A quiet word to my photographer friends. I'm in various photography groups and forums, and I see a strong tendency in the more technical forums to whine about the specs of current cameras, or to bitch to-and-fro, disparaging others or other brands.
My feelings about that:
We should always keep in mind that our photography heroes of previous eras created masterpieces with cameras less advanced than we have now. For me, Richard Avedon immediately comes to mind. There are many others.
So if you feel you're being held back by the camera you Read more inside...
off-camera flash – creating separation with back-lighting (model: Bethany)
Another image from the photo session with Bethany, when I was in San Francisco earlier this year. This interesting background is part of the lobby area of a San Francisco night-club. I knew the wooden panelling and subdued incandescent lighting would make an interesting background because of the repetitive pattern and glow. A slow shutter speed brought the background light in ... and then I used flash to light her. I didn't gel my flash - specifically so that the background light would go that warm. The Read more inside...
Mixing the white balance of different light sources
While we would do well to gel our flash when working in a very warm or incandescent spectrum, (such as when shooting at a venue bathed in Tungsten light), the last few articles showed how we can use it to our advantage when using different light sources with different color balance. The effect can be quite dramatic.
The examples shown have been varied:
In the first example (with Bethany as our model), we looked at using random found available light as portrait lighting. With the next example, the effect was purposely sought Read more inside...
Multiple off-camera flash - gelling your flash for effect
All the light you see in this photo, is from two speedlights. The blue color in the background is because I gelled my one flash. While that might give you the idea that I gelled the background flash with a blue gel, what I actually did, was gel my main flash with two 1/2 CTS gels (affiliate). That's all I had with me, but I wanted those hard cold blue tones to the background.
A single 1/2 CTS gel would take the flash to 3700K. Adding a 2nd gel didn't take it as far as a full CTS would've, but closer to 3350K, going Read more inside...
directing & posing - using randomly found available light as portrait lighting
During a trip to California, I was keen to meet up with another favorite model, Bethany. We were allowed to shoot in a night-club on a Sunday afternoon when it was all quiet with no one there. It's an interesting place to work with a beautiful model, and I had a multiple-flash setup ready to use.
However, the first series of photos of Bethany was shot with just the available light there. But first I had to recognize the light as being interesting light for a portrait. I had to "see" it first. As it Read more inside...
