Painting with light (and shadow)

I've often heard photography referred to as painting with light but in reality, it's the shadows that really make or break the image, especially in portraits. Effective use of light and shadows can really "sculpt" the models features and make them stand out. Of course, taken too far and you can overdo it - with either the light or the shadows; the trick is in finding the balance between the two.

What got me thinking of this again was my experimenting on a design idea for a portrait head-piece for an Autumn/Winter theme. That and a chance to try out my new beauty-dish. As I didn't have a "live" model available, I made use of Tyra; my styrofoam stand in.

I think the head-piece needs a little more work but the general idea is one I'm going to continue working on as it has a lot of potential.

For the technically minded here are the details on the photo:

Nikon D2x, 35mm f/1.8 @ 1/250sec and f/2.8, SB-900 in a Phottix beauty-dish @1/32 power

Minor update

As there was no usual mid-week post last week, I wanted to do a quick update to let everyone know that I'm still here.

My recent photo "assignment" was to take photos at a halloween costume competition, but as I did not have any model release forms signed I can't really share any of them here. They were used for university instead for competition judging and for posting the winning participants. I'm not too concerned by all this as if nothing else, it was a good exercise in shooting on the fly (so to speak) as most of my plans had to change on the day and no two photos were the same. Also, I had a very short space of time to setup and shoot each photo, weather it was a single person or a group of 12+.

On a different note, I found a great product that I am eagerly awaiting its arrival; the Phottix Luna folding beauty dish. Finally I will be able to use a beauty dish on my SB-900 hotshoe flash. This, alongside my pair of shoot-through umbrellas and Lastolite Ezybox, will give me all three main lighting tools for portrait work and will allow me to vary from wide, soft diffused light to more directional and contrasty light.

Eye of the beholder

I'm pretty certain that I am not alone, as a person and as a photographer, in my opinion that everything has its own natural beauty. Take spiders for example; while reviled by many, I find their unique forms and features to be fascinating and beautiful.

I found this particular specimen making its web at the side of my house, while I was walking one of my dogs. As the web was only a few feet off the ground, I had to stop Jax from having a snack while I checked out the spider.

Next it was a case of grab my camera, macro lens, flash and Flashbender modifier. This time I switched to TTL balanced flash and Aperture Priority on the camera so I could concentrate more on framing and focusing. Of course, breaking out a light stand and getting the flash off camera would have also been an option but I went to for on camera flash bouncing light off the Flashbender to create indirect illumination.

I did a quick search on Google but so far I have not identified the particular species of spider. Still, I find it to be pretty striking and after taking about 30 images, I left it alone to go back to creating it's web.

In a flash...

Excuse the pun but it has been a pretty illuminating week for me where flash photography is concerned; and I guess I should step backwards a little and explain what I mean.

It all started when I received an email about the big 5 Day Deal of photography gear (videos, textures, plugins, software, training, etc) - in all $2000+ for a one time price of $89. If you participated, then you know just how awesome a deal it was, but if you missed it, my commiserations as it's now gone away.

Anyway, I started looking through the videos and was going to start looking at the ones from Lindsay Adler when I saw a series from Zack Arias, entitled One Light. All I can say is wow! Fantastic video series on flash photography and not only did he explain it all in a manner that even I could understand, he also demonstrated it all in a clear and easy to follow manner. It certainly highlighted everything I've done "wrong" in my previous efforts at flash photography. Two of the biggest things I now know after watching the videos is:

1. Use manual mode for both the camera and flash
2. I don't need to spend $hundred's on strobes and accessories - I have pretty much everything I need now (other than a few minor items)

My next big opportunity to flex my new found techniques will be at halloween as I will be running a "photo booth" for a costume party. I'll be using a pretty minimal setup of one SB-900, one SU-800, an Ezybox softbox on a 15ft stand and a white backdrop. Don't need any more than that as I can get good directional light from the Ezybox with minimal overspill as I won't want to light up the background and surrounding area too much - so no umbrella for this.

