I gave the class an assignment on making a Rembrandt light portrait using just one light with a 10º or 20º spot grid.
Most of the class has never even turned on a studio strobe.
Here is the assignment:
Description: Rembrandt portrait using one grid light
Items:
Subject Please get the best possible expression. It would be best if you saw a triangle on their cheek. Be sure the triangle includes lighting their eye.
Monobloc with ten or 20-degree grid You may use any power setting you choose. Be sure your skin tone is exposed correctly and correct white balance.
Camera Choose the lowest ISO setting for your camera. Use a portrait lens 85mm – 100mm; if you don’t have a full frame, 50mm will be OK.
Backdrop You may also use a black background—no other lights are to be used in this assignment.
“Is there any any any chance you can take out – remove the 1 slide at the very beginning that the slide show starts with that says… petting farm….- am just trying to remove petting farm any where i can find it on the website.”
I was thrilled to see something I did a few years ago can be modified and help my friend’s business. She just wanted to change the focus of her business.
Many businesses will add new things and drop other things and the cool thing with that slide show that I produced I just had to make one modification.
It wasn’t too difficult to make the change due to the format. Had I shot this all in video I could still make the change, but the time would have been a lot more.
Have you visited your website lately? Should you change your focus for your business?
I recommend looking every once and a while at what you offer and what you could offer. Sometimes the best thing you can do for your business is to stop doing some things. Some of those things may look like they are keeping you in business, but they could be consuming the time you could put into something more profitable.
Some photos are more timeless than others. Look through your website, blog and other materials and see do the people in the photos look like how people dress and style their hair today? If not you may need to create some new content.
One of my new clients is putting a new photo every day of the year up on their website. It doesn’t rotate. Guess what? They now have increased their traffic to the website. People don’t want to miss the photo since if they skip a day they miss out on some content.
By the way if you want to have fun at my friends farm then go here for information http://www.theartbarn.com/.
I am at the Southwestern Photojournalism Conference where we are holding a Student Workshop prior to the regular program.
I just wanted to share some moments from our time going out to a Cowboy church last night where they gave use horseback rides, fed us and sang some songs with us.
When I travel I use the ThinkTank bags to help protect my gear and carry all my camera and computer gear.
I use the ThinkTank Urban Disguise 60 everyday. I always carry my Apple Macbook Pro and iPad with me. I enjoy the fast response of the iPad to just see content and prefer to do work on my Macbook pro.
I always have a camera with me but it isn’t the Nikon D3S I am carrying all the time. I prefer to carry my Nikon P7000 because it is light and pretty versatile if I just want a photo of something I came upon.
When I travel with my pro cameras and am flying I use the ThinkTank Airport Security™ V 2.0. It is quite common to be stuck on a small plane and have to check my cameras at the door of the plane. I have had good results with nothing ever breaking when flying with the roller bag.
I think it is important to carry what you need to a job and I find that I need a lot more than just a camera. I need backup gear so I need two of almost everything. That becomes a lot of gear.
In this example you can see 2 cameras, four flashes and numerous lenses and other gear. I too carry a lot and need not only to be able to carry the gear, but work out of the bag once on location. I find I can easily get what I need without having to empty the bag to find that piece of gear I am reaching for.
I recommend these two bags in tandem to get your gear on airplanes and to your location to shoot for your client.
When did you start here? [Figure 2] Nikon D3, 85mm, f/1.4, ISO 200, 1/500 on Matrix metering.
Maybe you want the light on even less of the face like this. [Figure 3]
I started this photo shoot with Figure 2. I started with a backlighted subject. Most of the light is in the background, and the subject is in the shade.
This is the setup. I used a fill flash on my Nikon P7000 to take this photo. If you look behind the model, you can see the shadow from the house and see how all the sunlight hits the background. Nikon SB900 is on a light stand with Radio Poppers PX, which helps ensure the signal from the Nikon SU800 is not lost outside in all the sunlight.
I suggest doing this assignment and taking notes to ensure you remember all your settings. While Nikon will capture the camera settings, the embedded information doesn’t show the SB900 settings; it only shows the used settings.
Shoot all these combinations; you will have 16 photos to compare the results. Add + series, and you will have 28 different ones to look through and compare.
As you can see in these shots, the background is consistent throughout each series, and the skin tone gets brighter and darker as the flash changes while the camera setting stays the same. You then adjust the camera setting and re-shoot the series.
Here, you can see me changing only the camera settings on the Nikon D3. The ISO stays the same. The aperture is the same, and dialing this under the shutter speed will adjust automatically because I am using the exposure compensation to change it. Had I chosen to shoot this in Shutter Priority and not Aperture Priority, the Aperture aperture changed from each setting instead of the Shutter Speed.
