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...
Using video light for romantic portraits of the bride & groom
One of my favorite photos of the day. Why can't wedding portraits of the bride and groom be a little bit sexy? When I went back to the bridal suite during a quieter moment in the wedding reception to fetch some gear I had left there earlier, I had this thought that mmmm, yes! romantic portraits of the bride and groom on the bed in their suite. This might just work! So I called Julia and Louis back to the the bridal suite at the venue, and we did a sequence of images using video light.
I'm a big fan of video light 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...
The old Hollywood masters such as George Hurrell, CS Bull and Laszlo Willinger had a dramatic way of lighting their portraits, with specific use of light and shade.
For my review of the Litepanels Sola 4 LED Fresnel Lights, I had Ulorin Vex as model. Her style and clothing are quite unique, and dramatic enough that these lights enhanced her look. I loved what we came up with.
In using these Litepanels Sola 4 LED Fresnel Lights (B&H / Amazon) to specifically emulate Hollywood Glamor lighting, I called in another model, Read more inside...
The dramatic look that video lights lend to photographs, is a regularly explored topic on Tangents. I also cover the use of video light in my book Direction and Quality of Light.
The video lights that I have been favoring, are the Lowel ID-Light (affiliate), but like other halogen video lights, it tends to run hot. LED video lights (affiliate) that are meant to be hand-held or mounted on a camera, also tend to be under-powered for some uses. And since video lights tend to be small light sources, their light is quite Read more inside...
What sets Litepanels Croma LED video light (B&H / Amazon) apart from most, is that you can vary the color temperature. You can vary the WB between 3200K and 5600K by dialing a knob. No more need for a gel to be clipped in and out. The gel (or lack of gel) would mean a specific WB with the LitePanels Pro. With the variable adjustment of the Litepanels Croma, you have every color balance setting inbetween. Read more inside...
Exposure metering when using video light for photography
In response to the article on how to shoot romantic wedding portraits, using video light, someone asked about exposure metering with the video light.
"Much in the same vein as using flash, do you establish the ambient exposure first (to your taste) and then add the video light to expose ‘correctly’ for your subject? How do you meter for this video light and therefore adjust the light power to the right level? By chimping on test shots?"
While this would certainly be a correct way of doing it, the practical way of doing it, Read more inside...
With the recent lighting workshop in New York, we again played with the use of video light ... and then took it out to the street. The blue-ish tones of the shady side of the building here, contrasted beautifully with the warm glow of the video light.
As with the article, gelling your flash to get a blue background, this is something that can work very well when we use light sources with different color balance, thereby attaining those complementary colors. The rapid fall-off in light also helped give the photograph a dramatic Read more inside...
Using video lights for outdoor night-time portrait photography
These outdoor night-time portraits of the bide and groom were taken on the streets in Baltimore. We sneaked away briefly from the reception to shoot a few impromptu portraits. With the unpredictable nature of found light out on the streets at night, we had to use additional lighting - and my choice was an LED video light (affiliate). The beauty of these kind of lights is that the White Balance can be changed from Incandescent to Daylight. This helps immeasurably in matching your light to that of the existing Read more inside...
Photography composition - Finding the other angles
At the same photo shoot-out that the stunning Film Noir Fight Scene came out of, I again worked with a model, Jill. Her hairstyle and dress were strongly reminiscent of the flapper era. Therefore a more dramatic and sexy pose and styling was suited. And of course, dramatic lighting. For off-the-cuff / on-the-fly dramatic lighting, a video light is hard to beat.
The photo at the top is the angle that my friend Peter Salo found, while I was standing on a short ledge, shooting from above. The irony here is that the first time Peter Read more inside...