And now the wall of text is over, I bet you're wanting to see some photos. Well, I didn't have a "model" handy, so had to resort to using myself as the subject matter. Of course, I've never been that great at taking selfies but I certainly like the much improved lighting I got from this very basic setup of the Ezybox sitting a couple of feet above the camera position, in line with the lens.

Throwback Thursday

Here is another delve into my photo archives and a previously unreleased photograph. This one was taken in October 2008 at the Tall Grass Prairie Preserve, near Pawhuska, Oklahoma - it was my first visit to the preserve and my first encounter with a bison.

The photo was taken in the late afternoon sun, close to 4:30pm and is of a single bison as it forages in the prairie grasses. If you're ever in the area, I highly recommend paying the preserve a visit and stepping back in time to when most of Oklahoma was open prairie lands and the bison roamed free.

Small things

Like a lot of things, photography is often made (or broken) by the small things - not least of which is the need to watch the background for unwanted things or "photo bombs" by people/animals/objects. Also, by focussing on the little things we can find some really interesting subjects; colour, texture, shape, the play of light and shadow, etc.

I spotted this little flower in my back yard, in our small raised bed and I felt inspired to break out my camera and try to capture it. The late afternoon sun was placing the raised bed into shadow so I also broke out my SB-900 and Rogue Flashbender to provide some more flattering, indirect lighting. I then took several shots with the flash set to TTL/BL and was not very happy with the results as the flower was getting washed out. To compensate for this I switched over to manual on both my D2X and SB-900, finding a happy medium with the flash set to 1/4 power and the camera set to 1/100 sec and f/14 on my 60mm macro lens.

I like how the strands of spider web add a little extra interest to the shot - wondering where the spider may be; when did they leave; when will they return.

And I still like the square format to give a more balanced image (to me), some may not be too enamored with it but I like it on this particular shot.

Until the next entry, keep exploring and experiencing...

Musings and observations

I haven't spent much time behind my camera so far this week, but have every intention to remedy this very soon.

Not that I haven't been doing photography related things in the meantime. Been watching some instructional videos from Lindsay Adler on lighting and posing techniques, as well as diving into another of her great books - Fashion Flair for Portrait and Wedding Photography. And another great source for lighting techniques is any of Joe McNally's books - and great reads too!

Oddly enough, I observed (by chance) a couple of photographers taking portraits at a local park over this past weekend; while I was there exercising my dog and letting him get excited with all the squirrels. Anyway, back to the "photographers" and my impressions of watching their work. My number one thought was how they need to read "Shooting in Sh*tty Light" by Lindsay Adler because I'm seriously thinking that their photos are not going to be very great.

One photog was working with a young couple and all she had for light modifiers was an on camera flash (no diffuser dome or other modifier in use, other than the built-in bounce card was extended) that was set to 90° straight at the subjects - the most unflattering option. They would have done a lot better to have had an assistant with a 5in1 reflector/diffuser to work with the wonderful afternoon sun (for natural light) or to help in getting the flash off-camera to provide a more pleasing fill light. What made this one worse for me was a little while later I overheard the photog and subjects talking about the shoot and the photog commented about looking forward to receiving their $400 fee! Wow classy; talking loudly about that kind of thing in a public place.

Then a little while later I saw what must have been a wedding party of some sort - big stretch limo, about a dozen people streaming out and being herded into a group for some photos. The photog in this scenario had nothing more than a single body and (what looked like) a short zoom lens. He proceeded to line everyone up, facing into the afternoon sun which meant they would all be squinting heavily and scrunching up their faces. Most unflattering!

Now it's not like I'm (currently) any top portrait photographer but I'm educating myself on good practices. I'm also very well aware of mistakes I've made in the past with a lot of my portrait work...not least of which is producing boring, stiff portraits. Add into that poor lighting choices (don't light a male and female subject the same - one will not like the look) and general errors.

I am currently planning my "first" portrait session since all my video classes and reading and will incorporate as much of what I've learnt as I can into the photos. I'm even following Lindsay's prep work suggestions to identify location and photo style. And of course, I will post updates and photos here after they are finished.