Tangents

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Dramatic portraits: Hollywood Portrait Lighting

November 30, 2017 Neil vN 4 Comments

Dramatic portraits: Hollywood Portrait Lighting

Shooting for my portfolio in the studio with a model, Kimberly Jay, I wanted to create sets of feminine portraits that looked dramatic, and straddled the boudoir photography genre and had a Film Noir look to them. The classic look of Hollywood portrait lighting has long drawn me, and with a set of  Litepanels Sola 4 LED Fresnel Lights  (B&H / Amazon), it is a look that I am still trying to finesse. Other photo sessions where I have drawn on the Hollywood look: Lighting a vintage styled boudoir photo session  (model:  Read more inside...

Photography composition: Tilted horizons in photographs

November 27, 2017 Neil vN 8 Comments

Photography composition: Tilted horizons in photographs

A disconcerting angle perhaps with this photograph's composition - still, there is a dynamic balance of sorts. Because Anelisa is 'upright' / vertical in the photo, it matches our sense that vertical and horizontal lines should be just that. Still, everything else is at a dizzying angle. While the horizon is at a slant, I placed her vertically in the composition, which hopefully creates a balance when we look at the photo. I am not particularly fond of tilted horizons or tilted photos (also known as the "Dutch angle" or  Read more inside...

Portraits with vintage lenses

November 9, 2017 Neil vN 8 Comments

Portraits with vintage lenses

That crazy bokeh there is via the Mitakon Zhongyi Speedmaster 50mm f/0.95  (B&H / Amazon), taken at widest aperture, giving this wafer-thin depth of field. Even though this is a new lens, I would classify it as a classic or vintage lens. It is manual focus, and gives that delicious look to images exactly because of that DoF and bokeh. In terms of the composition, I like how the blue lights in the foreground is echoed by the same lights in the background. How this photo session with Anastasiya came about ... My friend, Parker J  Read more inside...

review: Profoto A1 flash

September 19, 2017 Neil vN 79 Comments

review: Profoto A1 flash

Profoto has a very strong reputation in the industry for making gear that are reliable, easy to use, powerful, and, well ... looks really good. When Profoto entered the market a few years ago with the portable Profoto B1 flash (affiliate), and then the Profoto B2 flash (affiliate), it was inevitable then that at some point they would make a grand entrance with a speedlight style flash. With this review of the Profoto A1 flash (affiliate), I wanted to show more how I would use it, than just cover the specs of the flash. I met up  Read more inside...

Lens review: Fuji XF 56mm f/1.2 R

September 12, 2017 Neil vN Leave a Comment

Lens review: Fuji XF 56mm f/1.2 R

For any photographer moving from zooms to using primes as well, with a strong interest in portraits, the 85mm lens is your best choice. If you're a fan of Fuji, then the equivalent focal length would be the 56mm optic. And if you're a fan of Fuji, then you will already know that their lenses are razor-sharp. To test the Fuji XF 56mm f/1.2 R (B&H / Amazon), I photographed one of my favorite models, Anastasiya, using the flood of light from the billboards in Times Square. While not a thorough lens review of the Fuji XF 56mm f/1.2  Read more inside...

Photographer friends, we have work to do, and art to create!

August 6, 2017 Neil vN 7 Comments

Photographer friends, we have work to do, and art to create!

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  Read more inside...

Posing tips: Avoid foreshortening by seeing two-dimensionally

July 6, 2017 Neil vN 2 Comments

Posing tips: Avoid foreshortening by seeing two-dimensionally

There is this translation we have to do as photographers, from seeing in 3 dimensions, to realizing our images will be shown in 2 dimension. We might see the depth, but that information is mostly missing when the scene is flattened as a photograph. This is a stumbling block when we pose people - we might see their limbs and hands in 3 dimensions, but when your subjects hands extend towards you, there is foreshortening. The perspective changes, and makes the limbs look shorter than they are. This can be visually  Read more inside...

recap: New York photo walks – Meatpacking District, NYC

June 4, 2017 Neil vN 2 Comments

recap: New York photo walks – Meatpacking District, NYC

Our model during today's photo walk in NYC - the divine Diana Chesk. Typically for this kind of dramatic light, I under-exposed the available light somewhat, and let the Profoto B1 flash (affiliate) pick up the slack in the exposure. The softbox used here was the Profoto OCF Beauty Dish (24?)  (B&H / Amazon). It's small enough to make it easy to handle when we have to negotiate our way around, yet large enough to give soft-edged light. The rain was coming down as a continual drizzle  Read more inside...

Accidental Off-Camera Flash

June 2, 2017 Neil vN 2 Comments

Accidental Off-Camera Flash

This photograph of Anelisa, was taken during a Flash Photography workshop at my studio. Lighting is via accidental off-camera flash! I was shooting a few available-light behind-the-scenes photos with my Fuji X-T20 (affiliate), and caught someone's flash. It was 2 stops over-exposed because of the additional light, but the RAW file from the Fuji had nearly enough detail to pull the image back to a usable point! The HDR look to this photo is in part due to the massive correction to the Exposure and Contrast and Highlights, in adjusting the  Read more inside...

What should I meter off with the in-camera light meter?

April 25, 2017 Neil vN 17 Comments

What should I meter off with the in-camera light meter?

What (or where) should I meter when using my camera's built-in meter? It's a question that mystifies many photographers when they start out, and first realize you can't just point your camera at the scene and hope for correct exposure. The incredible metering systems in modern cameras notwithstanding, it is essential to our growth as photographers to have a working grasp on metering techniques. Of course, an incident light-meter is always a great idea, but has become less necessary with digital photography when shooting  Read more inside...

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