Father and son portrait – Deconstructing a photograph
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...Simple lighting setup with speedlights & white seamless backdrop
A simple lighting setup with speedlights & white seamless backdrop
A question on the Tangents forum asked about setting up and using two SB-910 speedlights against white seamless. It's a topic we've covered in a previous article - a simple lighting setup for studio photography - but it might be good to revisit this again. The article on that simple lighting setup with two speedlights, explained our choice of camera and flash settings in detail, so we'll only briefly cover it this time. Still, a different explanation from a different angle might trigger new ideas and questions. Read more inside...Photo session – Modern Gypsies – floating bubbles
Photo session - Modern Gypsies - floating bubbles
Another from the most recent publicity photo session with the Modern Gypsies, with two of the girls in French period costume ... inside plastic bubbles. Seemingly an easy setup, it took a few quick adjustments to the off-camera lighting while they were enclosed in the plastic bubbles. Time is very limited! Let's start off with the test shots, and see the progression from there ... Read more inside...Camera & flash settings: What do you want to achieve?
Camera & flash settings: What do you want to achieve?
In one of the multitude of photography groups on Facebook, I saw a newcomer to off-camera flash say that she bought an Alien-Bee set, but she has no idea what to set it to. My reply was that she needed a light-meter. My thinking is that then she'd know what the specific output of the flash or strobe would be, and then be able to set her camera to it. But then, thinking about it some more, I realized if there is hesitation there or confusion, it is about what specific camera settings (mostly aperture) should be in the first Read more inside...Using a neutral density (ND) filter to control DoF with flash
Using a neutral density (ND) filter to control DoF with flash
When working in bright sunlight with flash units that can't go into high-speed flash sync, we have a ceiling in terms of our shutter speed / aperture combination. The shutter speed limitation then would be our maximum flash sync speed. The bright daylight would then imply a small aperture - most likely around f/11 Why f/11 ? The Sunny 16 Rule dictates that in bright sunlight, we're most likely working at 1/100 @ f/16 @ 100 ISO. This translates into a handy short-cut of: 1/200 @ f/11 @ 100 ISO, where 1/200 is the maximum Read more inside...Posing tip – Check the wrists and hands
Posing tip - Check the wrists and hands
In posing, a good tip is to have the wrists and hands form a kind of S-curve instead of being straight. While this photograph works for me, and I really like the composition and her direct gaze into the camera ... I should've guided Anelisa to bend her left wrist (the hand closer to her cheek), a bit more. That would've made her gesture a touch more elegant in this photograph at the top. Of course, in analyzing your photographs closely, there is (nearly) always something to pick up on how you could've improved the final image. Here is Read more inside...Simple lighting setup to photograph kids indoors – Bounce flash!
Simple lighting setup to photograph kids indoors - Bounce flash!
Meet Jack. He's 1 year old. We kinda photographed him just over a year ago with the maternity photo session with his mom and dad. But this is him now, for real. When Amy and Nick asked me to do a portrait session with him, we started off at their house. I wanted to grab a few candid photos of Jack happily playing before we set off to a nearby park. Since kids scoot around all over the place, for me, it made most sense to just use on-camera bounce flash. Minimal gear - just the speedlight on my camera. And of course, Read more inside...available light photo session in the studio – Elle
available light photo session in the studio - Elle
During the same photo session with Elle where the aim was for Hollywood Glamor lighting style with video lights, I also wanted to change it up completely with an entirely different look and lighting - an available light photo series in the studio. With so much light flooding into the studio, it was just a matter of positioning Elle into the light. To get away from a blank wall, the background was a backdrop. And yes, the studio needs more furniture. We'll revisit this territory with future shoots. But even with such a minimalist Read more inside...Hollywood Glamor lighting with video lights
Hollywood Glamor lighting with video lights
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...- « Previous Page
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