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May 20, 2012
lighting for on-location photo sessions – pick your battles
When doing a photo session with a couple on location, I mix up the lighting often. With some photo sessions I may:
- shoot available light only;
- or I may decide with a photo session to use direct on-camera flash,
with some sequences available light only; or
- with some photo sessions I use off-camera flash with a softbox,
with some sequences just the available light.
Even in varying the way I may use the available light and flash, I still aim to have a consistent look to it all. My specific style has to be apparent. Or perhaps, in the way that I work, my style becomes apparent. The one way that I help make things easier for myself, and remain consistent, is that in working with the available light; or working with the available light and flash (both on-camera and off-camera) … I pick my battles. I don’t try and make *everything* work. Rather, I specifically choose where I pose a couple, or what I have as the background. All of this in relation to the existing light and my flash.
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April 11, 2012
photographing in bright sunlight – find the shade!
Hard sunlight must be one of the most difficult lighting scenarios to work under. But with a bit of thought, we can work around it and still easily get photos that look great. It’s a topic that we’ve touched on a number of times on the Tangents blog, (see related articles at the end here). The simplest approach for me though, is where I can, is to just not deal with the hard sunlight. I find shade.
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March 28, 2012
my top 5 tips on shooting engagement photo sessions
I love doing engagement photo sessions because this allows me the opportunity to connect with my clients before their big day. Even more so, in that there’s much less pressure and haste during this photo session than there’d be during the wedding day.
The engagement photo session is also a good opportunity to impress your clients with your photography. They did sign with you because they liked your style, but it’s even better when they love the photos you took of them. Time to shine.
Their friends and family will also be impressed – and this helps me when I walk into the bride’s house on the wedding day. Instead of being “the photographer”, and a rather anonymous one, I now get this response from the bridesmaids when I start: “Oh, you’re the photographer that took those photos! We love them! They are amazing!” With that then, I’ve already won over a large part of the bridal party, and I’ll have their friendly cooperation.
Also, on the wedding day, there is a great chance that things will start to run late. However, the wedding reception will start on time. So the time that gets compressed, will inevitably be the time you have as a photographer. It just makes your life easier then, if the couple has already spent time with you and have a feel for how to work with you during the romantic portrait session, and photographs of the bridal party.
There are so many advantages to doing the engagement photo session. Here are my top 5 tips for a successful photo session with your clients …
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December 22, 2011
off-camera flash photography tip – find your background, then your settings
With flash photography on location, we nearly always start off by figuring out what we want to do in relation to our available light. We might just need fill-flash, or or flash might need to do the “heavy lifting” and expose correctly for our subject in relation to the available light.
When we have our subject in (relative) shade, and need to figure out our flash exposure, we also need to decide exactly what our background is. It usually works best to be specific about our background … and how we position ourselves and our subject in relation to that.
So let’s run through that thought-process, using the image at the top. Alex was our delightful model today during an individual workshop in Manhattan.
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December 5, 2011
Stephanie Zettl, (who should by now be a familiar name here), recently showed me a photograph she shot of kids jumping on the bed. The photo was crisp and evenly lit. The lighting strongly reminded me of the way I lit the recent posted photo of Ulorin Vex, where I used off-camera bounce flash. And it turned out I was right.
And that is the beauty of this – clean, crisp lighting that is easily achieved.
off-camera bounce flash – photographing kids in their room
by: Stephanie Zettl
When I photograph kids my main goal is to capture the things that make them kids: their laugh, their desire to play, their sense of curiosity, their innocence. I want to create photographs that they will look at 20, 30, 50 years from now and cherish because I was able to captures moments that represent their childhood.
For me, to truly be able to do this, I like to just let the kids play and be kids. Generally I like to work with the available light because that allows me to take multiple shots quickly to get the perfect expression. Window light and open shade are my friends. However, sometimes the quality and the quantity of available light is just not there. But there should not be an excuse for bad lighting. As a professional photographer, we need to have the ability to see, shape and create the light as needed. When the quality of available natural light is poor, there is no excuse for not bringing out and using our flashes.
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December 3, 2011
photography composition – finding the other angles
At the same photo shoot-out that the stunning Film Noir Fight Scene came out of, I again worked with a model, Jill. Her hairstyle and dress were strongly reminiscent of the flapper era. It therefore just suited a more dramatic and sexy pose and styling. And of course, dramatic lighting.
For off-the-cuff / on-the-fly dramatic lighting, a video light is hard to beat.
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November 28, 2011
the flow of a photo session
Laura and Todd is a couple whose wedding I’m photographing next year. We met up last weekend in Manhattan for the engagement photo session. I really like doing these because it gives the photographer a chance to connect with the couple before the wedding, and get an idea of what kind of rhythm would be possible in photographing them.
In the recent article, turning day into night, I described the thought-process of a photo sequence. Starting with an idea, we worked up to a photo that looked impressive. So that entails a few test shots, including one to show the couple what we’re trying to achieve. Then we finesse it.
That’s the usual process when coming up with ideas – it’s a succession of photos, changing things up a bit until we have a few images that look really good and show the couple at their best.
But sometimes, the idea doesn’t work …
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November 16, 2011
making your images pop – through choice of lens and technique
The immediate reaction when considering how you could make your photographs *pop* might be to juice it up in Photoshop. But the process should start much earlier – in camera. With a few easy techniques, we can consistently create images that jump off the page or screen.
The most recent photo session posted on my Facebook photography page, had some comments about the 3D look to some of the photographs, and that prompted this article on how to make your images pop …
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November 11, 2011
observing and using the available light (model – Anelisa)
With a few top-end point & shoot cameras to test, I met up with Anelisa on this crisp late-Fall afternoon in New York. Similar to how I often work, the idea was to walk around and explore and find interesting places and interesting light to take photographs in. So when at this particular spot in Bryant Park, and I saw the light was just incredible, I ditched the point & shoot cameras, and grabbed my Nikon D3 with the Nikon 35mm f/1.4G (B&H) lens on it.
Since the idea with today’s photo shoot was to *find* interesting and flattering light – as opposed to creating it with off-camera flash – I had no additional lighting with me. Not even a speedlight. It was all about observing and using the available light. And this is how we found ourselves here in this particular spot …
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August 23, 2011
photo session – vintage pinup style (on location)
When the hot-rod show which didn’t offer as much in terms of photography as I had hoped, Jill and I moved over to the pier in Brooklyn. Having a model in a retro sailor-suit type outfit … well, it just seemed to good an opportunity to waste. I thought of perhaps using the Ice Cream Factory there as a backdrop to a straight-forward pinup photo, but ultimately decided the Hudson River waterfront would work better as a setting for the photo.
Then we just had to add some simple but dynamic lighting, and give the final image a vintage flavor with the post-processing …
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