Flash: The flash is off-camera, and I am using the Nikon SU-800 to control it. I a changing the SU-800 and not the SB-900. Wha will those changes look like?
You can continue to go through the -1, -2, -3 respectfully to get more combinations. I am only changing A and not B or C because the Nikon SB-900 is set to Channel 1, Letter A.
The Camera is set at 0 Flash, which is set to flash. The flash also zoomed to 200, so I am just lighting her face, not the outfit. [Nikon D3, 85mm, f/1.4, ISO 200, 1/1000]
Camera -1, Flash 0 [Nikon D3, 85mm, f/1.4, ISO 200, 1/2000]
Camera -3, Flash +3 [Nikon D3, 85mm, f/1.4, ISO 200, 1/8000]
Now, let’s back up and talk about the Zoom on the Nikon SB-900 flash. The following three images are all shot with the Camera flashing the flash at 0, but I am zooming in on the flash as wide as it will go, from 17mm to 35mm and finally to 85mm.
Zoom at 17mm [Nikon D3, 85mm, f/1.4, ISO 200, 1/1000]
Zoom 35mm [Nikon D3, 85mm, f/1.4, ISO 200, 1/800]
Zoom 85mm [Nikon D3, 85mm, f/1.4, ISO 200, 1/800]
You can never see it happen when you push the shutter, but the Nikon Speed light system fires a pre-flash to set the exposure and then Flash the flash. w, remember the Camera is set to Aperture priority and is in matrix metering mode; I’m trying to figure all this out for you. The flash was 17mm, and the light flash fell on the model’s black robe. The camera wanted to make it darker, thus shortening the shutter speed to 1/1000. Flash hits he face with the 35mm and 85mm zoom settings, and it is at 1/800 shutter speed.
I mention this to say that when you are in TTL mode shooting in some form of auto, there are variances due to each scene. This is why you want to shoot this type of test before you shoot a real job. Change the odel’s shirt to white, and everything will change again.
Let’s mix it up more by adding a snoot to the SB900.
I use the LumiQuest snoot on the Nikon SB-900, which narrows the light to an even smaller spotlight.
I didn’t flash the flash or Camera, but the model moved slightly in these two examples. You can use the Depth-of-Field preview button to have the flash fire a continuous light to see where it is hitting the subject. I can tell ou from experience that you don’t want to do this a lot without letting the flash cool down between doing it. I burned ut the tube and had to have Nikon repair it. Do this sparingly. [Nikon D3, 85mm, f/1.4, ISO 200, 1/5000]
I pushed the depth-of-field preview button and had the model stay still to get the light where I wanted it. [Nikon D3, 85mm, f/1.4, ISO 200, 1/5000]
As you can see, everything is the same without the snoot in the setup. When using he snoot, the exposure changed a great deal even tho I only have the Camera at -3 Flash and the Flash at +3
This is the 20th Annual Southwestern Photojournalism Conference this week in Fort Worth, Texas. You can read more about it here www.SWPJC.org
One of the highlights through the years is the “2-minute shows.”
Everyone’s got something to say, but can you say it in two minutes? We’d like to give you the chance to take the stage and share your vision in 120 seconds. That’s right, you’ve got just 2 minutes be it in photos (limit of six) or multimedia.
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ebyFDCuKmPU]This year I am using my 2-Minute Show to invite folks to Tibet with me. I would love some feedback. Give me your comments below.
We normally start at Billy Bob’s at the Fort Worth Stockyards on Thursday night with the students shooting the dancers.
I enjoy seeing my good friend Morris Abernathy each year.
Anke enjoys her friend Ashley Veneman
Louis Deluca and Garret Hubbard. This year Garret is a keynote speaker.
Bill Bangham as you can see is a CLOSE personal friend. He has a show hanging in Richmond, Virginia.
Jim Veneman is the driver of the SWPJC Bus. He helps keep us on time.
Louis Deluca, Morris Abernathy and Jim Morris are up to something as always here in the Stockyards.
OK this was the moment I decided I wanted a Nikon P7000. Jim Veneman looked like he had left his cameras at home and then out of no where he pulls this out.
Gary & Vivian Chapman talk with Kevin Vandivier
Garrett Hubbard is just a great guy and loves to help others by reviewing their work at the conference.
This was one of my past slide shows at the conference. I liked it enough to keep it on my website.
You may not be coming to Fort Worth, but take the time to create your 2-Minute Show and see if you can WOW us with your work and tell a story in the process.
