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Search Results for: bouncing flash behind me

portrait: Janine vN

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portrait using a gridded softbox

It's been about a year since I last took a more formal portrait of my daughter Janine. Last year it was her with the steam-punk goggles, when I used a beauty dish (with a sock) as lighting. During a restaurant dinner last night I noticed Janine had 'LOVE' scribbled on both her forearms with a felt marker. I asked her about it, and she explained the idea behind 'To Write Love On Her Arms'. So I decided to include this tonight in the portrait of her. Lighting her and the words on her arms was a slight challenge. I wanted a moody portrait, instead of  Read more inside...

Photographing the wedding processional

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Photographing the wedding processional

The processional is technically probably the most difficult part of a wedding to shoot and get right. Light levels are low in cavernous churches, while people are walking towards you. Getting enough light on them, and having that light look good, as well as getting the image sharp .. that's a tall order. In the photo at the top, the adorable flower girl  just had to stop and check in with dad half-way down the aisle. [  1/80th @ f4 @ 1600 ISO  //  Nikon SB-900, Nikon D3,  Nikon 24-70mm f2.8  ] I use on-camera flash to photograph the  Read more inside...

high ISO is no substitute for good light

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The light on Valerie here is from the evening sky, some city lights, and some of the parking lot's lights.  All of this added up to give me enough light to use for a lovely impromptu available-light portrait of her, right there in the middle of the parking lot. My settings were: 1/160th @ f1.4 @ 1250 ISO My equipment: Nikon D3 and Nikon 85mm f1.4 The light was soft, but wasn't necessarily the best for a portrait where she is simply looking at the camera.  Because of the surrounding buildings, the light was fairly top-heavy.  So I asked Valerie to lift her gaze slightly - and in this way  Read more inside...

embracing tungsten light

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wedding photography - working with incandescent light sources

As a wedding photographer I obviously shoot all the time in ares lit by tungsten / incandescent light sources. With modern D-SLRs and fast lenses it is no problem to actually use tungsten light as my main light source. The photo above from a recent wedding, is a typical image where I used an existing incandescent / tungsten light source for a beautiful but simple portrait. Here I photographed the bride by the light of a lamp in the living room.  No flash was used - just the lamp and whatever other ambient light existed  Read more inside...

Photographic composition – Tilted compositions / Dutch angle

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Tilted compositions / Dutch angle

I am not a huge fan of tilted images, and I see it as an unfortunate visual 'tic' when I notice entire wedding galleries by other photographers where pretty much all the images are tilted at a very specific angle. That just means that little thought went into composition, and that composition and holding the camera has become a reflex action .. which just happens to include a 30' tilt to the camera. There is a rationale though behind tilted compositions / the Dutch angle - the balance of the photo. I tend to keep horizontal and vertical lines  Read more inside...