Tangents

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book review: Picture Perfect Lighting, by Roberto Valenzuela

April 28, 2016 Neil vN 4 Comments

book review: Picture Perfect Lighting, by Roberto Valenzuela

I strongly believe that there's a pivotal moment that happens (or will happen) for most photographers as they progress and become better at this thing we do with a camera - a moment of clarity when we realize that much of photography really hinges on the understanding of light and how it behaves. This was the theme of my one book, Direction & Quality of Light where I explained in the introduction that once we understand those principles, then we can pretty much use any light source, whether on-camera flash or off-camera  Read more inside...

Lighting an on-location Fashion shoot

April 19, 2016 Neil vN 4 Comments

Lighting an on-location Fashion shoot

Bringing just the necessary photo gear and lighting gear to an on-location shoot, is balanced by the need to bring enough to cover any eventuality and possibility. A tough balance between risking not having the right gear, and being laden down with too much gear. I had the interesting opportunity to work with my friend Daniel Featherstone, and collaborate him with him on the lighting during his photo shoot for New York Fashion designer, SR1990. (The day-long photo shoot was at Opus 40, where I shot also some B&W infrared images during  Read more inside...

B&W infrared landscapes – Opus 40

April 14, 2016 Neil vN 4 Comments

B&W infrared landscapes - Opus 40

Opus 40, near Saugerties, NY, is a large open-air environmental art-piece that took 37 years to construct. Sculptor Harvey Fite (1903-1976) created this epically huge sculpture, which is a sprawling series of ramps and platforms, with a central monolith. Helping with a Fashion photo shoot on the site, I took a few minutes between sets to take photographs of this place, using my infra-red B&W camera - a Canon 5D mark II  that has been converted for infra-red by Life Pixel, with an 830nm deep B&W IR filter. The stark beauty of the place  Read more inside...

Photography: Using light fall-off to illuminate your subject

April 10, 2016 Neil vN 5 Comments

Photography: Using light fall-off to illuminate your subject

John collects vintage … oh, everything. His entire house filled with collectibles – it is like stepping out of a time-machine into a different era. I joked with him that the only two things in his house from the 21st century is his fridge and his dog! 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 are hand tools - no electric tools - and they work. The way John describes it, it actually makes sense  Read more inside...

review: Best Canon 50mm lenses – lens sharpness

April 1, 2016 Neil vN 10 Comments

review: Best Canon 50mm lenses - lens sharpness

Continuing on from the review of the bokeh of Canon 50mm lenses, let's have a look at image sharpness. Clearly, there is more to deciding on a lens than just sharpness, and we discussed one of those aspects in that article on bokeh. Often it comes down to a balance between your budget, and what you expect from the lens - but usually, image sharpness is the key factor. It could be argued that 50mm is a less thrilling focal length - not wide enough for scenic views, nor long enough to compress perspective. Still, a 50mm lens is often  Read more inside...

Studio portraits of children – Lighting and textures

March 28, 2016 Neil vN 3 Comments

Studio portraits of children - Lighting and textures

Going towards the brighter, less moody way of lighting children's portraits, as shown here - dramatic portraits of kids - I went with the parents' request with how they wanted this 3 year old's portraits to look like. I therefore lit it differently, but still with (mostly) just a single light source. For my own portfolio, I added a texture to the background. More about the lighting and post-processing in a moment ... The family stopped by the studio on their way to Chuck E Cheese's for this kid's 3rd birthday party. So there was  Read more inside...

Pixel peeping

March 27, 2016 Neil vN 7 Comments

Pixel peeping

Pixel peeping is that derogatory phrase used to describe photographers who scrutinize photos at 100% resolution to see any flaws there might be. The idea is that if you do that, you lose sight of the artistic nature of photography. You might become stuck on what is in many ways, an irrelevant part of photography - technical perfection. I do love sharp images. Being capable of consistently delivering crisp images, are important to me as a photographer. The skills matter. At some point these skills should become second nature. Yet, the impact a photograph has,  Read more inside...

Pentax hyper-manual and hyper-program exposure modes

March 25, 2016 Neil vN 11 Comments

Pentax hyper-manual and hyper-program exposure modes

Pentax’s ingenuity with these exposure modes, set their cameras apart from other cameras. It is a super-easy and intuitive way to work with Manual and Program exposure modes. So it is good news that Pentax has continued doing this with their latest camera, the flagship Pentax K-1  (B&H / Amazon), in addition to all the other features of this camera. When Pentax brought out the Pentax Z-1 / PZ-1 in the early 90’s, they re-thought the way a camera’s exposure modes should to be implemented. What they came up  Read more inside...

review: Aurora HDR software

March 20, 2016 Neil vN 5 Comments

review: Aurora HDR software

If you have a love for bold images with punch to the colors and details, then you might be drawn to High-Dynamic Range (HDR) software. The HDR effect is often overdone and can look garish, but done with a certain deft artistic eye, can look wonderful. I'm drawn to the look of HDR, but found the software options that I've tried, to either be clunky or limited. Now combine this with my preference for things that work, and is easy to use, or at least, easy enough to delve into right from the start ... and it will help explain why I immediately liked Trey  Read more inside...

Fitness photo session in the studio

March 17, 2016 Neil vN 10 Comments

Fitness photo session in the studio

There are always many other ways to light your subject, whether on location or in the studio. With Fitness photography though, you do want to show off the physique of your subject - and this does mean strongly directional light. The main light can be a harder / smaller light source, or even a larger light source such as a softbox, but generally you do need to go for directional light that skims across the physique of your subject. Flat lighting is going to be a difficult approach here. This previous article - Chiaroscuro lighting - shows another  Read more inside...

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