The need to understand the light…..

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Actually a repost and slightly changed topic of something I did before, but I strongly believe this is a very vital piece so I also added it to this blog, feel free to comment or ask questions.
I get ALOT of questions about how I get the look in the shots I take and post. According to

 

most it must be some secret photoshop trick, or some very expensive camera and glass. Although I do use photoshop and a MF camera this is however not where it comes from. I have started teaching workshops and releasing instructional DVDs for the simple reason I found out that 99% of the photographers asking these questions are not shooting the way it supposed to be. I’m a firm believer that when you setup a shoot you should have the correct results straight out of the camera, or if you know your workflow use the light needed to get the endresult you want. There is NO way you can fix something in photoshop that is better than when you shot it right from the start.

 

About the workshops
In the workshops I try to teach photographers to go back to the state where you can trust your lightsetup and get stunning results straight out of the cam (and use photoshop to finish it, although it’s not really necessary to be honest for some people). What we do in the workshops is teach the students how light works, and more importantly how to manipulate the light and how to measure it. I don’t believe in all the urban legends about the histogram and fix it in photoshop. I teach the students how to calibrate their meter and how the system works, in other words your meter and understanding the light are the most powerful weapons a photographer can have. This way you will never ever wonder if your black background will turn black or if your white background will still show a little detail or should blow out.
But with the basic knowledge you can also very easily calculate the appearance of a background, or in other words raise the exposure on the background to exactly what you want, (or lowering of course).

 

Only studio ?

Some people will say that this only applies for studio work but I disagree, I also use the same techniques outside. With the proper techniques you can make a day turn into night or get the wonderful pastel almost blown out backgrounds, and you will never have to guess anymore. (and anything in between). Remember that in the old days the photographers also had to trust on their metering and knowledge (although polaroid helps :D). In the workshops you will learn to understand the light and with that you can manipulate it. After the workshops you will never have to wonder how a certain shot was done, because you can see it and with the knowledge you can recreate it yourself. Also take note that alot of great photographs are not only light or photoshop. Theme/styling/pose/Makeup etc. are all vital for the succes of the photo.
Communicating with your model (coaching) is something that is also very difficult for a lot of photographers, in the workshops there is a lot of attention for this part, which in my opinion is about the most important for a session. You can have the most stunning light setup and the most expensive camera, but if you have no model you can’t shoot it. Working with the models is often talked about but never appriciated the way it should be, that’s why in the workshops I will give the students pointers in how to pose your model, look for compositions and most importantly how to work with models to get them to do what you want in the photograph.
So in short.
There is no photoshop trick to give you stunning results. There are simple lighting tricks that can look stunning without a big investment or dragging a whole studio outside. When you have a technique that relies heavely on photoshop (like the populair animated look) remember that the basis for that shot ALWAYS is the lightsetup, when taking for example Dave Hill you can never get that look if you don’t use the lightsetup he uses. Working with composition/posing/styling and communicating with your model is just as important as previous mentioned items.
So please don’t think that I can give you a simple trick in photoshop that explains everything. Also I can’t give you lightsetups from my work to simply copy, when you don’t understand how to measure them the exact setup will not work. Buy one of the DVDs or visit the workshops and learn how to do it yourself and get stunning results straight out of the camera, it seems a commercial remark but don’t read it like that, I strongly believe that the knowledge about light/color etc. is something that every photographer needs to master to get good results. In the workshops you will not learn how to setup one lightsetup. You will learn to use the light the way YOU want it, to manipulate difficult situations and how to get the end result you have in your mind by learning the compositions and communication between your model and you.
When you are done with the workshops you will be able to workout your ideas and will not be limited by expensive gear (which you don’t need) or light situations that you think you can’t manipulate.
Conclusion
I’ve been teaching for some years now and am very active online, 99% of the questions are about getting that wonderful shot that is shown as sample, however the questions are always about photoshop and the images shown that should look like sample are totally different lightwise, somehow people really expect a wonder filter for photoshop that makes everything else. For me it’s very simple, learn how to take the shot, learn to understand and look at the light, work your shadows and angles and you will improve considerably as a photographer, photoshop for me is about 5-10 minutes per shot but only to make it 100% the way I want it and I can’t fix on location (like skin etc.) I will however not take away shadows or change the light.

