fbpx

DIY Photography

Hacking Photography - one Picture at a time

Search

Submit A Story

Five portrait lighting patterns you need to learn

by Leave a Comment

It seems that there are always things we “need” to learn when it comes to shooting certain genres of photography. And while many of them for a lot of genres do boil down to personal taste, when it comes to portraits, there are some things that you need to know and understand, like lighting techniques – even if you don’t use all of them all of the time.

In this video, photographer Hannah Couzens shows us five different popular portrait lighting styles that every portrait photographer should really know and understand. She also demonstrates them using both hard and soft light, so that you can see how the light actually hits the subject and how to make it more visually pleasing.

[Read More…]

Stop blaming your subjects for blinking in photos; it’s your fault

by 5 Comments

Blinking is a problem that every photographer deals with and while it frustrates many, most photographers come up with little tricks to avoid the blinks, but even those tricks aren’t fool proof and usually don’t account for the real reason the blinks are happening in the first place.

So right out of the box — I want to debunk a common misconception. When you are shooting with flash — doesn’t matter if we are talking speedlight or studio strobes — the flash does NOT cause the blink that you photograph. It very likely does cause your subject to blink — but that blink happens AFTER the shutter closes.

[Read More…]

How to shoot easy white backgrounds for either products or portraits

by Leave a Comment

It’s one of the oldest and most fundamental techniques when it comes to shooting both portraits and product photography in the studio. But it’s also one of the most misunderstood and difficult to grasp for a lot of newer photographers. Yes, that’s right, I’m talking about the ubiquitous white background shot.

In this video, Rob Hall walks us through the process of getting two white backgrounds. The first demonstration is in a portrait setting, showing how the background is lit vs the subject and how to prevent the background from flaring into the lens. In the second, Rob sets up a small product shot using a light table. Both are lit quite differently but achieve the same result.

[Read More…]

Apparently, yes, you can you shoot portraits with a smashed up rear lens element

by 1 Comment

So many of us baby our gear. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with that. Despite the fact that the odd scratch here and there isn’t going to affect the performance of my kit, I’m still going to try to take the best care of it that I can. But sometimes accidents happen.

And an accident is what happened to Christopher Hamberger when he dropped his $1,200 Nikon 35mm f/1.4 Ai-S lens and shattered the rear element. Can it still shoot, though? How will that decimated rear element affect the images? Well, there’s only one way to find out. Shoot with it.

[Read More…]

How to use flash if you don’t like photos to look flashy

by 3 Comments

 

If I lay my cards on the table, in my personal and professional work I prefer to avoid the use of flash in favour of natural light. In an ideal world, I like nothing better than working with a fleeting beam of winter sunlight that glances across a face full of character, producing the type of photograph that would typically grace the cover of National Geographic.

The trouble is, as a busy corporate photographer, it’s much more likely I have to take a series of senior executive portraits from a basement office, generously artificially lit with horrible overhead fluorescent tubes, working to shoot directors who can spare about three minutes of their time and are itching to be off back to work.

[Read More…]

Watch to learn the how and why of lighting male portrait subjects

by Leave a Comment

Lighting human subjects can be pretty tricky sometimes, especially when you’re used to photographing people of one gender and you try to photograph somebody of another. You’d think they’d all be lit the same, but that’s not the case, as wedding, portrait and fashion photographer Jerry Ghionis demonstrates in this video.

It’s not difficult to light male subjects, but there are a few misconceptions out there. Jerry wants this video to help “demystify lighting male subjects once and for all”, with a bunch of tips and tricks he’s developed over the past 20 years using minimal gear.

[Read More…]

How to add flash to your shot to create portraits at night

by Leave a Comment

The night time can produce some wonderful colours, especially when shooting against a city skyline, or even within the city at ground level. The colours from the sky and clouds along with lights on buildings, in windows, signs and displays can make for some very compelling and colourful imagery. But what if you want to shoot portraits against that background?

In this video, photographer David Bergman talks about how we can add flash to our night time shots and mix them in with the ambient exposure to produce some great night portraits.

[Read More…]

Five creative ways to use smoke bombs in your photo and video shoots

by Leave a Comment

Smoke bombs are an ever-popular addition to photo and video shoots. Whether you’re trying to create something spooky and creepy or simply trying to make a boring environment a little more interesting they can add a lot of visual impact into your shots.

In this video, Pye Jirsa at SLR Lounge shows us five creative ways we can use smoke bombs in our sessions. But as well as just the creative side of things, Pye also talks about the safety considerations and how we can use them to keep ourselves, our subjects and our environments injury-free.

[Read More…]

Check out this amazing one-light portrait setup you’ve probably never even considered

by 1 Comment

Portrait photographer Jiggie Alejandrino is a big fan of shooting with just a single light for portraits. He’s already shown us some pretty cool and dramatic one-light setups in the last few months. But now he’s back with a very interesting setup that most of have probably never even considered. And that’s bringing the softbox overhead pointing straight down.

It’s certainly not something I’ve usually considered. At least, not for portraits. It’s a technique I use often for small products to simulate a big cloudy sky, but with larger subjects like people, that cast some pretty obvious shadows, how well does it work? Well, looking at Jiggie’s demonstration, it works pretty well!

[Read More…]

How to create a natural light portrait studio in your garage in under 5 minutes

by Leave a Comment

While I’m a big proponent of using flash in my photography, particularly portraits, there are times when the natural light gives you everything you need without the addition of flash. And sometimes, it’s almost there, but might need a little help from a reflector or two to help wrangle the natural light to fit the look you’re after.

That last bit is the principle used here as Pye Jirsa walks us through building up a home portrait studio in a garage in under 5 minutes. It’s a setup that lets you create some great looking portraits that look like they could have been done in a large studio with a ton of fancy expensive lighting, except, it wasn’t. It was a garage.

[Read More…]

Recent Posts