initial review – PocketWizard MiniTT1 & FlexTT5 (for Nikon)
Using off camera flash is an excellent way to add drama and dimension to your photos. As Neil has explained in other posts, it’s not that difficult to use once you know the basics. Some of the main points are placing the light properly and being able to successfully trigger it.
You can trigger the OCF with several different methods, including the flashes built in wireless system or external radio triggers. However, the biggest challenge I find many photographers have in working with their off camera flashes is getting the flashes to fire properly and at the correct power. Perhaps you too have had issues with misfires or having to spend a fair amount of time adjusting the power output. This is why I am personally excited about a new product from Pocket Wizards.
As a Nikon user, I am generally happy with the advanced wireless lighting mode for their flashes. As part of the Creative Lighting System (CLS), it allows you to use multiple flashes wirelessly and control their output from an on camera commander or master flash. I work with the sb-900 flashes and I find that the i-TTL system works very well in the wireless mode. The i-TTL is accurate and consistent. The only draw back is that the sensor on the off camera flash needs to be visible to the on camera commander or master flash unit. I’ll get the occasional misfire. (This is a limitation with all infrared systems.) It’s important to pay attention that the OCF sensor is pointing in the direction of the master. A step in one direction or another can impair visibility and how the flashes communicate with each other, which can lead to the OCF not firing.
For most of my work, the limitation of line of sight visibility is not a problem. However, as I’ve gotten more advanced in my lighting set ups, I’ve found that I have wanted to put flashes in location where the OCF sensor is not visible to the master. This lead me to purchasing a set of Pocket Wizards Plus II tranceivers. The Pocket Wizards are an industry standard when it comes to consistent, reliable radio triggers. Because the units work on radio waves instead of line of sight infrared technology, it means the flashes can be fired from behind walls (or other objects) and have a range of about 500 meters.
The downside to the older Pocket Wizard units is that they do not control flash output. They only trigger the flash. You have to work in manual mode and be very careful with the metering. Another draw back is their max flash sync speed is 1/250 of a second. And personally, I think the unit is a bit large and don’t like having to connect the trigger to my flash with a miniphone jack.
This is why Pocket Wizard’s new MiniTT1 and FlexTT5 for Nikon is such a welcome piece of equipment. It combines all the strengths of both systems into one …
(more…)
Comments (47)
December 13, 2010
My friend Chuck Arlund is a Fashion Photographer whose elegant photography is something I always admire. Chuck’s previous guest spots here have been well received. His article on simple on-location lighting techniques using a reflector & flash, was especially popular. Therefore I’m really glad that Chuck is graciously sharing with us how he came to shoot this stunning photograph for Parasuco.
Do check out Chuck’s website and blog for more of his stunning photography.
Fashion photo shoot, using multiple lights
Hey there everyone! I have been working with a celebrity stylist and we have shot a few fun projects together. Just for our books. She uses Parasuco a lot for her clients, like Bon Jovi. One of the images we shot was pretty cool of the model wearing some of their jeans. She sent it to them to show what she was doing. They loved it.
A few weeks later the MUA of the original shoot wanted to do some beauty shots. Parasuco had sent some stuff to the stylist for us to shoot and see how it looked. During the beauty shoot we did some shots for Parasuco. After I had processed a few we sent them to the company. They really loved them and ended up purchasing a year license to use this image. It will be a billboard in the airport in Berlin and trade show magazine adverts.
Here is the tutorial explaining the setup for this shot. I used multiple lights …
(more…)
Filed under: flash photography, guest spot, lighting, models, photo shoot, studio photography, style — Tags: fashion shoot, flash photography, lighting setup, multiple lighting setup, studio photography — Neil vN @ 9:03 am
December 8, 2010
We have a winner for the contest we had last week, where we had to reverse-engineer the lighting in a photograph. I’ll be contacting the winner who will shortly receive a $50 B&H gift voucher. Thank you everyone for vigorously participating!
Here is Josh Lynn to explain what he did for the lighting in the contest image, of which the photo above is the wider shot. This photo reveals more of the one light source. …
(more…)
Comments (12)
« Newer Posts — Older Posts »
|
|
