{"id":35123,"date":"2016-12-07T14:09:51","date_gmt":"2016-12-07T18:09:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/neilvn.com\/tangents\/?p=35123"},"modified":"2021-04-03T22:45:07","modified_gmt":"2021-04-04T02:45:07","slug":"portraits-with-shallow-dof-high-speed-sync-flash","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/neilvn.com\/tangents\/portraits-with-shallow-dof-high-speed-sync-flash\/","title":{"rendered":"Portraits with shallow DoF & high-speed sync flash"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Portraits with shallow DoF & high-speed sync flash<\/h1>\n

High-speed flash sync<\/a> (HSS) has two primary uses – being able to get to a fast enough shutter speed to stop action, and for shallow depth-of-field. Other than that, I rarely stray higher than max flash sync speed. So for me, it is a conscious decision to go to HSS. Or not.<\/p>\n

For these playful portraits of my friends,\u00a0Irene and Michael, I wanted to use the shallow depth-of-field with specific intent.\u00a0Irene and Michael\u00a0are at the core of a performance group called the\u00a0Modern Gypsies<\/strong><\/a>. Their\u00a0official\u00a0website:\u00a0Modern Gypsies productions<\/a>. I have photographed the Modern Gypsies several times over the past few years for their own promotion. Since they are always in outlandish costume then, I wanted to photograph their portraits as themselves, sans costume and stage make-up. For this photo session we met up in their home turf, Brooklyn.<\/p>\n

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Two photos that have appeared on the Tangents blog before from promotional stills I shot for them: Irene as a BirdGirl<\/a>, and Michael as PinkMan<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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Straight-forward portraits wouldn’t be as true to who they are – I wanted to give a sense of some of their crazy inventiveness.<\/p>\n

The idea I came up with was to have Irene’s portrait slightly surreal\u00a0–\u00a0Irene with her trademark see-thru violin\u00a0… but I still\u00a0wanted to include Michael. Some of his acts (such as PinkMan) has him bouncing around on stilts while in costume.\u00a0I wanted to include him, but still have this be a portrait of Irene. By using a wide aperture (f\/2), I was able to throw him out of focus in the background.<\/p>\n

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Camera settings and photo gear (or equivalents) used for this photo session<\/h2>\n