Often I’m asked “What to do to spice up a shoot”
Well you can a lot of things of course, but one thing that I always find fun and can really add a little bit of an edge to a session is let the model play with sunglasses.
During a workshop with Sharon we added this little accessory and played with it.
Yeah we all know that feeling.
Always you bring your tripod and never use it… and than that one time you did not bring it….. you want to do some night shooting.
Luckily I could borrow one from our friends at Capture Integration in Atlanta but otherwise I would have missed these shots.
So the next time… well just bring the bloody thing.
I think I’m gonna look for a carbon fiber one, at least it’s not that heavy.
I recently put a topic on social media and got so many good responses that I thought it also needed a place on the blog. Now let me make one thing 100% clear before starting this topic. The light-meter is a tool, it’s nothing less and nothing more. If you don’t use a light-meter you’re not a bad person, you are without any doubt not a lesser photographer than someone who is using it, I think that from all “photographers” out there now a days less than 1% is using a light meter, from the pros this percentage will be a little bit higher and as you know those people can create stunning images.
I for one however strongly believe that someone that is into photography should at least look at the light meter to see what it does and how it operates, because if you use one, one thing is for sure it WILL speed up your workflow considerably and also helps you to create the same quality of exposure over and over again.
Now in the past I’ve written a lot on the subject and I still believe that there are areas that I did not touch (so who knows what you will see more in the future), during my workshops and talks to photographers I find that the group using a meter is very very small, when I talk about the reasons I often get the same responses “You don’t need it with digital right?” and that’s ok, with digital you can indeed judge an image on the “instant polaroid” on the back of your camera or on your screen. However I also get responses like “I use the histogram”, “I always thought meters were only for the landscape guys”, “I was told that the meter was inaccurate and that with digital you could nail the exposure so much better”…..
I’m not sponsored by Sekonic (and trust me I tried :D) but somehow the whole light meter thing did got me thinking and I decided a few years ago during PSW to do a class on why I use a meter with stunning results (I believe they sold out the meters in a few hours) ever since it’s been a solid part of what I teach.
Sometimes you are thinking “what can we do to spice this up”…….
Believe it or not but masks can really help to give your shoot a little bit of extra “oomph”
In this case Corine (our model) brought a what I call “Hello kinky kitty” gas mask, and I have to be honest as soon as she put it on… I loved it.
the million dollar question however is always “How do you shoot this”
One of the things I like about shooting masks is the way how it takes away the expression of the mouth and face, now one could think “that’s important right?” well yeah it is, but….. by using a mask you actually get the option to add a lot more expression on the eyes. And that’s what I really like about this, the images are actually way more intense than without the mask, eyes are indeed the mirror to the soul and the place of most expression, although normally we are more drawn towards the mouth for expression for example a laugh, a scream etc. When you take this away you can actually see how important eyes can be.
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