100 — Shoot in any light

September 20, 2011 By 5 Comments

Pho­tog­ra­phy pod­cast #100 cel­e­brates our 100th pho­tog­ra­phy pod­cast and focuses on the tag line of the pod­cast which is ‘keep on shoot­ing’ in any light.

I’d like to take this moment to thank all our lis­ten­ers! Your sup­port and encour­age­ment dur­ing these past 100 episodes has been awe­some. Thanks for all the feed­back, all the com­ments and all the con­tri­bu­tions. Spe­cial thanks as well to all the guests that have shared their knowl­edge so freely. More inter­views are planned for the future.

In this pod­cast I offer up tips on how to shoot in any light so long as it suits the subject.

 

I shot this image at about 2pm. The light that most of the ducks were rest­ing in was bright and harsh. Had I shot this duck in that direct light, the shad­ows would have been too harsh. This par­tic­u­lar duck though was rest­ing under a shel­ter that soft­ened the light and the soft light suited this sub­ject far bet­ter and holds details in the blacks and the whites. Straight shot — No flash was used here.

 

Links /resources men­tioned in this pod­cast:
– How to pho­to­graph with hard light — Pod­cast #97
– Rain pho­tog­ra­phy — Pod­cast #88 
– Stu­dio light­ing for begin­ners — Pod­cast #33 
– September’s reg­u­lar assign­ment on the Photography.ca forum — Yel­low
– September’s level 2 assign­ment on the Photography.ca forum — Macros of any kind


If you liked this pod­cast and want to review it on Itunes, this link gets you to the main page

If you are inter­ested in writ­ing for our blog please con­tact me photography.ca (   A   T  ) G m ail  Dot co m (using stan­dard email formatting)

Please join the Photography.ca fan page on Facebook

My Face­book pro­file — Feel free to “friend” me — please just men­tion Photography.ca
My Twit­ter page — I will fol­low you if you fol­low me — Let’s con­nect — PLEASE email me and tell me who you are in case I don’t rec­i­p­ro­cate because I think you are a spammer.

If you are still lurk­ing on our forum,
feel free to join our friendly :)  Pho­tog­ra­phy forum

Thanks to Rob vE, Rich, Anuj, Photo art cafe and Best who posted  blog com­ments about our last pod­cast. Thanks as always to every­one that sent com­ments by email about our last pod­cast. Although ALL com­ments are appre­ci­ated, com­ment­ing directly in this blog is pre­ferred. Thanks as well to all the new mem­bers of the bul­letin board. Most of the links to actual the prod­ucts are affil­i­ate links that help sup­port this site. Thanks in advance if you pur­chase through those links.

If you are look­ing at this mate­r­ial on any other site except Photography.ca — Please hop on over to the Photography.ca blog and pod­cast and get this and other pho­tog­ra­phy info directly from the source. |Sub­scribe with iTunes|Sub­scribe via RSS feed |Sub­scribe with Google Reader|Sub­scribe for free to the Pho­tog­ra­phy pod­cast — Photography.ca and get all the posts/podcasts by Email
You can down­load this pho­tog­ra­phy pod­cast directly by click­ing the pre­ced­ing link or lis­ten to it almost imme­di­ately with the embed­ded player below.

Thanks for lis­ten­ing and keep on shooting!

Pod­cast: Play in new win­dow | Down­load

Filed Under: Photographs, Photography podcasts, Photography tips, podcasting Tagged With: ,

97 — How to photograph with hard light

June 11, 2011 By 4 Comments

Pho­tog­ra­phy pod­cast #97 is a primer on how to use hard light. Hard light is trick­ier to use than soft light but there is NO rea­son to avoid using it. It just needs to be used appro­pri­ately. Part of using hard light and shadow in pho­tog­ra­phy is being very aware of where the shad­ows will fall and chang­ing your posi­tion or your light­ing if you don’t like where they fall.

Here’s a cou­ple of basic points when using hard light in photography:

- Hard light comes from a small light source rel­a­tive to your sub­ject. The sun IS a small light source in this respect because it is 93 mil­lion miles away from the earth.
- Hard light pro­duces hard shad­ows which are good in many cases espe­cially to reveal form.
- The far­ther the light source is from the sub­ject, the HARDER the shad­ows.
- The far­ther away the light source is from the sub­ject, the SHORTER the shadows.

To prove this to your­self take a flash­light into the bath­room and shut off the lights. Shine the light on your fin­ger in front of the wall. Move the light around and you will learn a ton about shadows.

Hard light demo

Hard light demo — The image at left shows a shadow from direct hard sun­light. Moments later some very light clouds dif­fuse the sun­light to cre­ate a softer shadow at right. Had the sky been com­pletely over­cast (very soft light) almost no shad­ows would be present and this image would lose its punch and be totally bor­ing. © Marko Kulik

Image by BzdegaPhotography

Image by Bzde­gaPho­tog­ra­phy — The hard light totally works in this image despite the flare.

