One of my favorite photos from a recent wedding, is this one of the groom and bride being hoisted aloft, with his priceless expression of surprise. Timing and framing is everything, of course. And the lighting. This is pretty much the way it came out of camera, with only minor adjustments to the RAW file. Note that the light on the groom is about the same as the amount of light on the bride in the background. (Yes, she changed into white overalls after jumping into the pool with her dress.)
But back to the lighting -- an equal Read more inside...
Headshot Photography : adapting the lighting setup
With headshot photography in the studio, there are several setups such that consistently give great, repeatable results. One such lighting setup is Clamshell Lighting, for example. The results are always solid. Just looks great. In this link with articles on headshot photography, you can read up about some of these lighting setups. While I alway enjoy working with clients to give them outstanding headshots and business portraits, it is an extra bit of fun when I meet a client who wants something extra. Something a little different Read more inside...
Profoto has created an entire system of portable lighting with accessories around their Profoto A2 flash (B&H / Amazon). With this behind-the-scenes video, I show how I used the Profoto A2 flashes and accessories during a photo session with a friend, Franklin Elliot, who is a musician and actor (Instagram / Youtube). The intent was to create a series of promotional photos, with a variety of looks.
During the extended photo session, we achieved 5 different setups. I want to highlight one Read more inside...
A lighting solution for photographing a wedding ceremony in a barn
An endearing image : the somewhat shy ring-bearer had to be coaxed by the bride and groom to bring the wedding rings to them.
Most often, the lighting that I use isn't for dramatic, artistic purposes ... but instead for problem solving. Since it was raining on the day, the outdoor wedding ceremony was moved inside to this large barn. There was very little light inside, and there was strong backlighting. I needed even light, and I also needed to use a telephoto zoom to take photos from further up the aisle. Read more inside...
How do you get more bokeh? Let me explain ... you can't! Using "bokeh" as a phrase like that makes no sense. Bokeh and shallow depth-of-field (DoF) aren't equivalent. DoF does affect bokeh to a certain measure, but it's not the same thing. You can not use those phrases interchangeably. Phrases like "give it more bokeh" hurt our sensibilities because it is nonsensical.
Bokeh is a description of the QUALITY of the background blur. There's no QUANTITY to it, hence you can't give more or less bokeh.
In this image, shot with a Nikon 50mm f/1.4 Read more inside...
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...
Becky and Mark were visiting New York from the UK, and wanted to do a photo session here. I took them around various posts in the vicinity of Times Square where their hotel was. The lighting for this photo session varied from the available light in Times Square, to enhancing it with off-camera lighting. The idea was to make the off-camera light still look fairly natural in those surroundings.
Manhattan is always hectic with pedestrians, and a light-stand isn't always feasible. So I have my assistant hold up a flash on a monopod. Read more inside...
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...
This is a fairly straight-forward portrait of the bride just as she was done with her prep. But this simplicity might belie the deliberateness in how I shot this. Because the rest of the bridal area was mostly bland walls, I purposely used the busy room in the background to give that indistinct out-of-focus background which is still complimentary. There were spotlights in the ceiling just outside the door, so I asked her to step forward of those lights. They would have been too hard to fight against.
My exposure settings were set for Read more inside...
Bounce flash and huge venues - how to double your flash power
A spontaneous moment with two of the lovely people at an event I photographed. Perhaps technically unremarkable until you consider the size of the venue, and that I used bounce flash. If you look at the photo below, you'll see that it was a huge indoor basketball / sport court. Now, if you're familiar with the tutorials on this site on bounce flash photography, you'll know that I try to avoid direct flash as much as possible. Even flash attachments that throw light forward -- I avoid using those. Instead, I much more Read more inside...
