Category Archives: photography

Portrait Posing and Lighting with Bambi Cantrell

Posted on by
Reply

This past weekend, Bambi Cantrell joined CreativeLIVE to host a Posing Masterclass to teach us aspiring photographers how the professionals are able to capture great photos through the art of posing. The key to Bambi’s success is the fact that she understands that photography is more than having strong technical skills behind the camera. If you caught Bambi’s workshop, you would have learned that her ability to lead and direct her subjects can change a good picture into a great picture.

In today’s post, I will summarize some of my takeaways from that workshop. While I was unable to watch the 3-day workshop in its entirety, the few moments I was able to catch were extremely valuable.

Posing Tips

  1. For an older woman that shows her age around her chin and neckline, you can try hiding her age by asking the subject to stretch her neck and rest it intimately on the shoulders of the bride/family member.
  2. In portrait photography, it is always more pleasing to give highlights and shadows on the same face because they both give dimension and depth to portrait photographs.
  3. If your subject has a large or round face, taking the photograph from the shadow side will give the face a narrowing effect.
  4. If your subject has a long or narrow face, taking the photograph from the highlight side will give the face a rounder effect.
  5. When posing women, try to rotate the subject so that she is being photographed from the side. Also, extend the legs closest to the camera in front of her and give it a little bend to add shape to the subject.
  6. When photographing a subject walking, ask the subject to walk by placing one leg in front of the other, rather than side-by-side like most normal walks. If shooting the subject straight from the front, this style of walking will give the subject a narrower shape. This is why models cross their legs in front of them as they walk down the runway. It makes the models taller, skinnier, and shapely.
  7. Never let the subject’s hands rest down the side. Always give a bend at the elbows to create an opening, also known as a “light trap”. The pocket of light trapped in that area gives the subject dimension, depth, shape, and context.

Lighting Tips

  1. In addition to the key light (which is either natural like the sun or artificial like strobes), Bambi uses a 60″ reflector to add in fill-light. Instead of reflecting the primary light source directly back at the subject, Bambi also prefers to skim the light by barely kissing the reflected light against the subject. This allows the fill-light to be less flat.
  2. When using artificial light, do not give more than one primary light source to the subject. The idea of a primary light source is to reproduce the look provided by the sun (one primary light source). The secondary light source should be at least 50% or less powerful than the primary light source. The overall result is a smoother look on the subject’s face.
  3. In weddings where many things are bright white, introducing shadows to the subject brings out the details. In the example of a white wedding cake, you want the light source to come in from the side instead of head-on from the camera.
  4. When photographing dark objects such as dark cars or darker skinned subjects, it is the highlights that give details to dark objects. So for dark objects, you want a stronger highlight shown on the subject to add dimension.
  5. When composing a shot, remember that the eyes always focus towards anything brighter in the frame. This means if there are many bright objects in your photograph, each of those bright objects will be competing for attention. For example, two women in white dresses on the dance floor in a sea of women with black outfits.

This is all I remember from the workshop. If you have never participated in a CreativeLIVE workshop before, what this company does is bring in renowned photographers from all around the world to teach a workshop. The workshops are free if you watch it live on air. If you miss the first airing, you can also catch it later in the same day. If you completely miss the workshop, the entire workshop can be purchased for $149. I encourage everybody to catch at least one of the LIVE workshops to see what the fuss is all about.

Books Options

The following books on Amazon contain many of the same posing techniques taught in Bambi Cantrell’s workshop on CreativeLIVE. The first book is instructional to the art of posing, while the next two books give you 500 example poses for both women and men. Notice by the cover photos how the subjects are turned to the camera and also notice the highlights and shadows on the face giving it dimension.

Tutorial: 2-Minute Photoshop Tools for Better Portraits

Posted on by
Reply

While I have been using Adobe Photoshop for over 15 years doing mostly non-portrait editing work, I have become lazy in portrait photography due to Adobe Photoshop Lightroom allowing me to achieve 95% of what I need for amazing photos. My typical portrait workflow ends in Lightroom once the exposure and color tones are to my liking. I have not bothered to go in and cleanup facial features using Photoshop for many years now.

Just recently, I discovered creativeLIVE classrooms through the local Edmonton photography Meetup group. Today, I watched 30 minutes of glamor photography live with Sue Bryce and was blown away by the simplicity of her workflow in Photoshop itself. In her classroom, she predominantly used three tools in Photoshop for 90% of her workflow, which allowed her to edit most photos in just under 2 minutes. I quickly tried that technique myself on a photo taken yesterday.

