Hacking Photography - one Picture at a time
Creating a dramatic portrait, moody ,emotional, edgy, dark, the subject/model, scene and clothing help portray all of those but one ingredient that remains constant to help achieve the drama is light, shadow and highlight, in this blog post I cover how I lit this image I will show you the position of the lights and what modifiers were used.
If you want to jump straight to the video explaining it all here you go.
I’ve lost track of the number of people who’ve asked me how to shoot this type of photo over the years. The basic concept is quite simple, although it can be difficult to wrap your head around if you’ve not used flash in such conditions before.
In this video, photographer Eric Floberg talks about how you can achieve this effect in-camera. While the principle is pretty straightforward, it’ll definitely take some practice.
The three light setup has been a staple of portrait photographers for decades. There isn’t just one three light setup, though, there are several, with some slight variations, which can change the mood dramatically. In this photo, photographer Rob Hall used his three lights with various modifiers to create this portrait, and he’s shared with DIYP how he set them up in order to get it.
When flashes first started to use Guide Numbers, they were a fairly reliable judgement of how one flashes power stacks up against another. But as flash technology has evolved, the humble Guide Number is often exploited as a marketing gimmick to make flashes sound a lot more powerful than they actually are.
In this video, Gerald Undone breaks down the maths behind the Guide Number. He explains exactly how it’s calculated, why it isn’t always an accurate measurement of power, and how you can make sense of it all.
It’s not often I get to shoot very simple, clean white light shots, but in a recent shoot the model asked if she could get some updated ‘Polaroids’. For those of you not familiar with the term when used in reference to a model shoot, it’s actually not the now obsolete and ludicrously expensive single-shot film, but a request for very basic portraits of the model for their agency. This ‘Polaroid’ term is a relic from the analogue film days and it essentially now means shots that are un-retouched and with the model wearing very little makeup.
The umbrella is one of the most underrated modifiers in photography, I think. It’s one of the first that many of us usually encounter once we start working with speedlights or strobes, and Bowens even used to include umbrellas in their strobe kits.
But we often feel that we “outgrow” them, in favour of softboxes and beauty dishes. This video from photographer Miguel Quiles, however, demonstrates that we shouldn’t be so quick to discount umbrellas. He shows us five ways to use umbrellas to get some pretty amazing results.
While I don’t think everybody will ever agree on a single modifier that works best for shooting portraits, we all have to start somewhere. Usually it’s with one light and one modifier. So, where does one begin in their search for the perfect portrait modifier?
Photographer Daniel Norton explores that topic in the above video, and explains why he thinks an octagon softbox (aka “octabox”) is the best and mose useful modifier for portraits.
With the prolific use of flash in photography these days, and the amount of information that is out there, you’d think it would be quite a simple task by now for somebody to figure out a path for their lighting needs. But because there’s so much information out there, newer users can actually find flash quite intimidating.
In this four-part video series, photographer Ed Verosky goes through a complete crash course on flash. He starts off with the basics of using your flash on the camera, through getting it off the camera in a studio environment, to taking it out into the wild and mixing it with existing lighting.
There’s only a couple of days left now until Halloween, but there’s still time to do a spooky horror photo shoot. And, why does it have to be during Halloween anyway? Any time is good for a bit of horror! In this video, Gavin Hoey shows us some great tips and techniques to light and shoot horror in a small home studio.
Taking portraits in bright sunlight has been a bit of a no-no for a long time but the truth is that you can actually get stunning results if you use a fill flash. The results look awesome and give a high-end feel to any outdoor portrait and the best thing is that it’s really not too difficult. You just need to understand how to use a fill flash.
You can find out more about John on his website and follow his adventures on YouTube and Facebook.
can change a lens mid-rappel, swap a memory card while treading water, or use a camel as a light stand.
To see more of his work please visit his studio website blurMEDIAphotography, or follow him on Twitter, 500px, Google Plus or YouTube.
JP’s photography is available for licensing at Stocksy United.
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