Busted

I haven’t updated mostly just because my latest assignments haven’t been very eventful. I’ve been getting a lot of the same stuff (soccer, football, festivals, etc).

This post may seem a bit redundant from the previous post since I talked about shooting portraits of people, but I want to really make a point about something that most beginners, myself included, don’t seem to get through their heads.

Your equipment isn’t truly what makes you take amazing photographs. I understand that having a higher resolution camera, an extra flash, some nice expensive light stands, blah, blah, blah can do amazing things to change your shooting, but that’s not “IT”.

The pictures in this post were all taken with one to two flashes. The second flash isn’t extremely necessary. You could even change locations to a spot near a window for a “free light”. Then, using your one flash as a fill light, create the same affect as a two flash set up.

My setup shot is just to give an idea of the minimal equipment that I’m using. Most portraits should be simple so that you keep the person in the picture as the actual subject.

Lighting is easy and fun, experiment with things that will be lit like a person (like this sculpture I did last year) and just keep moving lights around to see what happens.

Oh, and my backgrounds were basic. One was a blanket stretched over a wide chair back. The other was a painting canvas, unpainted.

First Image:
This was with one flash, shooting through the white umbrella above. Blue blanket background behind it which was fleece so it ate light. Since I shot at a higher shutter speed, the ambient (light from the room) didn't get picked up by the camera.

This is pretty dramatic, but still enough light. Note the eye showing on the right side. That's important. A total profile with no visible features on the side of the face opposite the light looks strange. Unless you're going for that really moody shot.


Second Image:
This isn't much different from the last one except that I used what's called a "reflector" to reflect (shocking, I know) light from the umbrella onto the other side of the face. This lightens the shadows just a bit, while keeping the background dark. Still one light, but now two with the reflector. By the way, reflector was the canvas board. Costly? No.






Third Image:
Now comes the second light. Notice how it makes the head pop from the background. That light on the hair is called... hair light (not exactly Latin).

Reflector was still used on the right side.









Fourth Image:
Ok, change of lighting. This is two lights. First, yet again shot through white umbrella on the left. Second light is behind and below the subject, firing up at the background to throw a faint halo on the wall/blanket.

This is old-school light. My grandfather used to use this in the studio that he owned way back. Were he not retired, he'd still be doing it. My point? Classics never die. Unless they're drummers in Spinal Tap.



Fifth Image: (Almost done I promise)
This is no different from the above, except that there's a background change. I had to adjust the metering since the white background reflects (gasp! a photo product int he shot) light more efficiently than the blanket.

The halo is more noticeable. Apparently white backgrounds are all the rage as of late. People are going nuts with having blown out white backgrounds.




Sixth Image:
Ok, this one is just for fun. My model got all high and mighty on me and started acting all "Paris Hilton".

Thus ends the small studio set ups. I'm definitely not the leading expert on this stuff. You can make a visit to studiolighting.net for a really good site on what else but stuido lighting.

Portraits

If you haven't been to Strobist yet, you're nuts. Go there every day.

I say this because I use things every day that I learned at that site.

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First Day:

First real portrait for the paper the other day. Real quick. I made it quick. Most photographers don't get much time to take a portrait of people. Lucky for me, the subjects (homecoming court at a high school) were already together and posing for the secretary's at the school, bonus!

I didn't want to take forever since these kids had to be back at class in about 10 minutes. Goodness knows they would hate it if I made them late for class.

I'm pretty fast with my flashes so I let the kids relax while I set up a quick shoot through white umbrella on my left and clamped a hair light flash on the right, kind of behind them.

Do you notice that light coming in on the right side? I do, and I like it. It's better than having all of their faces shaded on one side. It would have looked a lot better if I had made them move forward more and stuck a flash directly behind all of them. That would have made some good rim light.

The reason I used the umbrella for the main light is that it is nice and soft, and soft light is nice to people's faces. If you want to bring the wrinkles out in someone's face, then by all means, use hard light. However, if you're trying to make people look nice and smooth and lovely, softer light.

This is pretty basic for a portrait. One light can be used, but the second really helps. If you're planning on doing more portrait work or maybe moving toward commercial photo instead of journalism, then you might think about getting a second, or third, flash.

It's nothing special, but it's something that will make it and is lit well enough to give some shape to the people. I wish I'd have gotten more daring and found a better background, but I was trying to get it done so they didn't have to sit for so long.

I definitely enjoyed the fact that they were pre-posed for me. I probably would have spent way too long trying to get them to stand correctly.

Next post will be about yet another festival and another soccer game. Be ready for some complaining from me on that one.