The main tools used in her workshop were as follows (with her settings shown) and their use is explained further later in this post:

  1. Clone Stamp Tool: 100% Opacity, 10 to 20% Flow
  2. Dodge / Burn Tool: 50% Exposure
  3. Brush Tool: 100% Opacity, 1% Flow
  4. Eraser Tool: 100% Opacity, 10% Flow

Clone Stamp Tool

Cloning was used to take away wrinkles and other unsightly blemishes from the skin. It is pretty straight forward to use the tool by following the flow of light on the face. However, care must be taken so that the shape and features of the face are not drastically altered when using this tool. In a more extreme case, this tool could also be used to soften many of wrinkles or freckles on the model. The goal here is not to hide or eliminate these distinguishing features, but rather, to soften them so as to take attention away from them.

Dodge / Burn Tool

Mostly used to bring some pop into the eyes and makeup, this tool was used to make the whites of the eyes whiter and the color in the cornea brighter and more captivating. If the model is wearing eye-liner, then the burn tool could be used to darken those eye lines as well.

Brush Tool

With a lime or light green swatch, the brush tool was used by Sue to neutralize the reds in the eyes and any other areas where reds are undesirable. There are many other more complex ways to achieve this in Photoshop, but Sue used her background in photo touch-ups and color mixing to do this.

Warp Tool

The warp tool was used to adjust body shape and feature lines. While many fashion and portrait photographers have used Photoshop’s Liquify tool, Sue showed a technique where the area to be transformed is selected, copied to a new layer, and warped to tweak the shape. Sue used this feature many times to make the contour of the arms more pleasing, especially when the model’s pose made the arm look larger than it actually was. Once warped, Sue looked for any unsightly edges and feathered it in with the layer below by using the eraser tool.

Before & After

The before and after photo (above) showing the results of using just some of the techniques in the Creative Live classroom. This editing took literally 30 seconds from start to finish, but look at how much more pleasing the results are. Below are larger photos of the work I did so that you can pixel-peep.

In the photo below, you will see that:

  1. The ridges and blemishes are removed from the face.
  2. The eyes are clearer. Redness has been removed.
  3. The light coverage is balanced on both sides of the face.

Conclusions

  1. You don’t have to spend hours editing photos to make it more pleasing.
  2. creativeLIVE.com … check it out.

Tutorial: How to photograph t-shirts.

Posted on by
Reply

After my successful Bathroom Products Photography attempt, I was thinking of the next series of photos I could take using items found around the house. I needed a subject that would be colorful and bring lots of contrast to the photo. I decided that photographing my colorful t-shirts would give me exactly what I needed. So I went ahead and started planning how to do this to achieve a seamless white background. Coincidentally, a local business contacted me at the same time about wanting this type of commercial product photography. So I took the job to deliver 52 photos of t-shirts (front/back, male/female, six colors, four designs). Yeah, that is A LOT of shirts. Total time for the job including setup and post-production was 6 hours.

The picture above shows my setup with two light sources that was required to achieve the effect I was going for. The shoot-through umbrella was used to produce a soft light on the t-shirt, while the reflective umbrella was used to give the t-shirt harsh shadows along the outside edge. I felt that the harsh shadows would give the t-shirts a little bit of depth and help separate it from the seamless white background, which was especially important when dealing with the white t-shirts.

The backdrop was two layers of bed sheet covers purchased from Zellers at 140 and 180 thread count, respectively. The sheet covers were stretched over our old wooden dining table and then held in place with thumbtacks. I ensured that there were no wrinkles on the sheets that would introduce ugly shadows into my final photo. On hindsight, I could have used a nylon shower curtain instead which would have been easier to manage.

Strobist information:

I think this shoot was a success. In addition to the seamless white backgrounds, the client also requested magazine-style layout of 4 popular t-shirts on a 15% gray background. Except for the magazine style layouts being created in Photoshop, the rest of the images were all processed in Lightroom.

All photos Copyright by Nautinyce Clothing Inc. who commissioned this project.

Bathroom Photography. No More Excuses.

Posted on by
Reply

I hear hobby / amateur / wannabe-pro photographers make excuses all the time that they need to go out and shoot more to improve their skills. You do not have to leave your warm (or cool house depending on where you live) to take great photos.

Today, I was walking around the house looking at places I have not taken a photo yet. That was when the bathroom idea came to mind. The above commercial, magazine-type shot was taken right inside my bathroom by pulling some of my used products to participate in this shoot.

