Tangents

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portrait: Janine vN

November 15, 2010 Neil vN 11 Comments

portrait using a gridded softbox

It's been about a year since I last took a more formal portrait of my daughter Janine. Last year it was her with the steam-punk goggles, when I used a beauty dish (with a sock) as lighting. During a restaurant dinner last night I noticed Janine had 'LOVE' scribbled on both her forearms with a felt marker. I asked her about it, and she explained the idea behind 'To Write Love On Her Arms'. So I decided to include this tonight in the portrait of her. Lighting her and the words on her arms was a slight challenge. I wanted a moody portrait, instead of  Read more inside...

Flash photography tutorial – Balancing flash and ambient

November 4, 2010 Neil vN 103 Comments

Flash photography tutorial - balancing flash and ambient light

An email I received recently from someone explained how she is struggling with flash. The basic building blocks of photography are all there and understood, but it somehow doesn't gel when she uses flash. She explains how she understands exposure metering, but "the minute I attach my flash, nothing makes sense." Having read my book and scoured this blog, she admits that at the point where she uses her flash and needs to set aperture and shutter speed, she is completely lost. I'm sure this is something many many  Read more inside...

Shutter speed, Aperture and ISO

October 18, 2010 Neil vN 25 Comments

Camera settings: Shutter speed, Aperture & ISO

A presentation that I've given on several occasions, is called 'Just Give Me The F-Stop'. The presentation is based on the perception that many photographers, in trying to get to grips with flash photography, try to break it down into what they think are the understandable elements – the numerical values of the settings used. They want numbers, believing that in knowing a certain image was taken at 1/125th @ f4.5 @ 400 ISO, that they might get closer to understanding lighting. They want the f-stop. However, the scenarios we  Read more inside...

Photographing wedding portraits in bright sunlight

October 5, 2010 Neil vN 60 Comments

Photographing wedding portraits in bright sunlight

Hard sunlight overhead is some of the most difficult light that you can find yourself shooting in. When you aren't able to position your subjects, then your options are limited - fill-flash or working with the RAW file in post-processing. However, when you're able to move your subjects, but don't have the opportunity for off-camera lighting, then your best two options are: - have your subjects turn their backs to the sun, - use the light from the sun so that there are no harsh cross-shadows. Here are typical examples of  Read more inside...

pin-up photography

September 23, 2010 Neil vN 21 Comments

pin-up photography - white on white

I had the great pleasure last night of attending a meeting by the Hudson Valley Click - a lighting and photography group in the Hudson Valley area of NY. The motive behind their meetings and photo shoots is to bring photographers, models, makeup artists, hairstylists and fashion designers together on monthly themed events. All designed for learning and portfolio building. My friend Peter Salo invited me to the 50's style pin-up photography session that was held last night in Sandy O'Shea's studio.  (Sandy, thanks for allowing us to create  Read more inside...

pin-up style photo session – Jessica – a hot day

September 22, 2010 Neil vN 16 Comments

pin-up style photo session - a hot day

Continuing on with the pin-up series with Jessica, we decided on the concept for this session as 'A Hot Day'. Skimpy summer holiday clothing; ice cream; a fan (with the blades made whirly in Photoshop) .. and incongruously, one of my cats walking through the set, looking for attention ...  Read more inside...

recap: photography workshop – Jersey City & NYC (2010)

September 14, 2010 Neil vN 8 Comments

recap: photography workshop - Jersey City & NYC (2010)

The final workshop for 2010 took place this week - the first day again located in Jersey City, with a spectacular view of Manhattan.  The second day had a smaller group of photographers practicing on-location lighting techniques in Manhattan. This striking image of Catherine, our model at the Monday workshop, was taken as a storm was slowly sweeping in.  The background was intentionally under-exposed like this to give a dramatic quality to the final image.  The light on her was from a softbox, placed to the camera right,  Read more inside...

photo session – Modern Gypsies – something about a violin

September 12, 2010 Neil vN 13 Comments

For the last in the series of photo sessions with the Modern Gypsies on this day, we ended up here ... launching two girls in costume, onto the East River inside a giant ball. It really did make sense. And you may ask yourself, how did we get here?  Letting the days go by ... No, really, how did we get here?  Read more inside...

photo session – Modern Gypsies – PinkMan

September 10, 2010 Neil vN 6 Comments

Pinkman!  More from the recent extended photo session with the Modern Gypsies.  After the photo session with Martin on stilts, we moved to one of the many colorful areas in Brooklyn where we started with Dread Eye. Working in the same spot, Michael Saab fitted his character, PinkMan! out with jumping stilts. Absolute lunacy! Working in such bright light, I thought the best approach would be to cross-light the sunlight with off-camera flash ...  Read more inside...

photography: Inspiration and Homage – compositing & multiple lights

September 8, 2010 Neil vN 9 Comments

Chuck Arlund is a Fashion Photographer whose elegant photography is made even more impressive with the simplicity of his set-ups and use of lighting. Chuck's previous guest spot here on the topic of on-location lighting techniques using reflector & flash, was very well received. Therefore I'm very happy that Chuck is graciously sharing more of his ideas with this guest post. Also, check out Chuck's workshops and mentoring sessions.

Inspiration and Homage - compositing & multiple lights made to look natural

a guest post by Chuck Arlund This  Read more inside...

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