Photography tip: available light portraits - that sweet spot of light
A regular theme on Tangents, is using interesting found light sources while shooting portraits on location. For example: using sunlight reflected off a traffic sign.
With this straight-forward portrait of Irene, a photographer friend in New York, I want to show a neat little trick here - helping your subject understand exactly where you want them to stand.
Here we had random reflections of glass structures in Manhattan, giving random spots of lights. I wanted to use one of these spots of lights here as Read more inside...
Business headshots in the studio with a contemporary, modern look
When Matt Sweetwood, the owner of the largest Camera Store in New Jersey, discussed doing new new business headshots for him, we agreed that a more contemporary look suited him. There's a large dynamic personality at work here ... and using an 85mm f/1.4 lens wide open would place attention on his eyes and his expression. Nothing else is really in focus aside from his eyes, and this really makes for a compelling portrait that grabs your attention.
We shot various sequences, with the background brighter and darker. Read more inside...
Portrait photography: Dramatic lighting with LED Fresnel lights
For the portrait session of Jennifer Rozenbaum, I wanted to show her in her "office" - the studio where she shoots boudoir images of her clients. But instead of photographing Jennifer in a boudoir style, I wanted this to be portraits of her, the boudoir photographer, where she works. Her office as such. Still, it needed to be sexy, a little feral, yet sweet, and very much her. Read more inside...
In previous articles we could see how a fast 85mm can be used for shallow depth-of-field to shoot nearly anywhere by melting away the background. There's another aspect to this - the bokeh of the lens. The bokeh is a reference to how the quality of the background blur is rendered by a lens. It can be smooth, or have "jittery" patterns to the edges of objects, and the highlights.
Do note though that bokeh and shallow depth-of-field are not quite the same thing. While the DoF / choice of aperture does affect the appearance of the bokeh of Read more inside...
Environmental portraits - Speedway racer, Courtney Lefcourt
When Courtney's mom first contacted me, she told me that Courtney is a race-car driver and that the camera loves her. Intrigued, I met up with her family at the Bethel Motor Speedway for on-location portraits of Courtney. To find out more about Courtney, check out her Facebook page, Courtney Taylor Racing.
So the challenge here was two-part. The sun was very bright since it was 3:30pm in the afternoon. The other challenge is that while speedway racing might be an exhilarating sport to watch, the speedway race-track isn't Read more inside...
85mm - The best lens that could change your portrait photography
If that hat seems familiar, yes, Elle was the model in the series of photographs for the Nikon Df review article. For some of the sequences of photos that we shot, I used the 85mm lens, wide open. This had the effect of just melting the background. You can pretty much shoot anywhere, and make the background look good and non-intrusive.
While a 70-200mm f/2.8 lens can be even more effective in controlling the background, the shorter focal length, an 85mm lens can make this somewhat easier in some respects. Read more inside...
While on a trip to Denver, I had some time free to meet up with my friend, Lynn Clark, one of the best boudoir photographers in Denver. I had asked her to be a subject for my next book, Lighting & Design, and she indulged me. I want each portrait to reveal something of the person I am photographing, and also have some interesting snippets of info for anyone who dips in the book, and of course, for anyone who follows the Tangents blog.
So while Lynn is an accomplished boudoir photographer, I didn't want to go with the obvious idea of Read more inside...
Photographing a vintage motorbike on location with Profoto lighting gear
I'm getting to meet so many people while photographing interesting subjects for my book, Lighting & Design, that I was bound to meet some truly interesting characters. John collects vintage ... oh, everything. Most impressive in a way, is John's workshop where he maintains his two vintage era motorbikes and a Model A Ford. The tools in his workshop are all authentic to the era ... and they work. The way John describes it, it actually makes sense in the way he maintains everything with hand-tools and lathes Read more inside...
Lighting a vintage styled boudoir photo session, using LED fresnel lights
Working with the ever-delightful Olena in my studio, we went for a mix of outfits and looks. We started off the photo session with straight-forward headshots, but then when Olena showed me this outfit, it just begged for something with a more vintage feel in lighting. So, drawing on the classic Hollywood glamor lighting for inspiration, I used the Litepanels Sola 4 LED Fresnel Lights (B&H / Amazon), to create that dramatic light on her, and on the background.
I've used the same lights before Read more inside...
Father and son portrait - Deconstructing a photograph
My friend, Chuck Arlund, visited New York with his son Lachlan, for a few days. At the end of the trip, I had a short opportunity to photograph them. Since this is Chuck, whom I greatly admire, and his son (who is so used to a camera by now), I wanted to come up with something outside of the usual guaranteed way of working with a longer lens, and a simpler background. I wanted something a little out of the ordinary.
What I envisioned was some place in New York that was very busy, and then go to a slow shutter speed, and let Read more inside...