Photo Meetup
01/02/10 13:45
I hosted a meet-up at the studio last Saturday with the challenge to the photographers and models that we will be shooting on green screens and drop in backgrounds. Here is a quick video. I’ll try to have some edits in the next few days. Stay tuned...
jan30meetup_sm
jan30meetup_sm
Comments
Short Video Tour of Studio
20/01/10 13:30
Here is a quick video I was trying to keep under 5 megs so I could email it to another photographer. It ended up being about 40 megs so I’ll post it here. It shows a simple setup for silhouettes on the white seamless. Also, I use my speedlights and monolights together and the video shows how I can focus the light, and make it more directional with the Honl snoot. I also show what a gel looks like and what I sometimes use them for. Let me know in the comments below if you have any questions and I will do my best to answer them. Sorry that the light level is so low... I’ll work on my production level in the future!
First the Video...
IMG_0616_2
The overhead light was a simple way to get a bunch of bright white to come off the paper and back to the camera. Its how I got the silhouette picture below.
or this one
The Honl snoot was aimed into Bella’s face to get a little light but yet leave the rest of her dark.
Adrienne
Lexi
The one needs a backlight to separate her from the background and make her pop, but I still like it.
Use your imagination and try some things after you get the fundamentals down. There is really no right way or wrong way. I have been a member of photo.net for years now and I always liked the critique system where half of the score is based on originality. Take an idea and make it into something new and unique.
The studio has a skylight, but had no light going through it last winter. I gaffed a Girl Scout cookie box to a Nikon SB-800 to focus the light on Anna from an old DJ both at Ballet Arts.
Update: I sort of mentioned that I gelled the Photoflex mono lights with CTO to get them more balanced with the halogen worklights. I made the following image B&W because the flash was way blue compared to the worklight. I post some new pictures like this in color with the lights corrected next week.
First the Video...
IMG_0616_2
The overhead light was a simple way to get a bunch of bright white to come off the paper and back to the camera. Its how I got the silhouette picture below.
or this one
The Honl snoot was aimed into Bella’s face to get a little light but yet leave the rest of her dark.
Adrienne
Lexi
The one needs a backlight to separate her from the background and make her pop, but I still like it.
Use your imagination and try some things after you get the fundamentals down. There is really no right way or wrong way. I have been a member of photo.net for years now and I always liked the critique system where half of the score is based on originality. Take an idea and make it into something new and unique.
The studio has a skylight, but had no light going through it last winter. I gaffed a Girl Scout cookie box to a Nikon SB-800 to focus the light on Anna from an old DJ both at Ballet Arts.
Update: I sort of mentioned that I gelled the Photoflex mono lights with CTO to get them more balanced with the halogen worklights. I made the following image B&W because the flash was way blue compared to the worklight. I post some new pictures like this in color with the lights corrected next week.
The Ideas in my Head
24/10/09 19:23
This was an idea I had rolling around my brain for possible dance portraits for the Theatre Ballet Company. While we eventually opted for a simpler head shot instead of going with the silhouette theme, it was a fun learning experience.
The first ideas was to try to make you do a double take and with a mirrored version of the main dancer. Is that how a shadow works? Is this Photoshop? Or would it be subtle and the viewer would go "cool photo!"
My main light was a large softbox overhead and another monolight to the left, high and behind to get a little separation. I used a Nikon SB-900 speed light and fired it way off to my right placed on the ground with a snoot to keep it from spilling all over the background. I gelled it with a 1/2 CTO.
It was harder then I thought to get good consistent results in camera. The shadow subject needs to face straight on to the light (SB900) and not the camera. The light needed to go way back. -About 25 feet. The closer the subject to the wall, the smaller and more defined the shadow of the dancer. To get the timing for jumps I framed the shadow dancer so I could see them in the view finder and clicked at the peak action, cropping them out in the final image.
Thanks Adrienne, Ashley and Mackenzie for you patience and the smiles.
The first ideas was to try to make you do a double take and with a mirrored version of the main dancer. Is that how a shadow works? Is this Photoshop? Or would it be subtle and the viewer would go "cool photo!"
