Shadow play

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In this article some information to hopefully trigger you to look at light in a different way.
We as people are always drawn towards light, and that’s not weird realizing that during the day time we function at our best. So our whole body and mind is set on function in the light. This also means that we know how everything looks during the day time, meaning we know that when someone walks in the sun there will be shadows. It’s no strange thing that we will always try to recreate this in our work as photographers. However this is also where some of the most controversial points of photography lies.

 

There has been countless posts, books etc. that talk about only using one light source, the explanation is simple (according to them), in nature there is one light source and that’s the sun, so using more than one light source will look unnatural and more than one catchlight…. well that’s certainly not done. Well to be honest and please forgive me for my rather “non Frank” expression but this is BS. When we look around us we can see a lot of situations were there are is than one light source “active”, think about your own house, you probably have several light sources all casting their own shadows but also placing more than one catchlights in your eyes. But also in nature there is a lot more than one light source. For example think about a person walking through the street, he/she will be lit by the sun, but what about all the reflections for cars and windows they will all show up in the eyes of a person as catchlights and will probably also interact with the shadow play, lighting up a shadow side, casting double shadows etc.

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Shooting hair Guestblog

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Today a guestblog by Damien R. von Dahlem.
Shooting hair is difficult but also one of the things that I love to do, so when Damien offered to write a guestblog for me about this subject I could not wait. And today…. here it is.

 

 

Hairstyles Magazin

by: Damien R. von Dahlem / Hairstyles Magazine

If you frequently shoot fashion, and you have already paid for the model and the studio, with a quick lens and lighting change you can create a secondary income stream that will probably cover your initial expense of the shoot.

 

Hairstyle galleries are probably the single largest photo users on the Internet. When I started the very first hairstyles gallery in 1998, it was to help readers visualize the hair advice I was giving, and to aide them in finding a new hairstyle. Little did I know at the time the headache I was creating for myself, or that my idea would spawn an entire industry of hairstyle sites that now number in the hundreds of thousands.

 

Creating the gallery was not a problem as a college friend and I had developed a thumb nail link gallery system in the late 1980’s, before the Internet as we know it today was in full swing. The problem was finding the photos of the hairstyles I needed. The first hairstyle gallery, consisted entirely of a full disk of hairstyles that came with Corel Draw. I have no idea why Corel included the disk, but yeah for me.

 

The galleries were hugely popular but as you can image, fashion photos have a definite expiration date. I needed more hairstyles, and they needed to be up to date. With no other sources available at the time I had to shoot them myself. Happily I minored in fine art photography, and owned a couple of up scale salons with champion grade hairstylists.

 

These days, with my dwindling eye sight and patience, I no longer pick up the camera myself. I therefor have to rely on reader contributions, industry promo’s, and stock agencies for the photos I need. The frustration I face every year when screening thousands of photos, is that the photographer was not shooting for the hair industry, and thus most of the photos miss my criteria for one reason or another. As a result I far to often have to settle for less than idea photos and hairstyles.

 

Although I can’t speak for other hairstyle sites, by necessity their needs should be pretty much the same as mine, and here is what I need:

 

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Some more images from our trip

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Wednesday we visited some final locations in the Washington area.
Today it was time for Great falls and the Iwo Jima monument. Both very impressive for their own reasons.

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Guest blog Dave Black

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Today a very special guestblog with a technique I LOVE and which I will be doing in the near future on one of my projects.
I’ve met Dave a year or so ago during Photoshop World in Orlando, I was nervous as could be because this was my first PSW and luckily for me Dave was also new. I love the way Dave teaches and last week he joined me in Nieuwegein during the Professional Imaging and as you probably would have expected we had a blast 😀 (thanks again Dave).
So without keeping you from Dave, here he is, Mr. Black.

 

Lightpainting…The most Creative Lighting Technique
Let me say what a pleasure it is to be asked by my good friend and colleague, Frank Doorhof, to write a guest blog this month. I have always found Frank’s images to be most creative and stunning which leads me to post this instructional blog about what I consider the most creative lighting technique of all, Lightpainting. While capturing sports action is my usually job and creative lighting of sports is often the technique I use to distinguish my work in the industry, Lightpainting is a true endeavor of passion for me. Lightpainting has paid off well, both with what I consider to be my most unique images and with business.

 

This guest blog/article will be a general overview of how I approach Lightpainting. Should you enjoy this article and want to learn more about Lightpainting or other photographic and lighting techniques, check out my website: www.daveblackphotography.com and “click” the Workshop at the Ranch category. There you will find numerous tutorial articles on a variety of articles including an 8 article series teaching Lightpainting. You can also learn about Lightpainting from my Kelby Training video class at: www.kelbytraining.com

 

I will break down this technique into detail with example images, equipment, and in-depth commentary all in an effort to help you learn how to Lightpaint. So grab your flashlight, turn off the lights, and let’s Lightpaint.

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