About technique and more.

Tip on perspective

/in , /by

One of the most important things next to shooting the right scene with the right light (duh), is probably perspective or if you like the angle of the composition.

Always remember that EVERY scene has different ways of shooting it, by just moving yourself around you can literally change the look of the scene, now sometimes you will be limited due to objects you don’t want in the frame, but often you have more freedom than you think.

Today a very simple sample of two different shots from the same scene, but both look completely different, the cool thing…. now a days we shoot digital so you can shoot whatever you like as many times as you like, because sometimes it will look great through your eyes, but in camera…. not so and the other way around, so always compose the shot through the viewfinder.

sweden-40-august-09-2016__dxo

Tip : Strobes can do a lot… and more

/in , /by

In the previous tip we looked at what strobes can do with the available light, let’s see today what happens if we start adding some gels.

In the first image we see Poeka only lit with the available light.
Now let’s add some strobes. (actually only one)

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Totally different look, and as you can see Poeka is feeling much better with this setup.
Remember in this setup that the aperture controls the light on the model (the strobe) and the shutter speed the available light, so if you want more light in the background simply lower your shutter speed.

Now we want a little bit more mood in the shot.
For the next shot I added a green gel on the strobe and balanced on the green light, making this my new “white” which means that all available light will actually drop down to magenta.Poeka August 13 2016 0211

As you can see Poeka really loves this look….

All jokes aside, you can do some crazy creative stuff when you start adding gels to strobes and know a little bit about the interaction between colors. In short (get my book “Mastering the model shoot” for much more information on this kind of stuff) if you use green white will turn Magenta, if you use red it will turn cyan and with blue it will turn yellow.

If you experiment with gels or you have a kick @ss image make sure to share it with me via social media 😀

Tip : what a little bit (well ok a lot) of flash can do

/in , /by

We all know that strobes can be very handy to light up a person, or a scene.
But often it’s forgotten that you can literally change the whole scene with a strobe.
In the first sample you see Poeka shot in natural light, as you can see there is no sky… it’s mostly white.

In the next two shots you see what happens when I add strobes.
The total look of the scene changes and the sky has MUCH more detail but most of all it becomes VERY dark and moody.

Now don’t worry… you don’t need 1000000watts of power.
In fact you can do something similar with speed lights, use the HSS (high speed sync) option and you can come a long way, if you don’t get the same effect just add another speed light for a full stop extra, that should do the trick in most situations (unless you are shooting in California mid day… than add a “few” more 😀

Also with the modern sky ports and HS system from Elinchrom it’s now possible to shoot this kind of looks without the need for insane apertures of f22 and f32, you can now actually shoot this on f1.4 if you want, this is because normally strobes are limited to the 1/125 shutter speed (x-sync) but now with the HS systems like on the Elinchrom strobes you can now break this and shoot on MUCH higher shutter speeds, your output (well not exactly, it’s the light hitting the sensor) will go down when you raise the shutter speed, but overall you will get really cool results.

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Poeka August 13 2016 0140

 

Tip : Backlighting with the sun

/in , /by

As you know by now I love backlights, and I don’t care that some manuals state “You should never shoot into the sun”…. if something could damage it would have probably already happened by now in one of my cameras… however do make sure you are SMART, don’t look through the viewfinder straight into the sun for longer than ABSOLUTELY needed, this is actually why I love EVFs, if necessary wear sunglasses, and …. well just use your common sense.

When you do all this you can end up with some really cool shots, I somehow very much like it when the sun just creeps around my model as you can see in this shot from Poeka which was taken during the workshop “round Emmeloord” a very cool workshop where we go to different locations around my hometown and even my studio to show the attendees that you can take great shots in almost every location.
Lighting was done with one speed light on the model and the sun behind her.