Directing and relaxing models — Photography podcast #44

April 30, 2008 By 2 Comments

Pho­tog­ra­phy pod­cast #44 talks about how to direct mod­els in pho­tog­ra­phy photo shoots. This pod­cast is based on a sug­ges­tion (thanks for the sug­ges­tion Bill!) by fel­low pod­cast lis­tener Bill who wrote an email asking;

“I’d love to hear a pod­cast in a bit more detail about “direct­ing” ordi­nary peo­ple in a por­trait ses­sion. I tend to start out ok, but some­times sort of, choke, I guess, and then for­get every­thing I know about tak­ing pho­tos, pos­ing peo­ple, and walk­ing while chew­ing gum :) “

Pho­tog­ra­phy links men­tioned in this pod­cast:
Pos­ing mod­els in pho­tog­ra­phy — pho­tog­ra­phy pod­cast 28
Jeff Cur­tožs His­tory of Pho­tog­ra­phy pod­cast

Thanks as always to Bill, Andre_f, Michael, and Joseph 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: Photography podcasts, Photography tips, podcasting Tagged With: , ,

Photographs — should we change the word — Photography podcast #43

April 14, 2008 By 4 Comments

Pho­tog­ra­phy pod­cast #43‚asks the ques­tion do we need to change the word pho­to­graph because it is not descrip­tive enough. With pho­tographs being so heav­ily edited in Pho­to­shop, do we need more spe­cific terms (or a new lex­i­con) to describe what kinds of pho­tographs we are look­ing at?‚

FYI — Next pod­cast will be less philo­soph­i­cal and more instructional/practical.

Pho­tog­ra­phy links men­tioned in this pod­cast:
Post pro­cess­ing thread

Thanks as always to Vlad,‚Andre_f,‚deb­bieT, ‚Elio and Alen 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: Photography podcasts, podcasting Tagged With: , ,

Party at the Old Port

March 29, 2008 By 3 Comments

Here’s a shot of a huge ship at the old port in old Mon­treal at night. It was of course the lights and their reflec­tions on the water that made this shot inter­est­ing for me. I nor­mally don’t shoot hand­held at slower than 1/30th of a sec­ond and this shot was taken at 1/15.‚ Exif data F2.8, ‚1/15 at ISO 1600. You can click the image to make it tastier on the eyes.

photograph of the old port - Montreal

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

Best Friends Know the Truth

March 1, 2008 By 5 Comments

I took this pho­to­graph the same day I did the pod­cast on 1 light por­traits.
Aside from pho­tog­ra­phy, I am truly pas­sion­ate about pets, so when I get to com­bine the two…well, Yahoo!
This was shot in West­mount Park on a cold over­cast Mon­treal after­noon. Boog the dog started shiv­er­ing pretty quickly so we did not stay out long. I used a faster than nor­mal shut­ter speed because of the shiv­er­ing.
Exif data ISO 400, F-4.5, 1/800 sec.

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

Lith printing in photography — Photography podcast #39

February 29, 2008 By 1 Comment

Pho­tog­ra­phy pod­cast #39 fea­tures an inter­view with fine art pho­tog­ra­pher Vicki Reed aka hol­ga­girl on Flickr. In this inter­view we talk about lith print­ing which is an alter­na­tive print­ing tech­nique using a tra­di­tional dark­room. For those that only want to try this dig­i­tally, see the links below.


Sumac and Sun — Vicki Reed

Pho­tog­ra­phy links men­tioned in this pod­cast:
‚ Vicki’s fea­ture on Photography.ca
‚ Holga cam­eras
‚ Foto­speed lith paper Do a search for lith on this site to get more lith prod­ucts
‚ Ken­tona paper
‚ 2 Tim Rud­man videos on Lith print­ing
‚ The World of Lith Print­ing
‚ Dig­i­tal lith print­ing
‚ Dig­i­tal lith print­ing action for pho­to­shop
‚ Dig­i­tal lith print­ing by Adobe

‚Is it still art — what is art — thread on photography.ca forum

Thanks as always for the com­ments by‚Gary H,‚‚seyDoggy, Yves Janse and Mikael. 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 podcasts, Photography tips, 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: , , , ,

Macro photography on the cheap — Photography podcast #37

February 13, 2008 By 13 Comments

Pho­tog­ra­phy pod­cast #37 focuses on cheap macro pho­tog­ra­phy setups. In this pod­cast we talk about using revers­ing rings, exten­sion tubes, close-up lenses and cheap macro lenses in order to achieve good macro results for lit­tle cash.‚Special thanks to ‚Yves Janse who sug­gested this podcast.

