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Colour in cinema: Abstract colour in Katsuhiro Otomo’s Akira

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Many new people who find my work today, think my lighting is simply inspired by me watching a couple of modern films. Either that or I get asked which photographer inspires me the most. The truth behind my lighting and colour inspiration is routed far further back than that though, and not even by cinematographers or photographers at all.

Although I’ve never consciously tried to be inspired by this, my best guess assessment of what inspired me and my work all those years ago was in fact not a photographer at all, but rather a comic.

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Should you re-retouch your old photos?

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Getting better at something does take time, but getting better is something that is ultimately inevitable, even if it doesn’t always feel like it. Every time you pick up your camera, you body and mind will learn something new no matter how small it may be. But this principle isn’t just applicable to the picture taking process, we’re also getting better every single time we use our picture editing software too.

But before we talk about software, first let’s take a quick look at how camera technology has evolved over the last couple of decades and what significance that plays in our retouching today.

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DIY backdrops for home shoots and lighting setup

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Bored of being stuck indoors yet? Shooting against the same white background all the time can get tiresome, so why not switch it up with some creative DIY alternatives.

Early on in my photographic career, I spent literally thousands of hours photographing subjects in front of white walls. This was an incredibly popular look in the 90’s as we moved away from the grey and brown cloudy backdrops of the 1980’s, but times are changing once again as we tire of the stark and clinical look of a pure white backdrop.

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How to create foreground flare effects in-camera instead of in post

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Adding creative lighting effects after the shot has been taken is easy, but nothing beats doing it properly.

There are a million-and-one ways to add creative flares and effects to your shots in post-production after you’ve taken the image, but nothing beats the look and feel of an image that has used in-camera flares and bokeh effects.

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Lighting setup: bounced top light

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Studio lighting can be tricky, but in reality shooting, in a big open studio space with all the fancy modifiers and stands is a damn sight easier than shooting in a small, cramped on-location space.

“But Jake, surely all professional photographers get to shoot in nice big, bright, airy studios all the time right?”

Wrong. In fact part of the job is having the ability to shoot almost anywhere and for those of us who end up shooting fashion and editorial style work, we need to shoot in some very awkward spaces. From underground nightclubs, fancy bathrooms, or even smaller European homes, all of these small spaces present a multitude of problems and if the client wants to shoot there, it’s your job to make it happen.

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This is what low contrast lens filters are and how you can use them in portraits

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As the name of the filter alludes to, these lens filters do indeed lower the overall contrast of a shot. To clarify what that means in relation to photography; these filters will reduce the darkness of the shadows by allowing light to bleed into them from surrounding highlights.

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How to create separation between model and background in Photoshop

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Every Monday I ask my FB Page community to participate in my -Share-a-Shoot- post whereupon they share a recent shot they’ve taken in exchange for some feedback from myself. I’ve been doing this every week for what feels like years now, and each and every week I am often mentioning the same things in my responses. Often it’s the subject being lit from below, badly placed hair lights, awkward posing and so on. But the one area that I probably talk about the most is ensuring you have a clear separation between subject and background.

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How to create the “Corona” lighting effect on your subjects

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I’m just gonna come clean here and say that I just made up the name ‘corona’ for this lighting setup. In fact, the word corona is a commonly used term with solar eclipses. During an eclipse, we can often see the moon silhouetted against a ring of light and the word corona is often used to describe that halo of light we see around the moon.

As we explain this lighting, my reasoning for calling this setup ‘corona’, should start to make a bit more sense because we are actually trying to achieve a similar lighting eclipse look by adding a ring of light around our subject.

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Using Lumiee LEDs for light painting

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I guess it’s a sign of the times, but I get sent far more LED lights to test than any other light…. even though I never personally use LEDs.

When I say I don’t use LED lights, it’s not because I have a dislike for them, but for me, they have limitations that I struggle to deal with when I shoot what I shoot. If you’re after some affordable continuous light for video work that looks natural and emulates everyday lighting, then LEDs are your first and smartest choice. But for what I do, which is often very controlled and saturated colour work that is anything but natural, I’m going to stick to the control and power of flash for now.

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Flash duration – how to avoid blurred flash Images

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‘Flash duration’ isn’t a very glamorous topic, but it’s certainly something that every single photographer that uses flash should be aware of.

When we first learn photography, we are taught that ‘flash freezes motion’, and although this is true, it is an extremely relative term. In this article we’re going to look at exactly how frozen the motion actually is, and how we can limit that motion or movement in our shots as much as possible when using flash.

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