Do you want to go here and take a horseback ride? If you do then I succeeded.
Telling stories sometimes is about capturing an essence of the place and creating a mood that triggers the soul of the audience.
I think the best storytellers are those who can take a present moment and capture a nostalgic moment. The moment is so timeless that people are taken to their own memories.
Does this photo trigger memories for you from your summer camps?
I find that many of the memories from our past that we tap into from time to time are not moments of extreme exaggeration with camera angles. The compositions are more simple and straight forward, but yet they are very timeless.
I remember going to camp as a young boy and having fun playing in the pool and as well remembering finding a girl friend. For me this photo triggers those memories. Does it trigger your memories?
Some photos we take can be big picture like the photo of the horses near the lake. Sometimes the photos can be much closer and help bring us into those moments we remember of a horse ride through the woods.
I used a flash to be sure you see the person on horseback. I think her expression captures the relaxation and joy of horseback riding in the woods.
Many times photographers are communicating moments that do not trigger memories, because the audience has never had a similar experience. I believe if the photographer is truly in touch with their emotions when they are photographing and understand how to use light, composition, expressions of subjects and those defining moments they can communicate even to those who have never experienced these moments a desire to want them.
This is truly a snapshot of my daughter when she was 3 years old. That is some 10 years ago. While I know this is mainly a memory jogger for me of my daughter, I know on some level it will connect with many people because they too have made similar photos like this. I think the photo works only because I think you can tell my daughter is connecting with me in the photo. Would I use this photo in a communication package–I don’t think so.
You need to start with the snapshot as I did with my daughter. What in this photo makes me like it so much? It is my daughter and it means something on this level for me. I like the expression of Chelle in the photo as well. I think on one level many people would like the photo.
What is missing for me is that she is a little too far away for me in the photo. I wanted to get closer and make it work better. Do I have one showing that I did that, no I don’t. I made this photo for me. That is perfectly OK to do even for a professional photographer.
I do make a lot of snapshots for me. These are my nostalgic moments. I have learned they don’t connect as well as those photos that have taken a little more thought and time to make.
Are you in touch enough with how you feel about a place to capture it? Good communication photos help your audience connect to a location using visual stimulants that make a moment nostalgic and inviting. Hire a photographer who consistently shows this in their portfolio the next time you want to get folks to come to your event.
“Mommy, why is the sky blue?” is one of the many questions we start out asking our parents.
It is when we are about two we ask a lot of why questions. It really helped us get our bearings and understanding of how the world works.
A few years ago while studying theology in seminary I heard more questions coming from everywhere for the professors. Surprisingly the response to these questions was met by questions.
Over time I started to see that the more you knew about a topic really meant you knew how to ask a better question, rather than you having all the answers.
When you hire a creative to produce something for you, the best creative will ask many questions. One of the core questions should be why are you wanting this product? What do you want to accomplish?
If your creative isn’t asking these questions I am pretty sure you are getting mediocre work at best. What I do know is you are not accomplishing your goals most likely. How do I know, well if the creative doesn’t know the answers to these questions then how can they meet the objectives. Even if you outlined everything perfect for them, the creative will often ask questions even more targeted and helping you refine the product.
I believe the best question asked is the one we all started asking and never gets old—Why?
I believe the question why is the question of the heart and the answer to this is the motivating factor for an audience.
Funny thing about great photos is they ask questions. Yes the best photos have your audience asking questions. Who is that person? The photo was strong enough to make you want to know.
Where is this place? This is what a successful travel photo will do because your audience will want to go there if it is successful.
Great communicator understands that the key to great communications is questions. Answers seldom demand a response from your audience, but a question does require response.
Keeping the Ramblin’ Wreck from Georgia Tech running all these years requires tender care by mechanics. The car has been rebuilt completely a couples times.
If we worked with creative the way we get our cars fixed we probably would be more successful. The key is to find a great mechanic and when you do, you most likely will do everything to keep them–they are hard to find.
You have a problem with your car and you articulate your problem to the service person. They listen and write down the symptoms and let you know they will check on it. How many times do they come back and the problem is caused by something that surprised you?
You may think your transmission needs to be replaced because the gears are just slipping out. They look at it and for about $50 they replace a sensor. Other times you think it is something simple and they find a major problem.
To win races the car has to be pushing all the limits possible. To make this happen a mechanic must know more than the minimum, they must know enough to help think of possibilities to get the most out of the performance of the car.
