Tangents

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photography: Inspiration and Homage – compositing & multiple lights

September 8, 2010 Neil vN 9 Comments

Chuck Arlund is a Fashion Photographer whose elegant photography is made even more impressive with the simplicity of his set-ups and use of lighting. Chuck's previous guest spot here on the topic of on-location lighting techniques using reflector & flash, was very well received. Therefore I'm very happy that Chuck is graciously sharing more of his ideas with this guest post. Also, check out Chuck's workshops and mentoring sessions.

Inspiration and Homage - compositing & multiple lights made to look natural

a guest post by Chuck Arlund This  Read more inside...

Portraits of the bride & bridesmaids – location and direction

September 7, 2010 Neil vN 19 Comments

Portraits of the bride and bridesmaids - location and direction

One of the series of photographs that I like to "have in my pocket" are the individual photos of the bride with each bridesmaid.  This is the kind of photograph you can hammer out very quickly, one after the other. The bride with a bridesmaid, hugging each other.  I always make time for this. One stumbling block might be a lack of place to do this.  But there is usually somewhere to do this, by isolating your subject with a long lens against an out-of-focus background. Still at the bride's house, we had a few minutes  Read more inside...

influences & inspiration

September 6, 2010 Neil vN 8 Comments

influences and inspiration

Triggered by the most recent post on the pin-up photo session, I thought that an on-going theme about influences and inspiration in photography would make a good topic.  Read more inside...

pin-up style photo session – Jessica

September 3, 2010 Neil vN 24 Comments

The first time I became aware of the pin-up artwork of Alberto Vargas was with the release of the album, Candy-O, by the Cars in '79. It was often mentioned how Vargas was brought out of semi-retirement to create this image. With that, my interest in pin-up artwork by the legends, Vargas and by Gil Elvgren, was fired up. This will also explain why I've been a fan of the photography of Robert Alvarado ever since I first saw his work. He clearly pays homage to those two artists.  Read more inside...

Photoshop contest

September 2, 2010 Neil vN

updated Sept 09, 2010: The contest is now closed. Here is the winning entry, as well as another notable entry. Thank you to everyone who entered! One of the images I took during the recent photo session with the Modern Gypsies, was this photo above. With all his antics, I had asked him to jump against the wall as if he was going to scale it. It looks pretty cool ... but the mundane urban background pulls this potentially surreal image back to normality. A little bit anyway. Then I imagined it as him scaling an impossibly high wall, rising up from an unseen area below. Pretty cool  Read more inside...

photo session – Modern Gypsies – Martin

September 1, 2010 Neil vN 10 Comments

After our first, and very successful collaborative photo session with the Modern Gypsies, I was quite eager to meet up with them again. And today we had another series of photo sessions with them .. and it was one of those invigorating experiences you have working with truly talented and creative people. During the course of the day we photographed several set-ups and costumes and performers.  I will post more of these over the next few days, showing the results ... but also the progression of ideas; the setting up, and some of what went on behind the scenes ... The first performer we  Read more inside...

portraits of the bride – looking for the less obvious image

August 30, 2010 Neil vN 26 Comments

wedding photography - looking for the less obvious image

While waiting with the bride and her bridesmaids before the ceremony, their excitement made for good candid photos.  But, as ever, I was on the look-out for the less obvious photo. Trying to find something unexpected ...  Read more inside...

Flash Dedicado (Brazil)

August 29, 2010 Neil vN 21 Comments

Flash Dedicado - Técnicas para fotografia de casamento e retrato

Estou muito feliz em anunciar que meu livro sobre técnicas de fotografia de flash flashes da câmera foi traduzido para Português e foi publicado no Brasil. O livro é baseado nos artigos publicados neste site, mas o material foi clarificado, para uma abordagem coerente e completo para pegar o melhor de seu flash na câmera. Houve um cuidado especial para apresentar tudo isso com um fluxo lógico, com a intenção de que tudo vai progressivamente ajudar o leitor a alcançar uma melhor compreensão da fotografia com  Read more inside...

Photoshop tips – retouching for portraits

August 24, 2010 Neil vN 62 Comments

Photoshop Tips - retouching for portraits

When retouching portrait photographs, I have a certain look that I (currently) like - a slightly 'polished' look, but still natural. Definitely not 'plastic'.  With a few steps in Photoshop, and a few steps that I may or may not add, I can easily get to the styling in post-processing that I want.  Some of the steps are specific, but others are added depending on taste or 'feel'.  Some of the steps involve Photoshop plug-ins which are essential for me ...  Read more inside...

photo-shoot – a change in plans

August 22, 2010 Neil vN 17 Comments

progression of an idea during a photo-session

This post was going to be something entirely different - a mini-review of an Elinchrom Ranger Quadra Set that I got hold of to try out.  But a key part was missing.  Without the Skyport that allows you to control the output of the unit from the camera itself, a review would be less useful. Having booked Priscilla as our model already, and my friend Richard along to assist, we decided to just go ahead and have fun with a photo-shoot anyway ...  Read more inside...

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