 

Understand how a light meter works and you will see it makes your live so much easier. I always try to visit some fellow photographers or clubs when we are on the road and it sometimes puzzles me why I guess 90% of the photographers are NOT using a light meter, when I teach the seminars sometimes people even walk away because I start about light meters, the people who stay (luckily 99.9%) often come to me after the seminar and say they sold their light meter but will now buy a new one.It all boils down however to the simple principle that photography should be, photography means painting with light, not with magical filters or photoshop, so when you see a shot you really like first try to make that shot in camera, without any tricks, and than you often find out that the photoshop work is often very minimal (mostly color adjustments).
You also don’t ask a landscape photographer for his lightsetup.
You know it’s all in the light and composition.
Why fake it when you can create it.


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To see the light you have to understand the light.
To understand the light you HAVE to see the light.

Backup those files…. but how

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We all push around some pixels and we all have to store that amount of files somewhere.
To be honest there is no 100% solution that works for everyone, but over the years I think I found one that might benefit a lot of people out there and that’s easier than you might think…… and a lot cheaper than other solutions 😀

Video or Photo, were did those files go.
Let’s first discuss proper storing of the files.
You probably know the problem about not being able to find a file or a project, and you also don’t remember which year it was……… well that can be a real problem, especially when your customer is breathing down your neck. However it shouldn’t be a problem.

DAM / Digital Asset Managment
For some people storing everything on a drive by year, month, day makes sense. They probably have a great memory of when something happened. For other people they store everything by name, and again others just plug in drives until they are full. DAM you say ?

In reality it’s a difficult word for something vital and simple. It’s keeping track of your files and finding them back. You can do this in many different ways but the easiest is to use a special program for it. The two choices I find best are Aperture 3 and Lightroom, myself I’m an Aperture user.

Within Aperture and Lightroom you can give any file (or a whole bunch of files) keywords, they are stored within the database or the file (depending on settings and program) and this way you can always find a file back very quickly. However don’t trust the programs too much. For example in Aperture you can choose to just copy everything in the Aperture database, big NO !!!! If for some reason Aperture crashes or screws up your database you are lost and left with a lot of files were you can’t make any sense off. What you can do, and what I advise, is to work with referenced masters. They can be stored on your harddrive in any order or form you like and when Aperture or Lightroom is not usable for some reason you can still find them and use your library.

Backing up everything.
This can be expensive if you follow the commercial route, or in other words if you believe everything can go wrong and want to be sure. Well sorry to say, you can never be 100% sure, so why spend a lot of money on materials that bring you into a load of pain when they crash. I’ve worked with several raid based NAS solutions and trust me when the device crashes it’s a lot of work to get your files back from the drives, when one drives crashes it’s often an easy task to get things back. So what did I do ?

Keep it simple.
Why spend more money than needed ?
Let’s say you need 8TB of storage (which is on the low side for people like me, but on the high side for most), that would mean you need 4x a 2TB drive to store everything. If you want this in a NAS you are automatically pointed towards the more expensive devices. And than you have 1.

Why not keep it simple ?
There are several companies out there that sell so called storage towers, look for example at Addonics (the brand I also use), they have several towers including some for the really big needs. Our example person would need one tower with 4 drive slots. Add to this tower a port multiplier and add the same card to your PC or Mac and you have one tower with 4 drives and one e-sata cable running from that tower to your PC/Mac. All drives are seen as different drives and the speed (as long as you use one drive at a time) is blazing fast. Now we have 4 drives, but no backup I hear you think……..

