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Tangentsphotography composition – finding the other anglesDecember 3, 2011
photography composition – finding the other anglesAt 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.
Filed under: composition,photo shoot,video light — Tags: video light for photography — Neil vN @ 11:43 pm
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wedding photography: bride & groom portraits with video lightNovember 25, 2011
wedding photography: bride & groom portraits with video lightFor that dramatic Hollywood look, a video light is probably the easiest light to use, especially when there is the need to work fast like on a wedding day. With Alli & Scott’s engagement photo session, I knew I’d be working with a couple that would easily go along with any ideas that we’d come up with. We worked indoors at the Temple Israel in Long Island, New York, and there were all kinds of interesting nooks to explore.
Filed under: video light,wedding photography — Tags: New Jersey wedding photographers, New Jersey wedding photography, New York wedding photographers, New York wedding photography, video light for photography, video light for wedding photography — Neil vN @ 8:04 pm
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wedding photography – when style, technique & choice of gear convergeNovember 14, 2011
wedding photography – when technique, style & choice of equipment convergeWith Manhattan as a back-drop, I wanted a cinematic look for the photograph of Nima and Peter. A magnificent view behind them as they snuggle in. While I approach wedding photography with my eye on telling the story of the day, for me, where a photographer really reveals a specific style, is in the portraits of the bride and groom. I wanted a romantic look to this sequence of images, so there were specific choices to be made in terms of equipment, camera settings and the lighting. So let’s run through the thought-process.
Filed under: style,video light,wedding photography — Tags: New Jersey wedding photographer, wedding photographers in New Jersey — Neil vN @ 5:12 pm
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After Dark photography education – Charlotte, NCSeptember 27, 2011
After Dark photography education – Charlotte, NC – Sept 26-28, 2011This striking portrait is of Britney, one of the number of models that are at this, the current After Dark convention. Regular followers of the Tangents blog will easily recognize the lighting as being a video light. In this case, I reverted to the Lowel ID-light because it creates a stronger beam of light which can be spread wider than an LED video light. Typical of After Dark, this photo session / mini-presentation was an impromptu one that started after the evenings classes and presentations had already ended at midnight. Meeting up with Britney and her sister Nicole (who is also a model), and two other photographers, the group of photographers eventually spilled out to the lobby of the hotel and swelled to a group of about 30 photographers all taking part. And that’s the reason I wanted to use the Lowel ID-light … the person holding up the video light, could stand further back and we’d still get decent camera settings. An LED video light would not have been powerful enough for this situation. image details: more articles about the use of video light for photography Enough of the video light though. I’ve gushed about the After Dark experience before when I presented at the Cincinatti event, and when I had a quick look-in at the Las Vegas event …
romantic wedding portraits with video lightSeptember 22, 2011
romantic wedding portraits with video lightBy now it should be clear that I’m quite a fan of video lights for the romantic portrait session with a couple. The Incandescent WB of the video light usually matches the existing light fairly well. Because video light has a rapid fall-off in light intensity to the edges of the beam, it doesn’t “flatten” out the light like bounce flash would. In addition, the video light can seem quite natural in context of the existing light, and not even look like additional lighting. Somehow the light just appears to be great right there. Here are two of my favorite images from a recent wedding, where I had my assistant hold up an LED video light to help light the couple. (It’s the same wedding where I used the black foamie thing during the indoor ceremony.)
Filed under: video light,wedding photography — Tags: New Jersey wedding photographer, video light for wedding photography, wedding portraits — Neil vN @ 11:51 pm
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bounce flash for bridal portraitsJuly 14, 2011
bounce flash for portraits of a brideDeep into the busy part of the wedding season, the articles posted recently will be more wedding-centric than usual. But, as I’ve mentioned before, many of the techniques translate to other fields of photography. This photograph of a bride, Christine, received some very favorable comments when I posted it on Facebook. So I thought it might make a good topic here, as well as being a good recap of some essential bounce flash techniques. The portrait is quite straightforward in execution – the lighting was quite simple, but effective. It was also super fast to set up.
video clip – using LED video light for photographyMay 25, 2011
video clip – using LED video light for photographyRegular visitors to the this website will know that I favor video lights for dramatic portraits. The what-you-see-is-what-you-get nature of it, makes it really easy to get interesting light on your subjects. But it does need some finessing in how you position it for portraits. Meeting up with Anelisa, one of my favorite models, Jessica and I created this video clip to show exactly how I use the video light for portraits. It also explains my starting point in choosing the direction of light, and also shows how I direct Anelisa during the shoot.
Filed under: technique,video clip,video light — Tags: using LED video light, video light for photography — Neil vN @ 6:24 pm
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using a gelled LED video light for dramatic colors (model – Rebekah)May 4, 2011
using a gelled LED video light for a change in color balanceContinuing with the theme of combining dramatically different color balances in a single image, there is this striking portrait of Rebekah. She is one of our models at the workshop at Treehaven, WI, this week. Working in the fading evening light, I had Rebekah pose somewhere in the middle of a large clump of trees. I knelt down so that I could shoot up and catch the last remnants of the evening sky as the background. The blue light filtering through the trees was then exaggerated by using an LED video light with the deep Amber gel on it. LED video lights are balanced for daylight, so the light from them is quite ‘cold’ compared to Incandescent light. By now using the specific gels that are supplied with it, you can change the color balance of the video light to match Incandescent / Tungsten light. It is normal to work with the Amber gel to shift the LED video light towards the warm spectrum of Incadescent light. In photographing our model here, I wanted to use the warm light from the Amber-gelled LED video light to create a big jump between that and the color of our background light. (I specifically didn’t want to use the LED video light as daylight-balanced light source.) This now caused the blue-ish tones of the evening light to go to a much deeper shade of blue. The rapid fall-off in the light from the video light, gave that typical spot-light effect. This really accentuated her face. The pull-back shots reveal just how big a jump it really was in the color between our surroundings and the video light …
using two LED video lights for effectApril 20, 2011
using two LED video lights for effectA favorite image from today’s workshop (Dana Point, CA), was lit by two LED video lights. Our one model, Virginia, was posed against the back of a waterfall display in the hotel lobby. When I first saw this display in the lobby, and saw how it looked when backlit by the available light in the front, I knew it would make for an interesting backdrop. Flash would even out the light too much though – especially bounce flash – so I knew this would be an ideal place for a dramatic portrait with video light. So in the late afternoon, the workshop group photographed Virginia against this display. We resorted to two LED video lights though, since we were able to minimize a specific problem we had in using just one light …
Filed under: video light — Neil vN @ 4:32 am
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