Tangents

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Headshot photography – Clam-shell lighting setup

March 15, 2016 Neil vN 10 Comments

Headshot photography - Clam-shell lighting setup

There isn't only one correct way of lighting portraits or headshots. There are numerous ways to attractively light your subject. My favorite go-to lighting setup involved the large Profoto 5' Octa Softbox, which allowed me fine control over the contrast, by having my subject move slightly forward or back, or rotating slightly. (The linked article explains more.) Using the 5' Octabox though, meant that I had to shoot around the massive light modifier. A simpler way of shooting, which allows me slightly more freedom in how I moved,  Read more inside...

recap: Las Vegas – Photography workshops

March 6, 2016 Neil vN 4 Comments

Las Vegas photography workshops: On-location lighting

Every year when I attend WPPI in Las Vegas, I simultaneously present my own mini-workshops and photo shoot-out with a small group of photographers. This year the workshop was a photo shoot-out at the picturesque Nelson Ghost Town. These events are limited to just small group of photographers. Definitely un-crowded! The format is similar to the Photo Walks in NYC - I bring a Profoto B1 flash, and enough Nikon and Canon TTL controllers for everyone. So the attendees just had to bring your camera and lenses. I changed the format  Read more inside...

Off-camera flash & projection effects

February 29, 2016 Neil vN 8 Comments

Off-camera flash & projection effects

The photo that I posted of my friend Christy, lit by the lights lights surrounding the mirrored dressing table, was a co-incidental part of the photo shoot in the studio. It was a spontaneous thing. But when we got together for this photo session, I had other ideas that I actually wanted to try - something more dramatic, and using a new image projection kit that uses a gobo and a fresnel lens to focus the effect. With a previous photo session with Jessica Joy, we had used the Light-Blaster to give an unexpected pattern to the background,  Read more inside...

Tips on posing hands

February 27, 2016 Neil vN 8 Comments

Tips on posing hands

This portrait of my friend Christy, was shot in my studio - the lighting entirely from the globes circling the make-up table. In fact, if you look closely, you can see the ring of lights circling the iris of her eyes. Now, as drop-dead gorgeous as Christy is, it is also a running joke between us that she is tough to pose. She isn't a model, so hasn't built up the experience or repertoire of poses yet to naturally glide into a pose in front of the camera. So it needs me to pose her or adjust her pose along the way. In the case of her hands, it needed  Read more inside...

review: Nikon 200-500mm f/5.6E VR lens

February 25, 2016 Neil vN 12 Comments

review: Nikon 200-500mm f/5.6E VR lens

The Nikon 200-500mm f/5.6E VR  (B&H / Amazon) is an immediately appealing lens. It is only $1,400 for a telephoto zoom with a superb range of 200mm to 500mm. $1,400 is a very attractive price, especially when other lenses such as the Nikon 200-400mm f/4 VR II  (B&H / Amazon), comes in at 5x that price!  I had the first version of the Nikon 200-4oomm and it was stellar! I loved it, but didn't use it enough to warrant such an expensive lens mostly languishing on the shelf. But at $1,400 even occasional  Read more inside...

Softboxes with speedlights

February 21, 2016 Neil vN 43 Comments

Softboxes with speedlights for on-location lighting

Off-camera flash is the easiest way to create dynamic lighting - and using a speedlight with a softbox, is on-location lighting at its most elegantly simple. For most of my on-location portraits, I like to travel (fairly) light, and my lighting of choice is a speedlight, wireless transmitters and a softbox. The softbox is either held up by a light-stand (which I weight down with my camera bag), or held up by an assistant (with the softbox on a monopod.) I like TTL flash - it often gets us there faster than manual flash. But for  Read more inside...

Gelling flash for Incandescent light / Tungsten light

February 18, 2016 Neil vN 39 Comments

Gelling flash for Incandescent light / Tungsten light

The color temperature of the light from a flash / speedlite is around 5400K. While the actual numerical value might have little meaning to many photographers, it does mean that light from a flashgun will look a lot cooler than the light from an environment would with tungsten/incandescent light. That warm glow of tungsten light, which is around 2800K but varies a lot in actual value, makes the flash appear too cold, or too blue. However, if you simply adjust your white balance so that the flash appears neutral, your background  Read more inside...

Dramatic portraits of kids – Lighting and intent

February 11, 2016 Neil vN 9 Comments

Dramatic portraits of kids - Lighting and intent

When photographing portraits of someone, we can only leave so much up to serendipity. Deliberate action produces deliberate results. While things don't always work out to plan, having a plan helps propel things in a certain direction. With that, we need to be able to pre-visualize the photographs we want. We need to shoot (and use light) with purpose. Even if you are just experimenting and playing with your camera and lighting, you will fare better if you have some intended result in mind. Always that question in mind - what is it  Read more inside...

review: DJI Osmo camera & gimbal

February 10, 2016 Neil vN 1 Comment

review: DJI Osmo camera & gimbal

For the birthday celebration of two of the members working for Modern Gypsies productions, a bunch of their friends were invited to  help assemble a Chinese Dragon ... and then the group of us wove our way down the sidewalks of Brooklyn where we ended up at a night-club. This was also a perfect time to test my new DJI Osmo camera and gimbal  (B&H / Amazon). The camera offers up to 4K resolution, and has a 3-axis gimbal for stabilization. The video clip above is a 3 minute long compilation of video footage that I shot with  Read more inside...

Featured in Professional Photographer magazine (PPA)

January 31, 2016 Neil vN 4 Comments

Featured in Professional Photographer magazine (PPA)

Perhaps, as you page through your February 2016 copy of Professional Photographer magazine, and you get to page 92, you may think to yourself, "Hmmm, these photos aren't half-bad!" ... then glance over to the intro on page 93, and .. oh yes, I'm featured in the latest edition of PPA's magazine! It is a huge honor that the editors at Professional Photographer approached me and wrote a feature about my wedding photography. The article concentrates on my approach to lighting, with a reference to the books I've written on flash  Read more inside...

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