The easy rule of harddrives.
The easy rule of harddrives is that they ALWAYS brake, however it’s never known when, but it’s always at a time you don’t want it. So let’s make sure that this rule will not bring us into trouble. Remember the one tower ?
To make sure we have a good backup add an exact same tower, this is your mirror. There are several programs on both the Mac and PC that let you sync between several harddrives. Personally I sync every day at the end of the day and I can this way never loose a file because I also use something else…….

For the big needs….. the file server
Remember those from the old days…. the file server.
This was the mystical big machine that made a lot of noise and was locked up in his case (his own personal room) with airconditioning and you needed a keycard to get in… (ok sometimes I overact :D)
However the files server can still be used. In todays market with 1GB network speeds as the standard and fiber and other options overing even more speed, there is no reason why not to use something with a network adaptor. Same rules applies however to the server. Keep it simple. Don’t chain drives to make it one volume, when one goes they all go. Make sure you have an external tower as mirror…. Why external ? simple when the machine fails it could in some cases fry your drives and with an external tower you could opt to power that down after every sync.

The advantages of a good file server are plenty.
1. costs can be really low compared to NAS solutions that are sold to photographers.
2. there is no real limit to drives, expect when you run windows where there is a limited amount of drives letters (but also that can be solved)
3. It can do many things more than just store the files of your photography/video, think about movies, music etc.
4. It can double as a security unit with webcams connected.
5. Take over the desktop to control the machine from any location, so even when abroad you can reach your files.
and much much more.

Also copying to a new drive is much easier, just plug it in and copy the data the fastest way possible, remember with a NAS the only way to copy data is back to another NAS or to a PC/MAC and than back, a lot of work when you have a large archive.

For you ?
As mentioned at the start it really all boils down to what YOU need.
Some people only use one harddrive at a time and love the Sharkoon Quickport solution which is great by the way, but if you need more space (and in the future we all will) it’s wise to invest in a future proof solution and although one can chain several NAS boxes to each other it’s still a closed system that is not so easy to upgrade or rescue (and try to backup 10TB over the netwerk with most NAS units, you will not like it), in the end it will cost you a lot of money and you will have a lot of boxes. In the past our data stream was always smaller than the biggest harddrives, or in other words by the time you ran out of space there was a bigger harddrive. lately however that has stopped and until they release a 5TB harddrive a lot of photographers and video guys will have the need for many harddrives, and for me the safest way to work is with a mirror, and the best way to have a lot of drives available for the cheapest price is the file server.

I hope this small article gives you something to think about, and I would love to hear your thoughts and your solutions, so press the comment button and join the conversation.

About modelreleases

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Photographing people is my passion and from a lot of people. Capturing a character can be the most amazing thing, but as with most people, characters or situations can change. As a photographer of people it’s therefore very important to make sure you can never get into trouble, and that’s easier than you might think. A lot of the mails I get are about contacts, how do we do that and how do I approach this issue that for some people is somewhat uncomfortable. In reality however it’s very easy and never uncomfortable to be honest.

When you shoot a person you are using their portrait or their appearance for your work, you have to realize that people have rights. You can’t for example not use the image to hurt the reputation of that person, or make the person ridiculous, now that’s probably not something you will do but there’s more. It could be that the situation of the person changes or that his/hers opinion about your shot changes. That’s why it’s important to have a so called modelrelease (we never call it a contract).

What’s in a model release ?
Well this varies a lot per situation. I will mention below what’s in our modelreleases and could be of interest for you.

1. Only I can change the images
It has happend sometimes that a model loves an image but not as I shot it, but as a portrait. It’s absolutely horrifying to see what some models see as a great crop 😀 That’s the reason why in our modelrelease it’s mentioned that the only changes to the images can be done by me.

2. Use of the images
Images are of course shot with a certain goal in mind. For most models it’s the use in their portfolio, or for an agency. But for the photographer it’s often also for promotion of his/her’s work. Remember that if mention in your modelrelease that they can only be used for portfolio use you leave out a lot of options for yourself. That’s why our modelrelease contains the following options :

Model side :
Online and print portfolio / Agency / websites with non commercial status
Photographer side :
all forms of promotion (website/print/exhibition/articles in media), use for commercial activities.

