Tangents

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Off-camera lighting – continuous light or flash?

January 6, 2025 Neil vN 1 Comment

Off-camera lighting - continuous light or flash?

When we think of off-camera lighting, we usually immediately think of off-camera flash. But there is another option: off-camera continuous lighting. One main advantage that continuous light for portraits has over flash is the WYWIG aspect - what you see is what you get. It is easier and faster to position the light to better effect for your portraits. This of course is only viable when working in relatively low light. In brighter light, you'd obviously be better of using proper flash photography. With a photo session in New  Read more inside...

On-camera bounce flash for beautiful portrait light

August 26, 2024 Neil vN 3 Comments

On-camera bounce flash for beautiful portrait light

Here are several portraits of a model, Koko, taken during a workshop in my studio last week. She was phenomenal with her posing. Just on all the time. I will post her IG account lower down. The lighting -- notice how soft and even it is, but with a gradual contrast to the one side of her face. No hard flash shadow. Just big, soft, directional light in the studio. All achieved with on-camera bounce flash. Just the one light. No Fong Dong! No MagMod boob! No Rogue Flash bender! Seriously calm down with that unnecessary stuff. You  Read more inside...

Creating dramatic studio lighting with Profoto A2 flashes

September 4, 2023 Neil vN 1 Comment

Creating dramatic studio lighting with Profoto A2 flashes

Profoto has created an entire system of portable lighting with accessories around their Profoto A2 flash  (B&H / Amazon). I had the rare opportunity to connect again with one of my favorite models, Erin Leigh Pribyl, for a photo session in my studio. Even in this short video clip, you'll get a sense of her personality. With this, I wanted to create dramatic portrait lighting with a hint of the old Hollywood Glamor lighting, but with color instead of B&W. In this video is a glimpse of how I built up 4  Read more inside...

Short lighting with on-camera bounce flash

July 15, 2023 Neil vN 4 Comments

Short lighting with on-camera bounce flash

In the recent article — The simplicity of on-camera bounce flash — the flash was used as fill light to "clean up" the light and give a sparkle to the eyes. In that scenario, as fill-flash the flash didn't really add directional light or shape the light on our subject. Where on-camera bounce flash is our only / main light source, then we can get creative with the direction of light and shape an interesting, dynamic light pattern on our subject. We can even create short lighting for our portraits created with only on-camera bounce flash. To  Read more inside...

Studio lighting ideas : learning from other photographers

May 7, 2022 Neil vN Leave a Comment

Studio lighting ideas : learning from other photographers

One of the cool things about renting out my studio to other photographers, is that I get to see how they work, and what they do differently in terms of their lighting, and how they work with their subjects.  During the past 2 days, I had Jason Buff in my studio where he presented his masterclass workshop on his style of portraits. Jason specializes in studio portraits with a painterly quality. He was kind enough to invite me to take a few photos as well. I didn't take the photograph much further in terms of his style of  Read more inside...

Fashion inspired photo session in New York, with the Zeiss ZX1

July 16, 2021 Neil vN 4 Comments

Fashion inspired photo session in New York, with the Zeiss ZX1

As another installment on the theme of Two Perspectives, I met up with my friend Tracy Bosworth Page (instagram), while she was on a visit to New York. She had brought along a most interesting camera for her visit -- the very unusual and beautiful Zeiss ZX1 (B&H / Amazon). I mentioned my interest in checking out this camera and playing with it, and Since she is a Zeiss brand ambassador, she was able to wangle a loaner copy of this camera for me to use for a few days ... and from that was  Read more inside...

Off-camera flash with the Profoto A1, A1x, A10 flashes

November 23, 2020 Neil vN 3 Comments

Off-camera flash with the Profoto A1, A1x, A10 flashes

Profoto has a huge array of light modifiers which use their proprietary speed-ring and collar. The Profoto collar is especially easy to use in how the light modifiers fasten to the Profoto flashes. All fine .. except that until now, there was a big gap preventing you from using the Profoto A series flashes with those light modifiers. Profoto took the obvious next big step by adding the Profoto OCF adapter  (B&H / Amazon) into the mix. You can now use your Profoto A1 series flashes with any of those light  Read more inside...

Clam-shell lighting for headshots and portraits

October 29, 2020 Neil vN 1 Comment

Clam-shell lighting for headshots and portraits

Clamshell lighting is one of the simplest lighting setups for headshots and portraits. Two lights are set up to light your subject from above and from below. Both are at approximately a 45 degree angle. This gives an even light on your subject, that somehow has a glowing effect. Easy to set up, and gives consistently good results. Here I used studio lighting, but obviously it is just as easy with speedlights. You must have seen similar clamshell style lighting setups, but with a reflector below instead. This 2nd light source from  Read more inside...

An occasional muse

March 21, 2020 Neil vN 5 Comments

An occasional muse

It is exactly 10 years today, March 21, since the first time I photographed Anelisa. She responded to a casting call for someone to model at one of my photography workshops. She had a magical quality and was supremely photogenic ... and since then Anelisa has been my occasional muse. She is usually the first one that I contact when I need a model at a workshop. I posted photographs from that first session in this article - Effective on-location portraits. Over time I have worked with Anelisa numerous times, and she has also appeared on the cover of two of my books:  Read more inside...

Available light photography – looking for good light

December 27, 2019 Neil vN 7 Comments

Available light photography - looking for good light

When shooting for fun on location with a model, and have the time, I have this personal challenge - to find interesting sources of light. Those spots of found light where a little bit of magic happens. This photo of Anastasiya was taken in Grand Central, New York. While the station's architecture is impressive, the light levels there are very low, and quite flat. It's a place you want to take photos at, because it is so beautiful inside - but it is a challenge. The light there just don't lend itself to good portraits in an obvious  Read more inside...

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