What often are missing in the creative process are two steps I see every time I have my car serviced. First, I articulate what I think is the problem. Second, they take the car without me over their shoulder and pop the hood and get a good look with computers hooked up to the car for diagnosis and much more sophisticated analysis than I can do.
If we did car repairs like we handle many creative projects we would just tell the mechanic to switch out those spark plugs and then just before they are finished we may say can you go ahead and give me a valve job.
We seldom have that first conversation where we are articulating our problem that needs solving.
We need more people calling us wanting our services. Then the creative knows they need to make the phone ring. However, this often is stated as I want a brochure or I need a website.
After the client and the creative person have the sit down meeting to go over all the issues they need addressed the creative should have time to go away from the client, without distractions and come up with some solutions.
At this point the client can do just like they do with the repair shop. Still get whatever they want, but now they have had the expert give them some of their advice.
Atlanta Symphony Orchestra Guest Conductor Arild Remmereit and Sergei Krylov, guest violin soloist, answer the questions from middle school orchestra students after the concert. The students are listening to the creative experts and want to learn.
You have probably had someone ask you for something and it is much easier just to give it to them. However, if you ask some questions like what are you trying to accomplish this can help both of you get better results.
The earlier you bring a creative person in on a project the more information they are privy to and this can increase the quality and improve the impact of accomplishing your goal.
When you look at portfolios of photographers pay close attention to the subjects eyes.We have heard it said over and over the eyes are the windows to the soul.
I had an earlier post talking about genuine smiles and that the place to see if they were genuine was not the mouth, but rather the eyes. Here is that post.
Professional model Tyra Banks said the mistake with many models is smiling with their mouth and not their eyes.
This is available light. Look at the eyes and how even with a good expression they just don’t pop.
Now if the model is doing everything right the photo can still fall apart. Why? You must be able to see someone’s eyes to really connect with them. A good photographer will know this and do all they can to be sure your audience is connecting with the subject.
There are many photographers who are not storytellers. They just see your subjects as objects. They may even be really strong graphic images with great color, but the audience is not identifying with the subject.
Here the only difference with the photo above is a fill light was used which helped give a catchlight in the eyes and softened the shadows.
Take the time and look to see if the photos you are being shown have life in the eyes. A “catchlight’ is simply the highlight of a light source reflected off the surface of the eye. This highlight adds depth and dimension to the eye, and gives the eyes life in a portrait or snapshot.
Now not having catchlight is not required and sometimes actually hurts the photo. If you are telling a story and you need the subject to look sinister or like a vampire, be sure not to have catchlight and you will create that negative tension that you want.
As long as you know you are not using catchlights for some reason that is OK, it is when you are not making a conscious decision that you diminish your message without knowing.
While the exposure is OK notice how difficult it is to see the eyes.
There are times when the process of adding a catchlight is not possible. There maybe a technical reason it cannot be done without actually creating other problems. In photography and communications there are often trade-offs.
While it takes more effort to introduce the fill light, notice the black skirt now has some detail as well as the eyes having that catchlight.
After looking at these photos maybe you are now more aware of what to look for when evaluating photos.
These tips are the differences that can take your storytelling to the next level. Not being aware of them and having your audience know the difference can make you look amateurish and we don’t won’t that do we.
Good exposure as well as a good expression on the subject. Can you see his eyes?
Notice again how the photographer has added a fill light that opened up the face and helps you see the eyes.
When you hire a photographer to cover an event for you, do they ever suprise you with a multimedia package or do they just give you a few images?
You need to hire a photographer that goes beyond what you ask for and gives you surprises. You will most likely need to pay more to the photographer to use a multimedia package, but having a option like this to use on your website is better than just an image alone.
I have discovered that many of the events I cover don’t always have a storyline, but putting some images together with some sound from the event is a great way for people to enjoy seeing the images.
It is the packaging and presentation that is what makes the same images a little more enjoyable.
This is one of my favorite images from last night’s performance by the Elkins Pointe Middle School 6th, 7th & 8th grade orchestras. Why? Because I think music has a powerful way of joining us together and I think this photo captures the friendships made through music. (Nikon D3s, ISO 5000, f/5.3, 1/100 Nikkor 28-300mm)
I put together a gallery of images for parents and created a DVD to send to the school for them to use in their yearbook. They seem to like this and continue to ask if I will photograph the concerts all the time.
This time another parent, Chuck Huels, was recording the concert with the proper sound gear. I asked if he could send me one song to use with a slide show. I also recorded the music with my shotgun microphone on the Nikon P7000, but didn’t get the quality of sound that he attained using multiple microphones.
What really made the difference in the Sights and Sounds package was the quality of the sound recording.