For commercial activities you can add different options like :
1. publications below a certain number
2. publications without pay or under a certain amount

In our modelrelease however there is a clear statement that the good reputation of the model can never be hurt, or the content of the image as known by the model can not be changed to for example getting another meaning.

But I know my models very well, so why bother ?
100% true, however things change.
Let’s say you have a killer shots that’s winning you awards everywhere you show it, it’s the prime sample of your portfolio and you love it. However your model is posing in lingerie, and at this moment this is no problem at all. A few months later however just before you publish your first exhibition with this piece as your main attraction your model has a new boyfriend and he hates that image and doesn’t want to see his new girlfriend in lingerie in an exhibition. Remember that if your model starts protesting against the image you can be in a whole lot of problems and stress. To be sure this doesn’t happen you have to use a model release. It’s a very simple procedure and you are 100% sure that you can without a problem use the images you have (although nothing is 100% sure of course).

So I never have to stop using an image ?
No,
Above all we are all human and our opinions can change of course.
Being a photographer is a social profession and you as a person will have to evaluate your options. If the model in the above sample is going to have problems in her relation with a certain image and you have a modelrelease you could of course always consider taking the image offline and not using it anymore, not because you have to but simply because it’s the human thing to do. When you have a signed modelrelease however this is always your choice and you can’t be forced.

What about outside ?
Difficult issue, in most countries it’s not a problem when you shoot a scene where the “model” is part of the whole and not the main subject of attention. However when the attention of the viewer is clearly drawn to the subject it’s wise to not think “he/she will never find my website” but just ask if the person would like to sign a model release. You can carry around a few smaller modelreleases that you can use, or you can use in some countries a nice app for the iPhone or iPad.

I hope that your attention is triggered by this article.
Please leave a comment if you liked this article or if you have a question.

13 Augustus 2010 Fighting sleep

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I love to travel of course, shooting on different locations, meeting beautiful and friendly people, what’s not to like.

Although at this moment I’m in that moment that I think every dream job also has nightmares.

It started this morning in Tampa at 6:00AM, getting up and getting ready to drive to Orlando to catch our flight. That was no problem at all and we had time to kill, great to see that airports are now really starting to support free wifi everywhere, I build half my site today on the airport.

After boarding the flight to Washington should be an easy one, only 2 hours so that’s easy, and in Washington a clear 90 minutes of rest before we would be boarding to Amsterdam, all was well….. Until I noticed that we passed the same cloud quite a few times. And yes there it was “Ladies and Gentlemen, we have some bad news, due to the weather all traffic to and from Washington is stranded, we cannot land, but….. we have enough fuel”.

And although you know that your flight will wait for you because they also can’t get out it’s still a reason for some stress.
Finally we landed with 10 minutes to spare, so we jumped out of the plane, grabbed some sandwiches and some water and jumped straight into the next plane. Now I have to add I’m a tall guy and airplanes are not what you would call comfortable for me :D, so we decided to upgrade to Economy plus, this probably saved a lot of my day because…..

We were on board, still catching our breath from jumping around with heavy backpacks with all our gear when the speaker announced, “Ladies and Gentlemen, we have some bad news”….. Oh no, not again….. well this time it was something minor, they had to change a tire and then we would be off, 10 minutes max…. ok that’s no problem, let’s get comfortable, or in other words, let’s lock myself up in the seat and see if I can use the iPad in a way it will work for 8 hours…….

After 10 minutes the engines started to roar (still love that sound) and we were ready to go…….
Well…….
“Ladies and Gentlemen, we have some bad news….. (heck no)…. due to the bad weather we are not allowed to fly and will report back in 30 minutes to an hour.
To make a long story short, 2 hours later we were in the air on our way to Amsterdam……….

Friday the 13th ?
Never believed in it……..

But maybe ?

Anyway, lets finish up with a shot I have fond memories off, taken by our friend RC at Kelbymedia.