Developing a Style

Had an interesting encounter with a client today. While I was in his home, I noticed a Manfrotto tripod (or light stand) bag propped up against the wall. I curiously asked if he was a photographer - and he responded "as a hobby".

Considering I had to move my car before 11:30 lest I receive a ticket, you would think the focus would have been to finish the job quickly. Nope. Everything work-related stopped after his answer, and we started "talking". He showed me a few of his printed pictures, and I loaded up my Flickr profile for him to peruse. Being a local Brooklyn resident, many of his photographs were from the area, in identifiable locations. But the pictures were all excellent - sharp and well compomposed, with a unique *feeling* to them.

While viewing his pictures I had taken notice of a distinct lack of faces. While he does photograph people, they are almost all from behind, or the side - or even at a distance. And not soon after my internal observation he informed me that that was his "style". I jokingly stated "it's great - you don't need them to sign model releases!", to which he laughed. Photog humor, I guess.

But having only met him, and spending less than 45 minutes with him, he really piqued my interest with that statement. Now, I've read many things about photographer's developing a style... and I've always associated the final product I produce with "my style".

Interestingly enough, it's the post-processing that I felt gave my pictures their style. Now I know that can certainly be true - but I almost feel as if it would be better for me to develop a TTL style. Something immediately visible in looking through my work, versus after I'd had my time with each shot in Lightroom.

Clearly food for thought.

Out and About

We had made plans for a trip to the McNally exhibit, expecting the exhibit to take about 45 minutes. We actually found ourselves done with (and emotionally drained) after about 2 hours! An excellent show with the original large-scale Polaroids from 10 years ago, along with many new photos showing a "where are they now" sort of comparison. Very touching, and if you can make it out there before the 12th when the exhibit ends, you should definitely try to.

We then sauntered over to the MAD Museum, which was a short walk from the first location. Well, perhaps "sauntered" is not the correct word. We ran as fast as we could, through the torrential downpour, sharing our one sad excuse for an umbrella. The Museum of Art and Design has a 2 floor exhibition titled "Otherworldly" art. Miniatures and dioramas of buildings, workshops and landscapes. Excellent collection on display - post-apocalyptic, eccentric at time, and just outright inventive.

Unfortunately, due to the forthcoming rain, I decided to leave the camera and strobe at home. No reason to bother getting us both drenched for a simple practice shot. Once the weather clears up, hopefully around Friday, I plan on working with the flash in manual mode instead of ETTL to try and obtain accurate fill-flash shots on a sunny day.

Tomorrow is another night at the comedy club to watch my friends up on stage working on their sets. I hope to bring my 5D out, weather pending, to grab a few more shots of them. If it's as dead as it was last week, perhaps I'll bring the strobe and try to get some appropriate headshots of them.

Outdoor Light Testing

Spent a few minutes with my wife yesterday, outside her parents house, playing with ambient light.

The Sun was completely covered by some thick clouds, giving us a very soft light to work with.
We shot a bit with the Sun side lighting her, no flash, no reflector.

Then I turned on the flash to fill in the dark parts of her face. The lighting improved dramatically with the fill flash used in a portrait situation. However, it still presented an unflattering appearance as mentioned in my post How to Shoot in Natural Light. Perhaps I'll review the video prior to departing for NYC & the Joe McNally exhibition @ Columbus Circle, where I will shoot some more outdoor w/ fill-flash shots.

I then removed the flash and added a gold reflector to the scene. She held the reflector under her face a bit, trying not to blind herself in the process. The gold gave her face an amazing warm glow, as pictured below.

All in all I was very pleased with the way I was able to use the knowledge I learned from all the books and videos. I do need to continue with this through the entire month of September, though. In preparation for the engagement photo shoot in October, I've got some ground to cover before I'm anywhere near ready for it. But, pushing myself to the limits - I think I can accomplish this.

Joe McNally Presents: A 9/11 Remembrance, In Pictures

Joe McNally Presents: A 9/11 Remembrance, In Pictures

"When someone agrees to have you make their picture, even a quick snap, there’s an exchange, or the beginnings of a relationship, however cursory or fleeting. The subject is out there, in front of a lens, which is a very vulnerable place to be. Effectively, they give you, at the camera, a gift. It’s up to us as photographers to take care of it."

