That Class of 2014 look.

Every now and then I get invited to give a seminar on lighting tecnniques  at the excellent Commercial Photography  program SCCC, (Seattle Central Community College).  This is the result of this year effort. The program gives me  access to some seriously Pro level equipment,  a whole class of  excellent assistants and... some seriously talented and hipster looking subjects. Profoto strobe mounted on a Soflighter, high on a  boom high on camera left. On camera ring flash for fill  and screen on the right to block some the light from a very  sunny Spring day. What I like in this shot? The triangular shape created by  the shadows that nicely frames the subjects.

Under the Spotlight.

These images were inspired by a recent portrait of Elizabeth Olsen appeared on W Magazine

I wanted to experiment with two studio set ups but maintaining the same overall atmosphere of the original image.  The top one is taken with a close and up Beauty dish, just off camera right.
The rapid fall off is obtained by adding a grid and  a diffuser. The second one uses a ring flash
as front fill light. The differences (softer light the first, punchier the second) are highlighted in post.
The model: up and coming actress Mariel Neto. Make up and styling Tiffany Parente Connors.

Take the Bread and Run

Last Spring I went to the Painted Hills, OR with a small group of photographers to shoot some new images for our portfolios. These are a few from my set.  They are  good examples of a current
trend in commercial photography  and short videos: suggesting a mood rather than telling a clear story. The landscape, the colors and the key objects combine with the movement of the subject to originate tension and to create an image able to hold attention long enough to be remembered.  However,  the details of the story are best left to the viewer's imagination.  Why is our hero running through a frame, holding a red bag filled with bread? Why is he carrying a camera? What role is the woman playing? The point I am trying to make with this image is.. he could be holding anything as long it is colorful or shaped in a way to immediately capture the attention of the viewer. The other clues (the camera, the old cowboy boots) just further enrich the image, without being too distracting. This is what a commercial client 'd ask from a set like this.

The lighting is similar in all three images , a softbox to camera side, high and close to the subjects, scene cross lit with the sun. However the images look very different. In the first and second photos the flash overpowers the Sun. Coupled with some post processing that alters the original palette it creates a dreamier,  more staged look. In the third  image the  flash is used only as fill,  to give more of a structure to the floating vest. I noticed that often clients love the first set up and then ask you to 'tone it down' a bit to achieve the second. So it is good to show that one can create a range of images with the same tools.

Portraits with Natural Light

These two images have been taken in exactly the same spot, using two very different cameras, but the same light set up, which I consider 'classic' for studio portrait. Both just use only natural light in a way that closely mimics the studio. My point? To show how I  can apply  a simple light set-up   independently of the environment  (the photo studio or a fancy bar).  For this images I used a  good digital SLR (focal lenght was 20mm, almost equivalent to a 35mm at full frame) and an iPhone, with has an  even wider lens.  Both images were shot at f2.8. So where are the lights and most importantly, where  the lights aren't? Think of how you 'd light this in the studio:

-  Key: large softbox to camera left.
-  Accent+fill: striplight to camera right.
-  fill for face: a white reflector under the subject or a small softbox low and a bit on camera right.
-  hairlight or better a spot light.

 In an bar you have to  position yourself and the subject in a way to take advantage of 
the natural light sources you have, in this case;

1 -   a large,floor to ceiling window a few feet at  camera left, with mostly reflected light from nearby buildings.

2 -   a  door looking  into a small backyard, about 30' to  camera right, at the end of a dark corridor.

3 - an electric light behind the subject

4 - a white table

5 - the most important thing: an otherwise fairly dark room, with  interesting fixtures and dark walls that absorb light and  do not reflect much or any, back onto the subject. The images would most likely do not work as well in a room with white walls, that would make the lighting less interesting.  Also, any bright colored walls would make getting appropriate skin colors pretty hard. So choose your scene carefully....

But at the end pretty similar schemes right?

 The two portraits also show the effect of using  (top) a very  wide lens  to get a  dramatic effect, amplified by the reflection in the model's sunglasses, compared (bottom) with a more classic, 'commercial' framing of the subject. The larger DSLR frame has a shallower depth of field, which shoows in the slightly out of focus  bar furniture.  In both cases I did some light skin retouching  and some post coloring with Lightroom. And if you need to hire a speaker  to talk about planets and stars, you can go here, a website where  you can also hire Salman Rushdie, although his portrait is not as good, at least in my opinion ;).

Tuesday Morning, 6AM: never say never.

The Blackberry Bushes Stringband  is a really good  North West based band that I photographed late this Summer on a bright sunny morning.  The Sun provided plenty of backlight. It was windy, so I just added a key light high on camera left (an Einstein head with a handheld large diffuser), a set up that is easy to work with two assistants who know what to do (hey Danny and Ashley).

This set  is a good example of how sometimes I try an idea on a test shoot and then I apply it
with a client. The image I blogged about a few months ago used a distressed background and warm colors  to give the feeling of 'Old West'*

The BBSs loved the idea ...and j added the owl and the Budda's head. They were also adventurous enough  to stand in the water with their instruments for the sake of making the image more captivating (photographers love adventurous subjects!). We were done by 10am, just in time for brunch...

*I make sure to keep a standard,  version in the archive, just in case.

As Winter gives way to Spring

This is a test shoot with the amazing Josie Haney we did last Winter. It was a cold, windy day at the nearby  UW campus nature reserve. I wanted to experiment with colors and distressed textures, perhaps taking  a bit away the focus from the model (sorry Josie!) or the product. Why? It's an approach often used in commercial images to set the mood for the viewer, especially on  splash pages on web sites,  . Remember, you never sell things, you sell solutions to people problems, or needs. Lighting scheme is  minimal fill with sunlight in the background,  to blur the sky without overexposing it. Warm tones reminding of the old West and daguerreotypes.

Making People Happy with Natural Light.

I was hired by Compendium Inc. to photograph their new series of greeting cards and the displays they are going to be sold from.  That posed an interesting challenge. I love shooting still life, but their style is a bit different from the one I usually go for.  They wanted  bright images, with a strong 'natural light' feel to them. This is sometimes easier to be said than done here in the NW, where natural light is often rapidly changing during the day. My solution was to shoot with mixed light, putting the displays (and the model in another similar shoot) next to a large window and letting the natural light to work as a global fill, about 1.5 stops below key. Then I  put a large softbox 6ft high on camera right to be the main light source, well aligned with the windows. Then a strip light behind the display on camera right and two smaller ones pointing and the white background.  To give the image a bit more of a 3D 'punch' (but while under the watchful look of the AD,  to stay consistent with the Compendium look ) I used as  a cheap ring flash adapter  as fill.  The flash  was mounted on an on-camera Canon Speedlite.  So umm,  five lights total. Note:  this set up requires your other strobes to have optical slaves.


Have  you noticed that the format of the blog posts has changed?