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Natural Light - Feb 10, 2009 23:04 - 2 Comments

Using a Location to Full Advantage

One Location with Many Different Images

This is a post from the old site, and I thought I would redo it for the new one. There are many things you can do when you find a great location. When Bri and I stumbled upon this one, I thought it would be fun to work out several different ideas.

We used flash, natural light, natural bounce, strobe and direct sunlight. It was a very cool place… just an empty lot with a graffiti wall and the sun setting in the West. Tucson has a lot of colorful places to shoot, and we just parked the car on the street and set up.

NEWS:
We have opened the Cleveland and Detroit Workshops and are taking enrollments. I have had some interest from Memphis, Little Rock and Modesto (Central Valley, CA). I would love to set those up. Let me know if there is interest there.

Our contest is up and running (info here) and we are seeing some very nice images in the pool. Be sure to enter and get your image up on the site. And please take a moment to visit the sponsors, maybe let them know if you appreciate their stepping up to give you all the awards for winning.

Posts you may enjoy along with this one:
Sometimes The Location is Not As Good As Promised.
Make Your Own Reality to Add Drama
Shooting With Megan and Raymond on Location
On Location: Anatomy of a Shoot
On Location with Gerry, Jim and Christina

And if you haven’t checked out our Tech Sheets, you should grab them and get started on your collection. We have them coming two per month. That will be a really nice collection when you get them printed out and in a notebook.

Continue…

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Natural Light

Studio Lighting - Jun 11, 2009 6:36 - 5 Comments

Still Life Shot for an Magazine Ad

Shooting for A Print Ad on Lighting Essentials

Well, my Volleyball client needed a new ad. That’s great. We needed it to be concepted, shot, and produced in one day. A day that had me doing other things as well. Stressful? A little, but I have been at this game long enough to know that it will get done. It always does.

Concept was easy. The software they design for Volleyball coaches currently runs on Palms and handheld devices. A lot of coaches are wanting it to run on a laptop as they are starting to carry laptops to the games for other things and it would be nice to only have one device courtside. Announcing the availability of a PC based software for laptops is the overall message of the ad. It wasn’t meant to overshadow the total message of the two available software packages, but to let those who are currently using the older software that a new tool was now ready.

We always strive to be a little different. Most of the ads that are in the trades are either big time products like Adidas and Nike or small, mom and pop solutions for a niche of court volleyball. I want my ads to look as good as they can and also stand out. Shots of volleyball players taken under less than ideal lighting abounds. We have been going for the still life approach since we started working together in 2002. The ads stand out. They get noticed and the client gets inquiries and sales. Score!

This ad will be running in several trades, but the first deadline was “Volleyball Magazine” for the August edition, I believe. Court Volleyball closely follows the school schedules. The printing is pretty good in that magazine so I can push the gamma a little.

Before we dissect the shot, I want to remind you all of the Missoula, El Paso and Memphis workshops. We still have a few openings and it would be nice to have you there. We are doing a special 1 day intensive workshop on the NIKON CLS system with John Groseclose in August. It will involve studio and location work with single and multiple Nikon strobes. Both manual and iTTL will be covered. Look for more information soon.

Here are a few related articles you may enjoy after reading this post:
Adding some Texture to an image.
Another shot with post production for the same client.
Finding the right mix for blending ambient and strobe.
Shooting Food on Location

Thanks for visiting and tell your friends about the site. And now for the soup-to-nuts shoot of this ad.

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Studio Lighting

Portable Lighting - May 25, 2009 16:35 - 13 Comments

Strobe and Ambient: Finding the Mix for Portraiture

Finding your ambient exposure first can make shooting a flash portrait much easier.

I get asked a lot about how my methodology works. What am I thinking about when setting the light? How do I know what the settings should be.

For this post I have pulled some shots from last years workshop tour. I will explain the exposure planning as we go along. From mixing the ambient with the speedlights or overriding the ambient altogether, the knowledge of what the image should look like will help you decide.

And what should the image look like? Well, that is up to you. In photography there seems to be an endless amount of possibilities and you can pretty much do what you want. Stylistically and artistically, you can make the image you want by working with the light your way.

The neat thing is that the light works the same way, every time. So you can “learn” the light and its abilities and controls and be comfortable that the light will do what you expect it to.

I always carry a little book with me to sketch ideas in and also to document how I do something for later review. I decided to scan those extemporaneous drawings so you can see how simple it is to do the shots, and how important it can be to carry a small notebook for making notes. You don’t have to be an artist, but it sure helps to LEARN what you are doing by writing it down. I don’t do every shot, but sometimes I like to just sketch it quick and then see if there is anything else I could do.

Before we get going on this post, I want to remind you about the upcoming workshops: Akron, Omaha, Montana and Chicago. These workshops are intense and full of information that goes even beyond lighting. From professional working methods to using social media to gain exposure, we talk about photography all day long. For two full days. Visit the Learn to Light website for more information.

If you are currently looking for a new way to present your work, take a look at our Professional Photographer Websites built on the power of WordPress. Just click the Essentials link on the menu bar for more information.

Now lets look at five different portrait setups that use speedlights and ambient light.

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