Go to your dark place...

If you've picked up on the idea that good photography is all about lighting then you got it. You don't need a studio full of lights or modifiers to make it work either.  I do believe that the popup flash on any camera should be ripped out or duct taped down.  The light has to come from somewhere other than the direction of the photographer to make it look like a natural photo.  Heck, even crime scenes are shot with a ring flash and that's probably the only example of good light coming from the camera.  Not my favorite, but in their case functional, and in any other case it's a nice fashion statement.

To learn lighting so that it comes natural to you it might be best to find a dark place and use one light and play.  Playing is very important to become comfortable with anything.  Consider that we would sit and play with blocks, and puzzles, and colored in books, and ran around on a playground to learn basic physics and textures and shapes.  We never stop learning.

So, with just you and a light and a subject you can see just how one light will bounce around and how the shadows appear.  We all knew how it would react but now YOU are the one placing the light to make it react and that's the difference.

Reflection

Some people use hot lights...that's a light that's always on and usually bright...because they can very easily see how it's going to look.  I prefer flash because it's more portable and the subject never has a bright light in their eyes.  And with a pocket full of AA batteries I'm good to light all day.  Yes, flash is way harder because you don't really see the light until you've taken the shot.  Hence the need to know your light and how it's going to look at different power levels and different situations.

A hint here would be to have a small pocket flashlight you can put next to the flash to see how it is generally going to look.  It'll be harsh, but telling.

I never do an important shoot with a brand new light.  I will play with it at times during the shoot to get comfortable with it, learn it, but not rely on it until I have 5-10 hours of playing with it.  You'll find it amazing how you eventually show up at a location, plop the subject down, stand back and look at the sun angle, trees, background, and with plenty of confidence plant your light where you know will make a picture you have in your head and find it did just what you expected.

So, go to your dark place and find your light!

A little touched?

There has been and always will be different opinions on how much retouching to do, if any, a good photographer should do. Some claim all shots are perfect out of their camera. Some retouch every shot and would never allow anything to leave their hands without adding their touch, their style. I do both. Sometimes I get way to artzy with a shot making it gritty, B&W, flip it, blow out the whites, whatever I feel to make it art that I enjoy. I always try to keep it beautiful and interesting.

But I think just about any image can use a little help only because to make it interesting it should look slightly better than real life. Real life is raw and unforgiving and a bit harsh. Adjusting the light after the fact to put more focus on the subject isn't a bad thing. My opinion.

Kim in the stream

Here is an example of a shot that seemed just fine...the original is on the left.  I'll admit, although a bit biased, that this shot rocks.  It was worth wading out in the stream and putting $5K worth of camera and lens within inches of a cold fast running creek.  Spooky but you do what you have to to get the shot.

When I looked at the shot in Lightroom 4 I thought it looked just fine.  Then I thought about what i could do to it to make it more powerful.  Draw the person into the shot.  One thing that always works and I like to do is to bring the light up on the subject and down surrounding them.  It's a good way to focus the viewer where you want them to look.  Lightroom 5 comes with that feature actually.  I used NIK Color Effects Pro 4 and the filter is called Darken/Lighten Center.

When I'm not getting 'artzy' with a shot I rarely retouch it beyond what it MIGHT have looked like from the camera.  I could have an even lighter hand sometimes but that comes with practice and constantly learning the tools I have.

So, if you are one of the folks who feels all of their shots are 'dead on perfect' good for you.  Ask yourself if there is anything that could make them just a touch better.  Or ask yourself if you don't retouch because you don't want to spend the time to learn what it takes to do it well.  It would be a shame if that were the case considering how much time a photographer and model(s) spend to get the shot.

Green Jelly Bean

58589_550241978321791_349991039_n

Here's the deal.  If you shoot models, and you are serious about your work, you will get jealous from time to time for many reasons.  It's human nature. You might get jealous when you see a model you've shot with work with another photographer who just totally nails a wonderful look.  Everyone would like their work to be the best the model has.  It's human nature.

Sometimes models get jealous when a photographer they shoot with regularly knocks out some great ideas with another model.  Even knowing that they have also shot unique killer sets with that same photographer.  It's human nature.

I've struggled with this and from my conversations with other photographers and models I'm not alone.  Whew!  We all seem to be human...

Here's the deal.  We are all growing and expanding what we know, who we know, how we do things, how to improve on what we've done, and not one of us has done it alone.  We all work together to help in each other's growth.  This is how it should be.  It's human nature.

What about that green jelly bean?  Well, personally, I acknowledge it because that's always the first step in fixing anything.  And, at least in my case, I'm more upset about being jealous than actually being jealous.  But that helps too.  I know it's dumb and selfish.

I actively encourage the people I work with, models, photographers, support, to work with as many good or great people as they can.  That's the only way they can grow.  This is how portfolios are built and careers lauched.  And that's what it's all about.  I often tell myself that what I'm doing, maybe just one shot I take, will be the one that opens the door to something amazing for that other person.  That's why we do it.  That's why I do it.

Will we still be jealous, even knowing it's silly and wrong?  Oh yeah.

It's human nature.