My main light was a large softbox overhead and another monolight to the left, high and behind to get a little separation. I used a Nikon SB-900 speed light and fired it way off to my right placed on the ground with a snoot to keep it from spilling all over the background. I gelled it with a 1/2 CTO.
It was harder then I thought to get good consistent results in camera. The shadow subject needs to face straight on to the light (SB900) and not the camera. The light needed to go way back. -About 25 feet. The closer the subject to the wall, the smaller and more defined the shadow of the dancer. To get the timing for jumps I framed the shadow dancer so I could see them in the view finder and clicked at the peak action, cropping them out in the final image.
Thanks Adrienne, Ashley and Mackenzie for you patience and the smiles.
6 Pro Photographers Share Their Most Guarded Digital Secrets
24/10/09 11:53
Here is a cool article on maclife.com. I always find it interesting what plug-ins others use. I am a big fan of the Imagenomic Portraiture plug in. Its has saved me a ton of time. Mike Sweeney has a great point about plug-ins in general. You should set it where you think it looks good, and then back it off a little. I try to practices this with most corrections and even with adjustment masks. 
Taylor does his best Hendrix
22/10/09 09:02
Taylor was great! Like a lot of my portrait sessions, I start out simple and easy. Get the yearbook shot and make mom happy. From there, who knows what will happen. He brought his guitar to the shoot and we left it in its case to get the obligatory yearbook photo. After a bit we pulled out the guitar and got some nice shots.
I was already looking around for some lighter fluid though after seeing a shot of Jimi Hendrix the other day dousing his guitar while on stage. "Hey Taylor, are you game?" Doesn't matter... I was already setting up the lights. After a couple of tweaks I came up with this...
I was trying to create a stage feel with a couple of mono lights, I left them ungelled thinking that I would make the final image black and white. Stage lights tend to have gels or color filters in front of the lights to add color effects to change the look or feel of a concert. This shot was taken at Ballet Arts Academy across the street from my studio when it was the Fat Tuesdays club...
After Taylor shot down my idea of actually lighting his guitar on fire, I took the shot I had in the can and googled around for flame tutorials on the web. After five minutes I made this simple flame pattern...
Added it to the original file
I changed the flame layer's adjustment mask to "screen" which dropped the black background.
The flames needed some boost in contrast. I duplicated that layer a few times and played with a couple of the layers with a curve adjustment. I added some lens blur to the foreground and background to give a shallower depth of field.
The shot I saw recently was in black and white. Added some noise and tweaked the black and white conversion to hold on to the red and yellow flames.
No one was burned in the making of this photograph. I added a CTO (color temperature orange) gel to a nikon speedlight to add a little warmth to the face from the fake flames...
I was already looking around for some lighter fluid though after seeing a shot of Jimi Hendrix the other day dousing his guitar while on stage. "Hey Taylor, are you game?" Doesn't matter... I was already setting up the lights. After a couple of tweaks I came up with this...
I was trying to create a stage feel with a couple of mono lights, I left them ungelled thinking that I would make the final image black and white. Stage lights tend to have gels or color filters in front of the lights to add color effects to change the look or feel of a concert. This shot was taken at Ballet Arts Academy across the street from my studio when it was the Fat Tuesdays club...
After Taylor shot down my idea of actually lighting his guitar on fire, I took the shot I had in the can and googled around for flame tutorials on the web. After five minutes I made this simple flame pattern...
Added it to the original file
I changed the flame layer's adjustment mask to "screen" which dropped the black background.
The flames needed some boost in contrast. I duplicated that layer a few times and played with a couple of the layers with a curve adjustment. I added some lens blur to the foreground and background to give a shallower depth of field.
The shot I saw recently was in black and white. Added some noise and tweaked the black and white conversion to hold on to the red and yellow flames.
No one was burned in the making of this photograph. I added a CTO (color temperature orange) gel to a nikon speedlight to add a little warmth to the face from the fake flames...