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Bounce flash for bridal portraits

July 14, 2011 Neil vN 25 Comments

Bounce flash for portraits of a bride

Deep into the busy part of the wedding season, the articles posted recently will be more wedding-centric than usual. But, as I've mentioned before, many of the techniques translate to other fields of photography. This photograph of a bride, Christine, received some very favorable comments when I posted it on Facebook. So I thought it might make a good topic here, as well as being a good recap of some essential bounce flash techniques. The portrait is quite straightforward in execution - the lighting was quite simple, but effective. It was also  Read more inside...

Sydney & Paul – their wedding day – fusion clip

July 12, 2011 Neil vN 10 Comments

Sydney & Paul - their wedding day - photo & video fusion clip

This idea of blending photographs and video snippets from a wedding, into a fusion clip, still fascinates me. In a 5 to 6 minute clip you're able to give a nicely condensed view of the wedding day. Combining the photos and video in a sensible way that visually makes sense, takes time however.  And Jessica and I are still on the learning curve. (Is it even possible to really get to to the top of things these days with the rapidly accelerated pace of digital photography?) Anyway, I love the results so far! So here  Read more inside...

Wedding photography – lighting large groups

July 10, 2011 Neil vN 48 Comments

Wedding photography - lighting large groups

Weddings are one of those occasions when families and friends come together from far and wide. An opportunity to see people they might rarely see otherwise. So it is an important task of any wedding photographer to record this - to get photographs of the various family groups. This photo is the pull-back shot from one of the big groups I had to photograph at an Indian wedding this weekend. Now, everyone who has been to an Indian wedding, knows that they are sprawling events. There's lots going on and it can be slightly chaotic at times.  Read more inside...

wedding photography – light & lighting; posing & direction

July 5, 2011 Neil vN 44 Comments

wedding photography - light, lighting, posing & direction  - making the decisions

The title of this article is quite ambitious. To cover all of that, it would be a 50,000 word book. But in editing this wedding at the moment, I noticed this photograph, and I love the look of it. So in the context of that one single image, let's look how it all came together. While the photograph itself isn't complicated, a lot of quick decisions went into making this image work ... and easy to edit. A number of things had to be considered, but instead of being overwhelmed by juggling all the  Read more inside...

Inspiration from movies – a visual feast for photographers

July 3, 2011 Neil vN 41 Comments

Inspiration from movies - a visual feast for photographers

It would be a rare photographer - in a fact a rare person - who isn't fascinated by other forms of art, whether music, dance, various visual arts, architecture and everything we surround ourselves with. I just can't imagine a photographer not finding inspiration specifically in other visual art forms, whether cartoons & graphic novels, all the way to the classic painters ... and of course, movies. Last night we watched Micmacs, another of the surreal hyper-kinetic movies by director Jean-Pierre Jeunet. Every frame of  Read more inside...

off-camera flash – adding dimension with back-lighting (model: Lea)

June 30, 2011 Neil vN 16 Comments

multiple off-camera flash - adding some pop with back-lighting

Lea is a model I've worked with on previous occasions. With her striking looks and easy demeanor, she is just a pleasure to photograph. We spent some time this afternoon in down-town Manhattan, looking for interesting spots as backdrops. Jessica spotted this dramatic gate and interesting glass front. It seemed like the perfect place to start the photo session, but it needed something extra to give the photos some drama. The final image is shown here at the top, but let's look at how we got there ...  Read more inside...

Using on-camera bounce flash outdoors at night

June 29, 2011 Neil vN 48 Comments

Using on-camera bounce flash outdoors

With wedding photography, when doing the night-time romantic portraits of the couple, the pressure is usually on. The only opportunity to whisk the couple away for a few minutes, is during dinner time, when the party is at a lull. The pressure is on because you have even less time than you had during the earlier part of the day, and you also don't want to lose the attention of your couple who wants to get back to their guests at the reception. I usually scout a few places before-hand, getting a clear idea of what I want. When setting out with  Read more inside...

review: Fuji X100 camera – photo shoot with a model

June 22, 2011 Neil vN 17 Comments

review: Fuji X100 camera - photo shoot with a model

First of all, for those who haven't heard of the Fuji X100 (affiliate) yet, it is a beautiful retro-looking rangefinder-mimicking 12 megapixel digital point & shoot camera (with a fixed 35mm equivalent f2.0 lens), that gives remarkable image quality. That about sums it up. For all those reasons, quite a buzz developed around this camera. Quite unlike anything since ... oh, the Leica X1. Or the Olympus Pen EP-2. Or the Sony NEX-5. There was greater excitement building up around the Fuji X100 though than other cameras,  Read more inside...

review: Frio coldshoe mount for speedlights

June 20, 2011 Neil vN 17 Comments

review: Frio coldshoe adapter for speedlights

The Frio is such an elegantly simple device - ready-made for those times you need to attach a speedlight to a light-stand or umbrella bracket. What makes it so neat is that you don't have to tighten a twisty knob to attach the flash. And neither do you have to un-tighten that same over-tightened knurly knob when you want to release the speedlight again. Where the Frio really shines is with the modern speedlights that have a pin & lock system. This make them nearly impossible to seat securely in some coldshoes. With the Frio's way  Read more inside...

So I shot in RAW format, now what?

June 19, 2011 Neil vN 49 Comments

RAW workflow - the first step - changing your default settings

As a bit of a forward nudge to those who are entirely new to a RAW workflow, or who hesitantly moved to shooting in RAW - here's the next step forward - changing the defaults for your RAW file. Before we even get there, shooting in RAW is very much part of the serious photographer's environment. Shooting just in JPG is rarely an option. As I have mentioned, there are few occasions where shooting in JPG might be an advantage. So with that in mind ... RAW it is. And has to be. Now, some notes for the newcomers to  Read more inside...

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