Ad astra per aspera
I had a party over Easter that got wonderfully out of hand. My good friend Kai is an excellent pro photographer working for one of the Finnish colour supplements. He has a hi-tech, but battered flash rig capable of capturing a seemingly endless rapid stream of 18 meg pix.
He has made his own mods to the flash and I very much like the flash lighting effect with fast drop off at the edges and soft but crisp front lighting from about 30 cms above the lens.
I'm hugging his girlfriend ;-)
Here is another example of the same flash lighting...
Teenagers often get bored when their parents are being silly... You can't be me, I'm taken
I was having too much fun to notice exactly what his equipment was. But when he sent me the pictures I fell in love with the effect. I'll give him a call and ask about camera and flash. You can't be me, I'm taken
He's not even sure which camera he had that evening - but it was his favourite 24mm lens. The flash unit was switched to narrow beam and bounced off the ceiling (which is quite low in my place). The combination of wide lens and narrow beam bounce flash gives the fall-off effect. He prefers to work like that in documentary situations and then crop later - shooting a lot of frames to capture the one good moment.
I guess, as a magazine photgrapher, you get very used to quickly identifying the few frames that potentially work and junking the rest. The supplement he works for has a reputation for creative photography and graphics. You can't be me, I'm taken
As we've discussed before, bounced light depends quite a lot on the material you are bouncing off and its position. A high white ceiling will allow the upwards flash to spread more and thus cover a wider area. A low ceiling (as in the room where I was) limits the spread of the flash. If the ceiling is any other colour/material than white, that colour will give a colour cast on the illuminated area. Luckily there are not too many green ceilings ;-)
A gloss as opposed to a matt ceiling surface will also change the quality of the light. You can also bounce off walls and get a nice side soft light. And if you want the Degas stage underlight light effect, you can bounce off a white floor! As usual there are no real rules, you just have to try 'em out. The more pictures you take, the more you get an instinct for what would be right in a given situation.
But it is also useful to analyze (rapidly) before you start taking photos in a particular situation. Try to think why a particuar scene has caught your eye. Try to find the essence of the scene. That might help you to decide where to stand in relation to the light and the subject, which lens, what depth of field etc. All of them work together to tell a story.
When you are there yourself, you see everything around you. Your photograph, though, will contain almost nothing of that everything. A person looking at it later will not have any of that other information. So you have to convey that feeling in any way you can. I think many people cannot distinguish between what they feel in a situation, and the feeling framed in the picture they are about to take. You can't be me, I'm taken
I think Colman has probably fallen in love with babylegs already. You can't be me, I'm taken
The photographer is using a Canon EOS-1D Mark II, so I guess he's got a Canon flash of some sort, which means he may or may not need to put a snoot on to get that effect.
I last used one while lighting a jungle scene. You can't be me, I'm taken
A snood is a kind of bag for the hair. My mother always called a net onion bag a snood. It evolved to refer to bands around the head and onward into movie use. Samuelson's rental catalogue in the 70's referred to snoods. My crew called them that, from movie use.
But I have to say the snoot etymology is more satisfying. ;-) You can't be me, I'm taken
Notice th anticipation of the tongue in this one.
All taken with no flash using automatic ISO a la margouillat. Hey, Grandma Moses started late!
A half-hour-late EC 278 JAROSLAV HAŠEK, en route from Budapest to Prague. Consists of ŽSSR [Slovakia] class 350 "Gorilla" loco and ČD (Czech) cars, but due to the former's defect, it is in tow of MÁV [Hungary] V43 ("Szili") 1301. Further back, another V43 arrived with an empty train to turn around as local train.
Your EU tax dollars at work: Szob is the starting point of a narrow-gauge railway rebuilt 2006-7 with EU structural funds support (I photo-reported). The organisers failed to purchase rolling stock in time, so regular traffic will only start maybe later this spring. The Szob 'terminal', on an entirely new branch to the normal-gauge railway station:
*Lunatic*, n. One whose delusions are out of fashion.
The pasture land between the Sierra foothills and the central valley is absolutely gorgeous (my inner protestant from the blasted pains of the midwest does not approve of the embarrassing bounty of riches here in CA). When we stopped for photos in the place shown I had my new 50mm lens on the camera. There wasn't much room for movement being bounded by barbed wire fences, so I was forced into compositions I wouldn't otherwise choose with the flexibility of the superzoom. I like this photo and I would not have willingly made it with my usual lens.
This is my first try at the "running water" style shot. No tripod, just a steady hand and (more importantly) a VR lens. This one came to life after some camera RAW adjustments which excited me greatly as I've now proven to myself that I have some basic photoshop skills.
In this shot I had to brighten my friend using photoshop, but right after taking it, I popped up the flash and discovered that it works really well in backlit and shadow conditions during the daytime. I have three similar pics using the flash that look more natural, but I posted this one because I took it right after she made it to the top of the boulder and her smile was too good to pass up.
you are the media you consume.
And don't forget to use it when under a tree that is producing dappled light. Because the dappled light is usually so beautiful, you can easily forget that blotchy faces are not nearly so attractive. Turn on your fill flash and poof, the problem goes away.
The other place where fill flash really helps is with flowing water. No shutter can stop water but a flash certainly can. For a short distance--like less than 2 meters.
Here's a picture of some raspberries I picked myself--VERY proud of those raspberries. My little point-and-shoot had no trouble stopping the droplets in midair. I remember when it required a VERY expensive flash gun to do THIS.
"Remember the I35W bridge--who needs terrorists when there are Republicans"
And while you are at it, buy those diffuser tents that go over the nice flash units. Trust me on this, if you have those and learn how to use them, you will take incredible pictures--especially portraits and product shots.
Just remember, photography is about capturing light. It's a whole new world when you have to supply the light too. "Remember the I35W bridge--who needs terrorists when there are Republicans"
http://www.adorama.com/NKSB400AFU.html
It's a very nice technique - should be standard issue on all cameras. ;)
You can also use it to destroy any possible reference point for white balance:
It's a revelation.
and black dogs are hard to photograph, and this one would probably benefit from some lightening.
shot through a piece of dichroic glass in one of the ctyd gate:
Christopher and Cleo:
One of my last pre-digital trips was to India:
Taj Mahal
And, because the tourist police confiscate your camera on the way out if you don't take this shot...
