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Posted on August 29, 2011
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Here are some examples below of how to get different pictures by modifying your lighting (the portraits are on Whitstable beach and seafront). Natural light can produce vibrant colours and long shadows (depending on the time of day) but makes for a harsh direction light. You can place your subject into the shadows but think about what you’re doing next. Is it to fill in with some reflected light or to fake the sunlight and build the picture up from scratch? Both are valid in different situations. Do you want a kicker light that is the sun itself or fake it with off camera flash? You’ll decide what’s best for you depending on the look you’re trying to achieve.
Posted on August 23, 2011
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Where I think where we as photographers work for and earn our money – particularly in commercial photography – is where you have to control the situation and environment, regardless if the weather or how much time you have. When a shoot is booked and there’s no light, you make the light. When it’s raining you have to adapt the style or look you were thinking of when it was sunshine. So, as you heard me talk about before, it’s about lighting. The selection below from a location shoot used mostly a softbox and reflector to fake sunlight and try and make highlights where they were missing under flat, dull diffused light.
Posted on August 13, 2011
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It’s not everyday that a lobster that was meant to be sleeping (after being in the freezer) decided to wake up mid-shot, thrashing it’s tail around knocking the ice off the table. All in a day’s work! This was during a location shoot of a series of images for Le Petit Poisson. Although you can shoot some types of food with just natural light and reflectors – editorial style – it’s not always the brief to have shallow depth of field and a styled rustic kitchen location and boho chic crockery. These shots were with 2 lights and a number of layers of diffusion with no natural light at all – high contrast for a new website.
Posted on August 5, 2011
This was a quick one hour retro shoot using just one off-camera flash. Speedlites when used with a softbox can produce a less harsh and directional look, but you do lose power. I had left the shooting time until later in the afternoon so that the sun would be a bit lower in the sky, and just got away with the speedlite on full power, close in, with the softbox. It’s expecting a lot of it to fill in the shadows of a very powerful sun. If you would like to know more about training in lighting or other aspects of photography please do get in touch.
