As a complement to my previous posts on beauty photography (part 1, part 2), I thought I'd further elaborate by going over a real life example from a shoot I did last week. This one is also made a little bit more interesting by virtue of the fact that I got to work with a dark skin model, which has subtle impacts on both the lighting and retouching processes.
T[...]
Tags archives: lighting
Shallow Depth of Field in Studio Portraits
Who doesn't love a portrait with a nice, creamy shallow depth of field? It's certainly a look that I love and use often. While its application is fairly straightforward outdoors under natural light, in the studio things become a bit more tricky. Typically when shooting in the studio with strobes, we'll close down our f-stop to around f/11 to cancel out the ambient[...]
Lighting Effects and Composite Blending
In this fairly extensive video tutorial I'll be covering a variety of ways to enhance and add lighting effects to your image. In the case of composites, we'll look at some ways to use light and coloring to make them look a bit more believable and improve the blend between the subject and background.
We'll start with the above composite image and work through th[...]
Elinchrom Ranger Quadra Review
Having used the Elinchrom Ranger Quadra for nearly a month now, I thought I'd share some thoughts on the product and offer up some suggestions on use and who it's best suited for. For those that may be unfamiliar with it, the Quadra is a portable battery powered strobe with an available flash output of 400ws. The Ranger Quadra is the little brother of the full blown R[...]
Getting Started with Dance Photography
Having recently done an in studio dance shoot, I can say without hesitation that dance photography will test your creativity and lighting prowess. If photographing on location, dance photography can be done with great success using little more than one light or no lights at all. The location allows you to juxtapose the softness or edginess of a pose against the dancer[...]
Kelby Training Review
Having explored a great number of videos on Kelby Training for over three months now, I think it's time that I post a brief review of the site and make suggestions to those that are considering joining. On the plus side, Kelby Training offers a month to month subscription which lowers your level of commitment and allows you to try it out at a relatively low cost of $2[...]
Elinchrom Diffusers with Speedlights
When working with strobes you'll likely spend a ton of money on diffusers, only to have to buy a whole new set to work with any Speedlights you may have. While there are a few Speedlight to strobe softbox adapter solutions out there, such as the high quality ones made by Kacey Enterprises, these themselves will cost you a small fortune. Since I already use the Elinchr[...]
Portrait Do's and Don'ts
Perhaps it's just me, but I often stumble onto local studio photographer websites and am saddened by what I see in their portrait portfolio's. I'm not referring to more arty or fashion oriented portraits as this is a different and much more subjective realm. I'm talking about a standard head shot that is meant to depict the person as they really are. The sort used by [...]