This is something for the checklist. I try to remember it, but forget it too often. The thing is really simple, you should always take a couple of really unsharp, out of focus, and generally fuzzy photos when you are hired to photograph on location, for example at your clients office.
I don’t know why I figured out this so late in my career, but the photo above with absolutely no focus in it whatsoever is very, very useful for most of my clients. They can use it as a background, toned down behind some text in a layout, or crop it and fill out some empty space on their web site or in their annual report.
All it takes is just a switch to manual focus, overexpose it a bit and you will produce bonus photos you can include in every delivery without a lot of work. You can either send it together with the photos they ordered, or send it later as a gift if you need to have an excuse when asking for more work.
It takes a little more work to get unsharp background that are useful for compositions (like these business portraits on fake backgrounds I have been doing for a couple of clients), but having something from your clients office beats trying to find a generic stock background.
A photo with no focus is best done in the camera, I think. You can achieve a similar effect using Photoshop and Lens Blur (or some other blur tool), but it is even faster to switch off auto-focus and compose it as unsharp. The photo above is not optimal, try getting bigger areas with no details in the photo (I think stock agencies call that copy space, where you can put text), and the image will be even more useful.
Just a tip, and for me to remember.
I just missed it, this blog has passed the 100 mark. 100 posts with behind the scenes, lighting diagrams, a lot of text about how the angle of a softbox can improve a portrait and things I just write when I get started.
The funny thing is that this blog in English was just a test to see if there was an interest in stuff I like to read on other blogs (my blog in Swedish is not at all this focused on lighting, but I had to narrow the scope here, otherwise I would never have time to work).
Photographers providing detailed information on how they set up a photo shoot on location or in the studio, why they chose a beauty dish instead of a Magnum reflector, or just showing how it was done, behind the scenes. Those are the things I have learned almost everything I know about studio lighting from (plus a few books and a little trial-and-error of course).
[Read the full post here…]
Taking portraits on location with studio lights is something that is 90% setup, 9% small talk and around 1% pressing the shutter. Working in Sweden, I usually bring a couple of lights to every shoot, unless it is a regular assignment for articles in a magazine when natural light feels more appropriate.
The above portrait was an assignment from one of my clients where they wanted a nice picture with the man in a suit standing in their office. I had been there before, so I knew the layout pretty well. Which meant that I only packed two Profoto D1, one 5-foot softbox octa and a couple of light stands, and a Chimera reflector panel.
[Read the full post here…]
This is just a reminder that soon a lot of my assignments can be done with just a reflector and a diffusion panel. And not having to freeze while taking a stiff portrait of some poor guy or girl outside in the cold just to use the little natural light that might be available around lunch just before it gets dark again.
Sunlight is very hard to beat when it comes to lighting a portrait, and even if you surround your models with stands and screens, they are a lot more relaxed out in the open than they are in the studio.
I really look forward to be able to work with sunlight again.
I recently bought an Orbis Ringflash, to use with my SB-800. Exactly for what, I still don’t know. Maybe to explore the ringflash world a bit before I go out and spend a lot more on a “real” ringflash for my Profoto system to use in the studio.
Using it is not real that easy, together with a Nikon D700, a heavy lens and a battery pack, my arms ache after a short time. I didn’t buy the arm/bracker to mount it properly so I have to hold the camera with one hand and try to get the SB-800 not to fall out of the Orbis while I hold it in position around the lens.
This was just a quick test with one of my sons who is extremely reluctant to act as a model usually, but a strange looking thing around the camera and a Batman suit later, he didn’t want to stop modeling (doing his best Nosferatu impression as well).
I have tried it once in the studio, but using a portrait lens doesn’t give the usual bright eye with the big catchlight effect I wanted. It might be good for on-axis fill.
Or it might be good for the same reason my son liked it, it transforms the scary camera into something strange that is more fun. Which might come in handy when photographing subjects that usually don’t like cameras?
Anyway, I think with just this session, it payed off for me. And made the whole thing of taking pictures of my children at home funnier. Just switch on TTL, set the camera to Program and move in really close, or up against a wall.