Carmy Working

Carmy Work­ing by Marko Kulik — One hard light at cam­era left cre­ates a shadow that adds to the gritty flavour of the shot

Their Objects by Marko Kulik

Their Objects by Marko Kulik — Can­dle light is hard light. This shot took quite a while to set up due to think­ing about where the shad­ows would fall.

Judy Garland by George Hurrell - 1944

Judy Gar­land by George Hur­rell — 1944. This strik­ing por­trait was shot 67 years ago by light­ing mas­ter George Hur­rell. The very dark shad­ows attest to the hard light used here.

Links /resources men­tioned in this pod­cast:
June’s reg­u­lar assign­ment on the Photography.ca forum — Break­ing the rules
June’s level 2 assign­ment on the Photography.ca forum — Cre­ative self portraits


If you liked this pod­cast and want to review it on Itunes, this link gets you to the main page

If you are inter­ested in writ­ing for our blog please con­tact me photography.ca (   A   T  ) G m ail  Dot co m (using stan­dard email formatting)

Please join the Photography.ca fan page on Facebook

My Face­book pro­file — Feel free to “friend” me — please just men­tion Photography.ca
My Twit­ter page — I will fol­low you if you fol­low me — Let’s con­nect — PLEASE email me and tell me who you are in case I don’t rec­i­p­ro­cate because I think you are a spammer.

If you are still lurk­ing on our forum,
feel free to join our friendly :)  Pho­tog­ra­phy forum

Thanks to forum mem­bers North­Stone, Wicked Dark, Howard J,  KawarthaBob and Jonny Hot­shoe who posted  blog com­ments about our last pod­cast. Thanks as always to every­one that sent com­ments by email about our last pod­cast. Although ALL com­ments are appre­ci­ated, com­ment­ing directly in this blog is pre­ferred. Thanks as well to all the new mem­bers of the bul­letin board. Most of the links to actual the prod­ucts are affil­i­ate links that help sup­port this site. Thanks in advance if you pur­chase through those links.

If you are look­ing at this mate­r­ial on any other site except Photography.ca — Please hop on over to the Photography.ca blog and pod­cast and get this and other pho­tog­ra­phy info directly from the source. |Sub­scribe with iTunes |Sub­scribe via RSS feed |Sub­scribe with Google Reader|Sub­scribe for free to the Pho­tog­ra­phy pod­cast — Photography.ca and get all the posts/podcasts by Email
You can down­load this pho­tog­ra­phy pod­cast directly by click­ing the pre­ced­ing link or lis­ten to it almost imme­di­ately with the embed­ded player below.

Thanks for lis­ten­ing and keep on shooting!

Pod­cast: Play in new win­dow | Down­load

Filed Under: Photography podcasts, Photography tips, podcasting Tagged With: , , ,

54 — Making the eyes sing — Photography podcast

September 28, 2008 By 5 Comments

Pho­tog­ra­phy pod­cast #54 talks about how to make the eyes sing in a pho­to­graph. When we take a photo of a per­son or some­thing that has eyes, we really need to pay atten­tion to what we are doing. The eyes are nor­mally the most impor­tant part of any por­trait and they need to be sharp and bright. Through a few basic tech­niques this pod­cast tells you what you need to do to get your subject’s eyes to ‘sing’.

Even in this medium range shot you can see sharp bright eyes

Even in this medium range shot you can see sharp bright eyes

The bulldogs eye sings because the iris is sharp and bright

The bulldog’s eye (stock) sings because the iris is sharp & bright

Links men­tioned in this pod­cast:
The eyes have it thread from the pho­tog­ra­phy forum
Acces­sories pod­cast (check image of the light stand hold­ing reflec­tor with magic arm)
A dodg­ing tech­nique for the eyes described in para­graph 2 of the post
Gary Fong dif­fuser at B&H
Pod­camp Mon­treal
CC Chap­man

Thanks as always to Benny and Susan who posted a blog com­ment about our last pod­cast and for her sug­ges­tion that inspired this pod­cast. Thanks also to Ram, Hallow’s maiden, Rabi­aka­ma­ran, Gatepc, BenH, MikeS, Dabow,‚ Inukamori, svant­land & PKMax who recently joined the photography.ca forum and posted a few times. We LOVE com­ments and sug­ges­tions so please send more.

If you are look­ing at this mate­r­ial on any other site except Photography.ca — Please hop on over to the Photography.ca blog and pod­cast and get this and other pho­tog­ra­phy info directly from the source. I Sub­scribe with iTunes I Sub­scribe via RSS feed I Sub­scribe with Google Reader I

You can down­load this pho­tog­ra­phy pod­cast directly by click­ing the pre­ced­ing link or lis­ten to it almost imme­di­ately with the embed­ded player below.