Please click on this to watch the Sights and Sounds multimedia package.
I want you to pay close attention to some of the images. So here I have pulled some out to explain why I shot them and put them into the show.
Before they started to play many of the parents followed my lead and started to take photos of them warming up. Hey this is almost the only way to get a good shot of your child, because once you are sitting down the child maybe on the back row and it is hard to see them. I also wanted to show that when it is important in our society, people show up with their cameras. Next time you are in a situation like this, take photos while they warm up, you can get closer and not be obnoxious as it will be if you did this during the live performance. (Nikon D3s, ISO 12,800, f/5.6, 1/60 Nikkor 28-300mm)
This parent is making a video of the performance on her iPad. I guess she might have even posted it shortly afterwards to her social network. The cool thing about this and smartphones is the immediate ability to connect to others in the world. Maybe she could have even been using FaceTime or Skype to let someone who couldn’t get to the performance see it live. I just love how the world is getting flatter and we are more connected. (Nikon D3s, ISO 12,800, f/8, 1/60 Nikkor 28-300mm)
I like this photo because it just gives you context to the venue. Here you can see the 6th Grade orchestra in the foreground and if you look closely you can see the other 7th and 8th grade orchestras in place ready to perform to the left. Three stages really made the performance move along well. Also, the students behaved better when they stayed on stage and just listened to each other perform. (Nikon D3, ISO 4500, f/6.3, 1/100 Nikkor 14-24mm)
This is my daughter Chelle, playing the viola. This is the #1 reason I was there last night. Be sure and see her playing. (Nikon D3s, ISO 12,800, f/5.6, 1/100 Nikkor 28-300mm)
I love to capture the moment where I can show the engagement of a person in an activity. Here the boy is looking to Seth Gamba the conductor for cues. (Nikon D3s, ISO 12,800, f/8, 1/100 Nikkor 28-300mm)
Seth Gamba, the orchestra teacher, took time to explain to the audience of primarily parents and siblings what each piece of music was helping the students learn. Here you can see a sibling and parent trying to do the finger combinations their orchestra student will be doing. (Nikon D3s, ISO 12,800, f/8, 1/80 Nikkor 28-300mm)
This is Seth Gamba being sure everyone is learning about music. I cannot say enough about how excellent of a teacher he is, but winning first place in judging says a lot about his leadership and teaching skills. (Nikon D3s, ISO 9000, f/8, 1/100 Nikkor 28-300mm)
While the pictures and the slide show do not tell a storyline, they do tell about moments that are stories in themselves. When you listen to the music listen for how they play in unison. Listen for how they are all playing in pitch. Stringed instruments are much more difficult to play in tune than say a piano where when you hit the note it is what it is. Your finger can be just a millimeter off and the note is off with stringed instruments.
Questions for you
What do you think of the Sights and Sounds format for presenting images? What do you think you would change?
Tips to produce a package like this
Get the best possible recording you can. The microphone you choose is critical. Surprisingly sometimes depending on the room your smartphone will do just fine. But remember it is sound that drives this more than the images.
Custom white balance. Be sure and set the camera to the room light and not just to a preset. In this case my custom white balance gave me a Kelvin 3150º with +24 magenta on the tint. As you can see this is not close to those preset.
Use high ISO setting. I am fortunate to own a Nikon D3S that lets me shoot at ISO 12,800 but the idea is to get sharp and in focus images. ISO 100 will be making you shoot at very slow shutter speeds and even with a tripod the musicians would be blurry do to them moving. Keep the ISO as high as you can to be sure you have good shutter speed.
Use an appropriate shutter speed. Why didn’t I shoot these photos at 1/500 or faster? I was shooting under fluorescent or sodium vapor lights. Not 100% which it was, but under either of these lights the lights are actually flashing and not a constant light as with incandescent lights. Any shutter speed above 1/100 will be prone to color shifts from frame to frame and/or a stripe through the image of a different color. You know it when you see it.
Shoot RAW. While you can save a step by shooting in JPEG if you need to do any post processing to lighten, darken or tweak the color the RAW will give you better results.
Shoot for variety and lots of images. When you put a Sights and Sounds package together, it will most likely be in a 2 minute range. That will require a lot more images than many parents ever typically shoot of their child’s concert. Fill in with closeup shots, overall shots and most of all look for “moments.”
Software for iPads and iPhones. When you produce something today, be sure it works on all devices. The one I did here will work on many different devices. It also works really well with quality of the image and takes up less bandwidth than a typical video. I want you to enjoy the package and not be waiting on it to download.
I would love to hear your thoughts so please leave your comments below.
