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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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photo-shoot – a change in plans

August 22, 2010

progression of an idea during a photo-session

This post was going to be something entirely different – a mini-rewiew of an Elinchrom Ranger Quadra Set that I got hold of to try out.  But a key part was missing.  Without the Skyport that allows you to control the output of the unit from the camera itself, a review would be less useful. Having booked Priscilla as our model already, and my friend Richard along to assist, we decided to just go ahead and have fun with a photo-shoot anyway …

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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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sequence: setting up the lighting at a photo shoot

August 6, 2010

analysis of the lighting setup during a photo shoot

The photo above of Jessica, my assistant, shows the final lighting setup during a recent commercial shoot.  I had to photograph various people at a medical technology imaging company for use on their website and promotional material.  I had to show some of the workplace, but put the accent on the person I am photographing.

Of course, it is much easier to work with my assistant, and do test shots and changes in the setup beforehand.  Then we can change the lights and anything else we need to, until we’re happy with the results.  Then only do we call in the people we are actually photographing, and place them in position.

With this post I want to show the thought process in setting up the lighting for this photo.  There were a couple of dead ends, and a couple of adjustments as we went along …

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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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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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using a neutral density (ND) filter with flash

July 16, 2010

using neutral density (ND) filters with flash to control depth of field

Working in bright light, the limitation of having a maximum flash sync speed forces a small aperture on us.  That small aperture means more depth of field than we might like.

There are two ways to force a high shutter speed / wide aperture combination:
- go to high speed sync (HSS) mode. But this dramatically cuts down our power of our flash;
- use a neutral density (ND) filter …

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overpowering hard sunlight with flash

July 14, 2010

For this part of a photo session with Johannie, we worked in an alley.  The light was very uneven, with some swathes of sunlight falling directly on her.  (See the image below for the photo without flash.)  To get rid of this uneven sunlight falling on her, we have to add at least as much light on her as the brightest areas lit by sunlight. In the example above, our exposure is set to 1/250 @ f13 @ 200 ISO and we can see from the bright patch of light on her shoulder, that we’re at the edge of acceptable exposure. Any wider on our aperture, or higher on our ISO or slower on our shutter speed, and we’ll start to lose detail in the sunlit areas.

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photo session – Modern Gypsies – Bird Girl

July 7, 2010

Before we went in to Times Square with the Modern Gypsies, we did a quick portrait session with one of the Modern Gypsies performers, Bird Girl …

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