Portraits

The more equipment you take the fewer pictures you’ll take. Jay Maisel. 


With this in mind I just wanted to write a quick piece on shooting portraits using nothing but available light. Available light is basically that, the light that’s available at your location. If you find yourself taking more portraits or would like to start doing so but feel that you lack the necessary tools, think again. If you’re a frequent visitor to photo blogs or subscribe to the magazines than you are aware of all the products on the market designed to improve your portraits while prying open your wallet. Between the radio slaves, flashes big and small, umbrellas, softboxes, snoots, grids, diffusers, and reflectors – the list is endless. It can become very overwhelming to the photo newbie. 


Well take heart; here are a couple tips to have you shooting portraits using nothing but the light around you. A short list of things you should know to get you started, an overcast day is perfect for shooting portraits; the clouds will act as a giant softbox. A white wall makes a great reflector and a white bed sheet makes a great diffuser. Setting the white balance of your camera to cloudy will have the same effect as a warming gel. Lastly, just because you’re shooting available light doesn’t mean you can’t control it. If there’s strong sunlight filling the room then don’t be afraid to throw that bed sheet over the window to soften the light. 

I took this shot of my son by a large glass door draped with a white bed sheet. I had him sit on our white tile floor and placed a piece of white foam core camera left.

This photo of a neighbor was taken as she sat on her front porch. The entire interior of the porch was white so it was like being inside one big white tent. No reflectors or flash needed.

Finally, there’s magic hour! That time of day when the sun is low in the sky, and everything is bathed in warm light. The trick with magic hour is that you need to move fast, that light doesn’t last long so don’t waste time admiring it’s beauty, get shooting. 

Shooting in the snow... from the inside!

Did you get a new camera for Christmas that you can't wait to use? Are you trapped inside because of the snow? No worries. All that white stuff on the ground with that bright sun can make for some interesting snowtographs, from inside your home! Yeah, yeah I know it's not a snow capped mountain at sunrise or the kids hitting the hill with a sled but shooting the shadows and snowflakes on your windows can make for some interesting images.  All four of these images were taken from my family room. 

Shopping for a shutterbug

Have a photographer that you still need to shop for? Here are a couple quick gift ideas that would make any photographer happy. First, hit the book stores. There are a number of very good photography books on the market, my favorites are anything by Joe McNally. Joe is an incredible teacher and photographer and his books would be a valuable addition to any shooters library. How about a magazine subscription? One of my favorites, which also happens to be FREE is Rangefinder Magazine.  Another neat little item is the BlackRapid camera sling. An ingenious spin on the camera strap. How about a GorillaPod? A flexible, bendable tripod. And lastly, if you really want to splurge. Think about a photo workshop. My personal favorites so far are those at the Santa Fe Workshops in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Now that's a gift!

If you have any questions please visit my site for contact information. 

Improving your Holiday pictures

If you’re like me, this is the time of year when the photo cards begin to arrive. They are usually pictures of friends and family more often than not taken in their homes with the kids sitting on the fireplace mantel or in front of the tree. Sometimes the images are so dark you can barely make out what the kids look like. Other times they are so washed out that all you see are the kids red eyes popping off the page. What I hope to share here is a simple way to improve your holiday pictures with nothing more than your digital camera some scotch tape and paper.

For these images, I borrowed my daughters Canon digital camera. I placed two Christmas decorations in front of our mantel and took a quick shot with the on-camera flash.

As you can see here the result is pretty much what the camera captured, a fairly flat, wide angle image with harsh shadows. For most people this is acceptable but if you want to improve your pictures there’s a simple solution.

Tape a small piece of white paper over your flash, as shown here.

Let is bubble out away from the flash. What this will do is soften the light so your shadows won’t be as harsh. The other thing it does is cuts back on the amount of light reaching your subject so you will need to move closer to them.

This brings me to my second tip, framing your subject. First thing, move your subject away from the background, get them out of that fireplace! Second, zoom you lens to make your subjects larger in your frame and lastly, take more than one picture.

Here is the finished image. I pulled the objects away from the fireplace and placed them in the middle of the room., by moving my camera in closer so my diffused flash wouldn't have to work as hard I made my objects the focal point of my image.

If you have any questions or would like to see more of my work please visit my site.

Time to come home

What a great week! We were really pushed. Long days of location shooting followed by selecting our best images for an early morning critique but overall the experience was worth every minute.

Joe McNally is an incredible teacher. I mentioned to him that I really admired him for answering questions after we returned to the studio, no matter how long the day or how tired he was, he always had time to help. That is a great teacher.

Last Day on Location

Today will be our last day on location. On Tuesday, we shot in a Masonic Temple – just an incredible, enormous building – reminded me of the set of The Shinning. At each location, we are broken up into teams, and assigned models. It’s up to us to pick our location and coordinate with the model.

On Wednesday, we were at a beautiful location in the mountains of Santa Fe. We shot a bed & breakfast with spectacular views anywhere you looked. 

They are saving the best location for last – today we will be going to a penitentiary – a non-working penitentiary, but from what I hear an incredible place to shoot with an amazing history. I hope to post more tomorrow – but the days are so long and we have so much homework to do at night to be ready for a morning critique that I’m trying to post when I get time.

Santa Fe - Sunday

After a long day of travel, I finally made it to Santa Fe – my body is just getting adjusted to the altitude and like the staff at the Workshop suggested, I’ve been drinking a lot of water. 

Last night we had a nice informative social gathering to meet all the participants. We then broke up into our groups to meet with Joe and get our schedule for the week; we have several interesting locations on tap so I’m really looking forward to the week.