Pod­cast: Play in new win­dow | Down­load

Filed Under: Photographs, Photography podcasts, Photography tips, podcasting Tagged With: , , ,

Using backlighting outdoors — Photography Podcast #45

May 30, 2008 By 2 Comments

Pho­tog­ra­phy pod­cast #45 talks about how to use back­light­ing out­doors. We talk about tak­ing that clas­sic photo on the beach in front of a sun­set and doing it prop­erly. We also describe how to take a nice por­trait using back­light­ing and the whole pod­cast and is based some­what on an email from Cindy;

“This sum­mer my fam­ily is going to the beach. Of course, I want to take lots of pic­tures. What is the best time of day? I love sun­set pic­tures, but how do I take pic­tures of the peo­ple with their backs to the ocean (sun in back­ground etc.) and see their faces clearly? ”

The images below (done really quickly with almost no post pro­cess­ing) clearly show the dif­fer­ences you can obtain using back­light­ing and flash at dif­fer­ent set­tings. Per­son­ally I like the Minus 2 shot the best. You best see the dif­fer­ences in flash out­put by look­ing at the face.

using backlighting and flash outdoors

Pho­tog­ra­phy links men­tioned in this pod­cast:
Acces­sories that you can use to hold reflec­tors etc. — pho­tog­ra­phy pod­cast 35
Pho­tog­ra­phy and the law

Thanks as always to Cindy, Jason and Alex Wil­son for recent com­ments and sug­ges­tions. We LOVE com­ments and sug­ges­tions so please send more.

You can down­load this pho­tog­ra­phy pod­cast directly by click­ing the pre­ced­ing link or lis­ten to it almost imme­di­ately with the embed­ded player below.

Pod­cast: Play in new win­dow | Down­load

Filed Under: Photographs, Photography blog entries, Photography podcasts, podcasting Tagged With: , , , , , ,

One light portraits — Photography podcast #38

February 22, 2008 By 6 Comments

Pho­tog­ra­phy pod­cast #38 talks about cre­at­ing dra­matic por­traits using only 1 light. Using 1 light cre­ates very harsh shad­ows which is PERFECT for a dra­matic por­trait. The fol­low­ing 2 shots illus­trate this dra­matic effect. In the first shot Lorne and Boog are being lit by 1 light located 45 degrees toward the right. The sec­ond shot is side­light. Both these shots use no reflec­tor to bounce light back into the sub­jects’ faces. Note that the light in the sec­ond pho­to­graph reveals a lot of skin tex­ture, so this type of light­ing would not be good for a ‘fash­iony’ shot in most cases. Thanks to Lorne and Boog for being the mod­els. I Love how lit­tle Boog is star­ing me down in the first shot. You can click all the shots to make them tastier on the eyes.

One light portrait

1 light portrait - side lighting
‚
You can down­load this pho­tog­ra­phy pod­cast directly by click­ing the pre­ced­ing link or lis­ten to it almost imme­di­ately with the embed­ded player below this image.

Photo of the week
This week, the pho­to­graph is by Zseike and I com­ment in the pod­cast on why I think this pho­to­graph is fantastic.

Photo by Zseike

Thanks as always for the com­ments by‚Gary H, ‚Andre, Tom, Yves Janse, David and Mikael. We LOVE com­ments and sug­ges­tions so please send more.

Pod­cast: Play in new win­dow | Down­load

Filed Under: Photographs, Photography podcasts, Photography tips, podcasting Tagged With: , , , ,

Lighting round faces — baldness — blemishes — Photography podcast #36

January 29, 2008 By 4 Comments

Pho­tog­ra­phy pod­cast #36 focuses on think­ing about how dif­fer­ent types of light suit dif­fer­ent types of faces. We talk about how both short light­ing and side light­ing are good for rounder faces. We also talk about blem­ishes and baldness.

Many thanks to Mark McCall for allow­ing me to use this image (and expla­na­tion below the image) clearly show­ing the the slim­ming effect of short light­ing and the broad­en­ing effect of broad light­ing on a model’s face.

Broad Light­ing vs. Short Light­ing
Broad light­ing refers to light­ing up the face from the “broad” side, (widest part of the face from nose to ear from the cam­era angle).
Short light­ing refers to light­ing up the face from the “short” side, (side of the face turned away from the camera)

Short light­ing makes the face appear thin­ner in the image, and is the best choice for most sub­jects. Broad light­ing works best for thin faces.

Thanks as always for the com­ments by Yves Janse and Mikael. We LOVE com­ments and sug­ges­tions so please send more.

Pod­cast: Play in new win­dow | Down­load

Filed Under: Photography podcast transcripts, Photography podcasts, Photography tips, podcasting Tagged With: , , , , , ,