So the next time you are looking for ideas, go visit your bathroom first. You might be surprised with what you find in there. If you don’t see anything you like in there, bring some items from your kitchen into the bathroom. The backdrop is perfect for this kind of work.

Strobist Info:

For your reference, here is what the original photo looked like straight out of camera before I cleaned up the not-so-white areas and added marketing text. I posted this shot to show you that I did not have to do a lot of editing to the photo. Although, I will remember to remove other distractions from the background in the future like the shaving cream bottle to the left of the frame. Ooops!

Forget Your Subject. Photograph Backgrounds.

Posted on by
Reply

What the heck? Yes, you heard me. Forget your subject, it is not the silver bullet that makes your photos amazing. A good subject paired with a great background is what really establishes the scene and mood of your photos. Heck, the background could even be considered the key part of your story, the plot if you will.

When I am out on a photography meetup, I notice most of my meetup friends looking for a great subject to photograph. I don’t blame them and there’s nothing wrong with that approach. But when you are outside with a group of 20 photographers, you can bet that many will shoot the same interesting subject. If one photographer points at something, 5 others will point at it at some point.

However, when I am out shooting, I look for the background first. Why? Because the background fills 100% of your frame and has a greater presence in your photo. Once you found the background that is truly stunning, you can easily find something in the foreground to add a subject.

There are many times when I am out on a mission to take a great photo, I find that there is nothing interesting to photograph. That is because I am looking for a subject, not a background. And what if there is nothing in the foreground to incorporate into your photo? Well, just improvise. Use your hands or a twig on the ground. I make it a habit of bringing with me 3-inch tall action figures which I can incorporate into the scene. They are cheap, inexpensive and can be found anywhere. Sometimes, they even add a comical relief to your photos (as shown above).

So the next time you are out shooting, look for a background and add a subject later. You can even make a subject into the background by playing with a shallow depth of field (DOF) as shown above.

Question: Where is your camera?

Posted on by
Reply

Is it beside you, easily accessible? Is the battery charged? Is your memory card empty?

I am a photographer that loves to be ready as you never know when the moment will strike where you need your camera. It doesn’t matter what camera you pick up, as long as the moment is special, capturing it with any type of camera is better than none at all. In a related post, I talked about reaching for the nearest camera, which is the best tool you could have at the moment.

A special moment hits in split seconds. When you recognize something worth capturing, it takes only split seconds for that moment to erode. When you reach for the closest camera, turn it on and take the shot. Don’t worry about settings or exposure or even focus. It takes merely 2 seconds for the camera to boot up and fire the first shot. After that, you can look at your settings and adjust it for the situation as needed. Too many times, people worry about their settings and by the time they are done fiddling with their camera, the moment is lost. You never know when a photographic opportunity awaits you.

My favorite go-to camera is the Panasonic Lumix DMC-LX5 10.1 MP Digital Camera with 3.8x Optical Image Stabilized Zoom and 3.0-Inch LCD – In WHITE of course!. Most of my photos are taken with it because it takes no time to boot up and the photos taken by its “Intelligent Auto (iA)” mode is spot on, sharp, dynamically bright, and amazing overall.

Phottix Strato II Upgrade

Posted on by
Reply

Disclaimer: In no way do I claim myself to be an expert in photography equipment or lighting. I don’t really know how they work technologically like an engineer, but I know which settings to modify on my camera and flash to achieve the desired results without understanding the nitty-gritty details of the technology. I’m a point and shoot kind of photographer and as long as it gives me great photos, I don’t care.

Cactus V4 versus Phottix Strato II (Introduction)

For the last three years, I have been sporting the Cactus V4 Wireless Flash Trigger sold by Gadget Infinity. When I purchased them almost 3 years ago, I really didn’t know what to look for in a wireless trigger so I picked the one recommended by the Strobist blog since, apparently, that is what people were recommending for a cheap/eBay trigger. When they arrived, I fired off a few test shots, confirmed that they worked while the strobes were sitting on my laps and called it a day never touching it again for another 3 years. Little did I, know 3 years later, when trying to use these Cactus triggers that one of the triggers has a really poor range of 2 feet. I later resolved this problem by using quality alkaline batteries instead of rechargeable NiMH batteries. Apparently, 1.2 Volts of the rechargeable versus the 1.5 Volts of a regular alkaline cell made an enormous difference in the performance of the Cactus V4 receivers. But too bad, I had already ordered a new set of wireless triggers from Phottix, known as the Strato II.

