Memorial Day
May 26, 2008 | Filed Under kids | Leave a Comment
Happy Memorial Day to everyone. Today is a day to honor those who have fought and served our country and to grieve those who died while serving.
Memorial Day also signals the unofficial beginning of summer and what do kids want to do in the summer … SWIM! The weather in Bel Air today is fabulous — bright sunshine and 84 degrees.
While the kids were playing, I also was playing with my camera. I thought I try my hand at shooting with my right hand while holding a flash in my left. The downside to bright sunshine is the harsh shadows that accompany it. To bring out some definition in the shadows, a bit of fill flash does wonders.
The photo above — of my daughter Keely, the ham — used my technique of underexposing the camera 2/3 of a stop to cut down on the hot spots, and pop a bit of flash from the shadow side at 1/32 power.
The flash is not for inside use only. It can really come in handy outdoors as well. Give it a try, you may like the results.
Natural Light Headshot
May 20, 2008 | Filed Under headshots | Leave a Comment
Recently I’ve been shooting a lot of headshots, and am finding myself really enjoying this type of photography. Perhaps it has to do with those windows to the soul — the eyes. Getting these tight headshots gives the person viewing the photograph an excellent view into those windows.
I had been using many off-camera strobes for lighting the previous headshots I’ve taken in the past, which generally means I must stop down my lens into the f/8-f/11 range and thus increasing my depth of field. Which is perfectly fine for a portrait or corporate headshot. With this photo session, I decided to try something different , using the giant softbox that Mother Nature provided — gray cloud-filled skies — and a white foamcore board just below the subject to fill in the shadows. This allowed me to use my 135mm lens at f/2, with a sliver of DOF, and really concentrate on getting the eyes tack sharp to draw the viewer immediately to the eyes.
I’m going to use this technique much more in the future.
Corporate Headshots
May 7, 2008 | Filed Under headshots | 2 Comments
Monday afternoon I was contracted to photograph seven corporate principals and assistant principals for a local engineering firm. Companies use these type of images for their websites, annual reports, press releases, company publications, etc.
The headshots were taken on-location so not to interrupt their daily workload.
The setup for these photographs was an Alien Bee 800 with large softbox camera right, with a reflector camera left for fill. I also place a foamcore board on table in front of subjects to help fill in light under the chin. I used a blue paper backdrop with an Alien Bee 400 and 40-degree grid to create the background light.
After a Hard Day’s Work
May 3, 2008 | Filed Under headshots | Leave a Comment
On Monday, I am shooting corporate headshots for a client, so yesterday I was setting up a new lighting scheme from techniques I learned from the Lighting-Essentials workshop I attended last month.
I was resorting to setting a timer on my camera and then running over to the chair to capture myself in the frame to check my lighting. Luckily, after only a few laps from camera to chair and back, my son came home from work. He is on the grounds crew at Mountain Branch Golf Course in Joppa. Of course he was all sweaty and wanted a shower, but he was more than happy to sit in for a couple test shots.
There is something about this image I really like, and I thought I’d share.
This is taken with a large softbox to camera right and a white foamboard camera left. I had a second light with grid hitting the background from left to right. I normally would have the backlight directly behind the subject, but in this test setup I was limited on the amount of space between the subject and the backdrop.