Shutter lust...

Sometimes someone new to photography asks me for advice.  It's a lot like walking into a grocery store and asking, what tastes good here.  Not an easy question since it's really self exploration that will help someone find what they love and as a result usually get good at that. To learn what tastes good (to you) in the store you have to try it...all.  So, I usually suggest this.

Go to a place where you've been many times before and sit down and just start looking at it...really look. Developing the eye for interesting backgrounds, views, seeing how the light is playing through the trees on the side of a building, or how a path in a park is shaded by trees. All of these things we have seen and just take for granted in a literal sense and not in the artistic sense. The artistic lines in an old man's face, or the colorful and delicate pattern of the iris of a young girl's blue eye...

Washington DC

Just walk and look with your heart and not your head and you'll see a whole different world to shoot.

Don't look at the back of your camera either.  Just shoot and keep your head up and eye looking for something interesting.  While you might be looking at your pictures you are probably missing a moment in time, an elusive shot, that is lost forever.  Shoot bracketed and you'll be fine.

Leave your technical self behind and just look at the world through your creative eye.  Through your childish eye.  And discover what's been there all along.

Soul shooting

When I see a photo that I love it's not my mind that's loving it.  No, it's my heart. My mind would check for rule of thirds, exposure, see the wrinkle in the dress, and analyze any post production to figure out how it was done and how it was lit up.  My mind would run the logic and statistics if I let it.

1/160 f5 85mm 1.8

This photo of Jay was the last one for the day.  We'd done some fashion and some boxing shots and pulled a lot of great emotion out for those.  Jay worked on his end and I made sure the lighting helped reflect the emotion as much as I could.  At the end of several hours we knew we were done but I had this one last vision that came to me.  There was Jay, buff as they get, and the lights and mood at my disposal.

So I sat Jay down, told him to lean forward and place his hands on the top of his head.   I placed a couple lights on him.  One on the backdrop and on almost right down on his head and shoulders from the front.  And I took this shot.

I didn't measure anything.  I didn't think about anything technical at all.  I had a vision and just created it with my eye and heart.  And I like it better than anything else we shot.  And it's kinda' fun knowing it wasn't planed, worked out, fretted over, or metered to be perfect.

Light meters, color charts, white balance, tape measures, and rules make for perfect 'ho hum' photos in my opinion.  It's not because I don't understand those rules and tools, I actually do.  I have just found they make the pictures boring and lifeless when followed to the letter.

I guess what I'm trying to express here is that we often over think a shot.  Sometimes to a point where it becomes impossible to do.  Or it doesn't come out like the 'book' said it should.  I like to shoot with the creative side of my brain, the emotional side, the one where creativity comes from.  If you shoot from that side you'll create pictures that inspire that side of other people's brains.

When another photographer tells me what's technically wrong with one of my shots I smile and nod.  I don't care however.  I'm OCD about creating things I love but not OCD about how to create them.  Does that make sense?

Stand back and put the camera down

We love to shoot. It's a passion and we certainly don't do it often enough.  We tend to want to just start shooting away as soon as we have someone playing and posing in front of our camera.  It's a natural instinct.

Then we get back to the computer and upload the images.  We go through them and often think...if we'd payed attention to all those needles in the snow we might have cleaned them up before laying her in the middle of them to shoot.  Or if the light had been just a little more to the left and down her eyes would have really popped.  It's to late.  Sure, some of the shots are going to be fine.

IMG_4027-Edit-Edit-1

This is when you have to ask yourself...is FINE what I was after?  I hope not.  I doubt you are reading this is average is what you are after.

I have a habit of stopping often and just standing there and looking at the model, the lighting, and the overall setting.  Yeah, it's a little odd and I usually tell the model to relax while I think this through.  After all, I don't want them to think I'm just staring at them and they are awaiting direction from me at this point.

So, stop.  Set the camera down.  Look at the light, where it's coming from, how it will hit the model, and envision what the end shot will look like.

Envisioning the end shot is the hard part, at least at first.  Once you have experience you can look at something you take right on the back of the camera and have a fairly good idea of what you can do with it.  I've found more and more I look at a picture and get excited about the possibilities of the shot when everyone else looks and doesn't see what I see.  Often my finished shots don't look very close to the original so in my case it's even more important to look and imagine what I can do with it.  So, it's slightly more important to get it right...to take my time.  Unless the sun is going down there's time.

IMG_5268-Edit-1

Don't get into the 'spray and pray' mode of shooting.  If you have a model that poses well from shot to shot, get everything working right and then let him or her go through 6-12 of their expressions and then stop.  I do often show them the first test shots to let them know what the lighting is like and how to angle their heads the best to take advantage of the lighting.  Then let them play as you shoot.  Those will be great shots.

So, take your time.  Enjoy being creative.  Train your eye to look at the shot in the view finder for a while before hitting that shutter button.

One thing I've done, even in the studio, is to wear the R strap with my camera.  Then, when I want to think, talk with the model, whatever, the camera is at my side.  And it's not far away in those rare and fun moments in time when a perfect shot hits you in the face and you need to get it quickly.