At the time, the Cactus V5 Wireless Trigger was out and featured a transceiver type design found in the higher-end wireless triggers such as the PocketWizard Plus II, but costing nearly a quarter of the price of the PocketWizards. With a transceiver design, each unit can act as both a transmitter and a receiver, hence the term transceiver. The benefit of a transceiver design is that when a unit fails while on a shoot, you could easily replace the faulty unit with any other unit. This is a big improvement from the older Cactus V4 design, which featured a separate transmitter and receiver units. Another benefit of the transceiver design was the availability of a hot shoe which could be used to attach a flash while the ‘transmitter’ was mounted on the camera hot shoe. This was my biggest gripe with the Cactus V4 because I wanted to be able to trigger remote flashes, while still keeping a flash mounted on top of my camera. The Cactus V5 solved that problem for me. However, there was one problem: The Cactus V5 did not transmit TTL information from the body to the flash if there was a transceiver mounted in between the two. For my casual event photography, this was important to me. I wanted to have 2 remote flashes pointed at the dance floor and another flash on my camera body for artificial light. While the cactus allowed me to do this, albeit in manual mode, I wanted a solution that allowed for TTL pass through while the flash was mounted atop the wireless transmitter on the body.

In comes the Phottix Strato II Multi 5-in-1 Wireless Flash Trigger to the rescue. It features wireless flash triggering with the ability to pass through TTL information if the flash is mounted on the camera. This is exactly what I needed. However, the unit is not a transceiver type design like the Cactus V5s allowing you to use any of the modules as a transmitter or receiver interchangeably. The Phottix Strato II features a separate transmitter and a separate receiver module. The disadvantage of this design is that your entire flash system has a single point of failure, your transmitter. That being said, the Phottix system is priced significantly more expensive than its Cactus counterparts. At nearly twice the price, one would expect the system to be reliable in both longevity and triggering. My decision to purchase the Phottix Strato II was based solely on the pass through TTL feature.

Phottix Strato II Multi 5-in-1 Wireless Flash Trigger (Hands-On)

The transmitter and receiver units appear to be solidly built and the plastic feels to be quite thick, relative to the feeling I get when holding the Cactus V4 triggers. The hot shoe of the transmitter is metal, while the rest receivers were given a molded plastic shoe. The Photix Strato II provides both a channel (1-4) and zone (A-D) selectors. The channel selector is useful if other photographers are using the same triggers or there are interfering equipment nearby running on the same radio frequency. The zones allows you to control which zones fire when the zones are turned on from the back of the transmitter. I also use the zones to keep track and label my receivers. Since I have four receivers, each of my receiver is in a separate zone. I use try to rotate my receivers as frequently as possible to avoid prematurely aging the components of just one receiver. The zones also allow me to setup all my strobes throughout my scene and then selectively turn off certain strobes as I try to achieve a different effect. Finally, the range is more than adequate for my needs. I was able to fire my flashes from a distance of 140-ft away, which is plenty far enough for most photographers doing local strobist work. I can understand wedding photographers needing more range to light up the dance floor in a larger venue.

Conclusion

The Phottix Strato II receivers (for my Nikon) is a great piece of technology for any photographer. I don’t personally see the need for more expensive PocketWizards as my early tests have proven that the Phottix units can fire reliably 100% of the time. If you are in search for a wireless trigger, I don’t think you can go wrong with the Phottix units, or any of the other low-end units for that matter. It is best that you understand your needs and pick the features that works best for you. For me, it was important that I had a hot shoe TTL pass through. For others, having the flexibility of a transciever design or universal use (Canon, Nikon, Pentax) might be more important for you.

Reach for the Nearest Camera

Posted on by
Reply

Introduction

This article is going to be a variation of the “get out and shoot” theme, except with emphasis on your choice of camera (or lack of camera). When it comes to photography, I (usually) don’t care which camera I use as long as the picture or the moment is captured forever by something, anything. The quality of the photo, while important and gets you praise, is not always important. Capturing a rough photo with a camera, that barely qualifies as a camera, is better than not capturing anything at all and losing that moment forever. Even with a rough photo, you can still tell a wonderful story by adding a bit of narrative around it and sharing your experience with friends and families through Facebook or your blog. For this reason, I never waste an opportunity to capture a photo if it presents itself regardless of what camera gear I have on hand. For professional or paid work, using the best tool for your need is always a safe approach.

