shooting promotional photos for a band
camera settings: 1/50 @ f8 @ 800 ISO ... lens zoomed to 35mm; available light
shooting promotional photos for a band
Anyone who knows me well is probably very aware that my first true love is music. I live my life to a music soundtrack. There's always music playing. Not the radio, but music of my own choice. I love music ... however, my sense of rhythm isn't all that it should've been for me to be a natural muso. But still, I love music. All of which meant that one few non-negotiable rules for my daughter was that she had to take music lessons. So she plays bari sax in the Read more inside...Exposure metering & observing the available light
Exposure metering & observing the available light
As a photographer you'll often hear instruction to just "look at the available light". Great. But this advice is also often given without clear examples of what we're actually supposed to be looking at. So let's explore that a little bit using a sequence of images of our model, Aleona, photographed during a recent individual photography workshop. This is also keeping with the loose theme over the past few weeks, that for a photographer "using the available light" is not a random thing or just a meaningless catch-phrase. Read more inside...photo session (available light) – Ekaterina
photo session (available light) - Ekaterina
Ekaterina, (or Kate, if your tongue trips over her name), was the model at the top of my recent review of the Canon 8-15mm f/4L fisheye zoom lens. Since the fisheye makes everything bendy, and it must be the least flattering of lenses for portraits, I wanted to show a handful of images from the rest of the photo session with her. These should portray her graceful beauty much better. Read more inside...Exposure metering – expose for your subject !
Exposure metering - expose for your subject !
In preparation for a review of the Fuji X-100 camera, I met up with Anelisa to see how this little camera performed during an actual photo shoot. The image above was one of the photographs we ended up with. Now, there is something specific about it that I wanted to explain in a separate article, instead of it being glossed over deeper inside a camera review. The composition is simple - I do like my compositions fairly central, it seems. Similarly, the lighting is simplicity itself - all available light. There were two main sources of Read more inside...Photography: Direction of the light – using available light
Photography: Direction of the light - using available light
This striking photo of Shawna illustrates something that I want to underline: at some level, our consideration of the light that we're using remains the same, whether we're using available light, or flash, or video light or some other continuous light source. We need to consider the direction and quality of the light we have or are creating. We then either need to adapt our lighting, or adapt our way of shooting our subject, to complement our subject. So let's look closer at the light / lighting used for this photo ... Read more inside...Available light vs Fill-flash
Available light vs Fill-flash
A question that popped up in my web stats was interestingly phrased: Do natural light photographers always use fill flash? The question curiously implies that you might not find natural light which is perfect. However, as photographers, that is something we're constantly searching for: perfect light. It is out there, somewhere. So, resisting the temptation to just answer with a cheeky "no", let's consider an example of when you would not want or need fill-flash. The thing with natural light, is that you have to look at it. You have to look at Read more inside...fire performer at PDF
After I was so thrilled with watching and photographing the fire performers at their wedding, Katie and Nathan managed to get me a ticket to the PDF event this weekend. Due to work commitments this weekend, I was only able to visit tonight (Friday), and take in the activities and spirit of the event, and chat to random people. Magical. Of the fire performers (and other participants) I photographed, I really liked the few images I got of Nichole .. and thought I'd show them here as a small glimpse of the event. Shot with the Nikon D3, using the Nikon 85mm f1.4D lens 1/125 @ f1.4 @ 3200 Read more inside...