I can't quite recall when I first introduced to his work, but I have since then been enamored by his photographs. Joe McNally is my favorite photographer. His photos always make me stop and really think. Not many photos do that. Especially the "classics".

I am going to see this exhibit tomorrow, in NYC.

How to Shoot in Natural Light - AdoramaTV Episode # 46

How to Shoot in Natural Light - AdoramaTV Episode # 46


I happened across this 13 minute video while surfing around various photography contest sites. Surprisingly appropriate considering my upcoming assignment for outdoor photography!

The host, Mark Wallace, covers 5-in-1 diffuser/reflector usage as well as fill flash with an on-camera flash and finally - placement of the subject in various light.

The re-iteration that cloud-cover affords a photographer a giant "soft-box" in the sky is displayed with a few photos. To brighten up the images, the photographer uses an on-camera flash, aimed directly at the subject, to achieve fill light. He points out that when using fill-flash, the flash must be in 'high speed sync' mode, to achieve shutter speed sync over 1/200th of a second. The flash is aimed directly at the subject. ETTL takes over to determine the appropriate power of the strobe.

1/250th @ ƒ/11

The photo above was taken at my sister-in-law's college graduation about 2 years ago. The fill flash was used precisely as dictated in the video, with the sun under a slight cloud cover at camera right. However, this particular shot has some very unflattering light within. A few photos from later in the day, group shots namely, came out OK. If memory serves, I was actually playing with the flash's EV compensation, and powering the strobe both up and down as I shot to achieve the correct exposure.

I'll need to make a concerted effort to test out fill flash in a variety of lighting situations in the next day or so.

Knowing and Doing - Different.

I had a great time seeing my friends put their pride on the line getting up in front of a crowd. But they did. I give them credit for that.

All the while I got to make a few photos! Dim lighting, lots of movement - this was a fun test. While I didn't get quite as many pictures as I would have liked (set times for open-mic were very, very short) - I was happy with the way my 1.4 performed.

Funny how even after watching an entire Kelby Training video on concert photography, I still managed to make a few mistakes when photographing someone with an instrument at a mic. I let the microphone block out the entire mouth of the subject! Made for an odd photo, IMO. Next time I won't sit dead center of the stage!

Today's been a long day, so I'll leave with a sample shot from the show:

Joe

Prospect Park

Played around with some different outdoor lighting situations today - namely side-lighting, back-lighting and front-lighting. My wife was kind enough to stand still while I blinded her with the sun, and then myself.

The interesting thing is, while the side-lighting provided the nicest of the 3 choices, it was certainly still very harsh light. The blown-out highlights on the lit side of the face were hard to overcome on location - but also with the wonderful tools in Lightroom 3 (see below). Today's test was a pre-diffuser trial. I hope to be returning to the glorious light within the next 2 or 3 days to try this again with the Lastolite. Perhaps at that time I'll realize I should have bought a tri-grip diffuser with a handle...

                                                       Before                             After

                                                    

The front-lit shots felt a bit warmer than the others, though that could easily be corrected in post. Of course, as all the books state - your subject will squint. Correct! I found this light to be harsh, but not unbearbly so. Perhaps the position of the 5 o'clock sun was better than a lower-on-the-horizon shot would have ben.

The back-lit shots of course yield a shot loaded with lens flare. No matter if the hood was indeed on, those spots were all over the images. While I could have swapped out the UV filter for a CPL (would that have even helped much?) I thought of removing the filter alltogether, but that wasn't the purpose of today's exercise. I was concerned with the quality of light. And back-lighting is rough. My subject was dark, the entire image was washed out and dull. Certainly not high quality light.

Truth be told, these tests are about getting the shot right, in camera, the first time. I want to leave the least amount of work to be done in post. I have been using Auto Exposure Bracketing quite extensively these past few days (and learning that the AEB setting disables itself when the camera is powered down and need to be re-enabled the next time you power up). This trick from Jay Maisel has helped quite a bit when I am worried about obtaining the correct exposure values TTL.