For my hobby, I use various different classes of cameras depending on what is most accessible and convenient for me at the time. My photography toolbox includes any one of the following cameras (some barely qualifying as a camera):

  1. Google Nexus S (my phone)
  2. Apple iPhone 4 (my wife’s phone)
  3. Panasonic Lumix DMC LX-5 (P&S camera)
  4. Nikon D90 (digital SLR)

Google Nexus S

The Nexus S is my smartphone and it is always by my side. For photos that I want to quickly capture and post to FB or Twitter, this is my go-to tool. I don’t intend on doing any fancy post-processing with photos captured through my phone, but I make sure to take several pictures to ensure that the focus, color, and composition are technically correct. Just because I am using a smartphone, doesn’t mean I should be ignoring the rules of photography that would turn an OK photo into a great photo.

The above photo of the Bellagio was taken with my smartphone while having lunch at the Eiffel Tower Restaurant in Las Vegas. I wasn’t expecting to take any photos, so I didn’t bring my camera with me that day.

Apple iPhone 4

My wife uses an Apple iPhone 4 and there have been times where my own smartphone was not within reach or forgotten at home. Again, I won’t miss an opportunity to take a photo just because I didn’t bring my smartphone. Usually, I will steal my wife’s iPhone (which has a great camera by-the-way) and snap away. When back at home, I will e-mail the photos to myself and then wipe it off her phone (common courtesy).

Similarly, my wife has given up her Canon SD600 P&S camera since getting an iPhone. She herself enjoys photography, but don’t want to deal with the complexities of a high-end camera. Therefore, the phone works for her and she will often use it to capture the same scenes I do.

Panasonic Lumix DMC LX-5

Patricia Lake Rental Boat Dock

The Panasonic LX-5 is a high-end point-and-shoot (P&S) camera I bought for using on vacations. After several vacations carrying a heavy DLSR system, lenses, and accessories I vowed to never carry over 15-pounds of camera equipment over my shoulder when on vacations anymore. Plus, instead of having a vacation and enjoying it, I was spending just as much time fiddling with the camera than I should have. So I looked for a high-end, compact camera that gives me great low-light capabilities and full manual control like my DSLR. The Panasonic LX-5 was compact, high-quality, and was up to the task. I have since taken this camera for all my vacations and captured well over 10,000 photos from all my trips. I also use this camera around town when there “might” be an opportunity to take a photo, but where I don’t want to bring my heavy DSLR with me.

Nikon D90

BW Self-Portrait

Finally, for everything else (and usually the last camera I reach for) I use the Nikon D90. This heavy camera is brought with me when I know I want to take quality photos at a pre-planned event, location, or date. This is always bring this to weddings and parties where I know low-light is going to be an issue. I am also an avid member of various photography clubs in Edmonton where I attend meetup events with this camera (plus my Panasonic LX-5 as backup).

Conclusion

There you have it. My photography kit is fairly plain and simple. I try not to complicate things or allow the type of equipment to get in the way of my hobby. Just use whatever you have at the time. Some of my best photos were taken on my smartphone, mainly because it was the only available tool at the time.

P.S. The feature photo for this post was taken with my work’s Blackberry Curve 9780. It was the only phone left in the house after the rest was staged for the photo needed in this article. :)

Post-Processing Techniques for Indoor Photos

Posted on by
Reply

Every photographer has a different post-processing style that defines them and becomes their photographic identity. Pick any of your favorite photographers and you will see that there is a consistent style that is applied to all their photos in their portfolio. It is important for your post-processing style to maintain the same, consistent look throughout your entire portfolio, especially if you are in the business of photography because when your client signs a photography contract with you, they are signing up for your style. It would be a great disappointment if the photos they receive look wildly different from those that are on your portfolio, which could be equated to false advertising.

In my photos, I like to keep a natural, high-contrast look throughout. It is easy to over-process your photos as you become more familiar with the different adjustment tools in software such as Lightroom, Photoshop, or Aperture. It is certainly beneficial to understand how the different settings affect the look of your photos, but in the end, you have to settle on a style.

My post-processing goal for photos taken indoors is to maintain a colder hue to the skin tones by reducing the orange/red hues. I do this to set the subject of my photos (i.e., the humans) apart from the scene which is usually warm and lit by incandescent lighting.

My post-processing steps are as follows:

  1. Get your white balance perfect. Use a white reference point if available.
  2. Crush the blacks by moving the slider to the right.
  3. Bring some of the black back by adding fill light.
  4. Dodge/burn.
  5. Adjust the hue of the red/orange channels to mute the orange tones.
  6. Bump up the luminosity of the red/orange channels to bring some brightness back.
  7. Adjust split toning to make the image greener.
  8. Adjust the exposure to the far right to bring up the brightness.
  9. Turn up recovery to tone down the skin highlights.