The fol­low­ing images describe the dif­fer­ent inex­pen­sive tech­niques used to cre­ate macro photographs

macro photography

1 — Shows my shot with a zoom lens only
2 — Shows shot with cheap close-up lens #1
3 — Shows shot with cheap close-up lens #2
4 — Shows shot with cheap close-up lens #4
5 — Shows what close-up lenses look like
6 — Shows what exten­sion tubes look like
7 -‚Shows what a lens mounted back­wards using a revers­ing ring looks like
8 — Photo by Yves janse (Thanks Yves) show­ing how you can stack close up lenses and tubes
9 — Shows a Plamp for hold­ing macro subjects

Links men­tioned in this pod­cast:
Revers­ing rings on Ebay
Close up lenses on Ebay
Exten­sion tubes on Ebay
Phoenix AF lens review (A cheap ded­i­cated macro lens)
Plamp clamp for hold­ing macro subjects

Thanks as always for the com­ments by‚Al, Tim and Yves Janse who also sug­gested this. We LOVE com­ments and sug­ges­tions so please send more.

Pod­cast: Play in new win­dow | Down­load

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

2 old bananas huddle for warmth in the snow

February 7, 2008 By 2 Comments

Much to my delight some­one tossed out 2 old bananas. Then I came upon them and decided “hey bananas in the snow, cooool”

The first shot‚shows the real bananas and the sec­ond shot‚shows the bananas after hav­ing frozen to death. OR… the sec­ond shot shows still­born oxy­gen deprived bananas.

Kid­ding aside all‚I did to get the deep blue in the sec­ond shot was push the hue/saturation slider all the way to the right in pho­to­shop. Shot at F5.6 at 1/200 ISO 100. Click the images to make them big­ger, and of course…you are invited to comment.

‚ ‚
Filed Under: Photographs, Photography blog entries, Photography tips 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: , , , , , ,

Clamps, stands, arms and adapters — Photography podcast #35

January 14, 2008 By 8 Comments

Pho­tog­ra­phy pod­cast #35 is all about using sim­ple acces­sories to make your photo shoots go smoother. In par­tic­u­lar, we dis­cuss clamps, magic arms, flash adapters and light stands. All of the acces­sories can be used in mul­ti­ple ways mak­ing them extremely ver­sa­tile in a vari­ety of shoot­ing situations.

Manfrotto superclamp 035
Man­frotto Super­clamp #035

Manfrotto spring clamp 175F
Man­frotto spring clamp #175 with threaded adapter (088)

Manfrotto spring clamp with flash mount
Man­frotto spring clamp‚#175F with flash mount

Manfrotto magic arm 237HD
Man­frotto flex­i­ble magic arm #237 HD

Opus umbrella mount OPL-SW0316
Opus umbrella mount OPL-SW0316

Opus umbrella mount on manfrotto master stand 004
Opus umbrella mount on man­frotto mas­ter stand #004

Superclamp 035 attached to magic arm attached to springclamp 175
Super­clamp with arm attached to spring clamp

master light stand 004 with arm and superclamp holding a reflector
Extendible arm on man­frotto mas­ter stand #004
attached to super­clamp hold­ing a 32.5 inch reflector

Pur­chas­ing these items through these links helps sup­port this site:

Man­frotto super clamp at B&H
Man­frotto super clamp at Amazon

Man­frotto spring clamp with flash shoe at B&H
Man­frotto spring clamp with flash shoe at Amazon

Manfrotto‚flexible arm‚at B&H
Man­frotto flex­i­ble arm at Amazon

Manfrotto‚master light stand‚at B&H
Man­frotto mas­ter light stand at Amazon

Photoflex (sim­i­lar to‚Opus) umbrella flash mount‚at B&H
Photoflex (sim­i­lar to Opus) umbrella flash mount at Amazon

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

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

Arkady Renko - Stranger

Thanks as always for the com­ments by‚Samirah,‚ Carl­son Chu and Yves Janse. We LOVE com­ments and sug­ges­tions so please send more. Spe­cial thanks to Nico Pin who has helped make this blog more user friendly and look funkier.

Pod­cast: Play in new win­dow | Down­load

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

Grab the light now — light waits for no one

January 9, 2008 By 3 Comments

Another res­o­lu­tion I am mak­ing this year (start­ing today) is not to tarry when I see great light. Great light doesn’t wait for you, great light doesn’t give a crap about your sched­ule — You wait for great light and when you see it you must grab it by its invis­i­ble balls.

Yes­ter­day was an amaz­ing exam­ple. I woke up and thick fog was every­where — Everywhere!

I LOVE FOG.

For me, fog is great light. It evokes a rare spe­cial mood and feel­ing.
.…but I’m a busy dude and work beck­ons me con­stantly so I checked the win­dow peri­od­i­cally while I waited until I was ready to shoot. Guess what — once I was ready the fog had almost dis­si­pated. Boy was I upset : (

So as a last resort I got into my car and chased the fog until I found the best patch I could find. It was okay fog and I think this self-portrait is not bad.

Point is — Now I have think about what could have been instead of know­ing that I was shoot­ing at the best pos­si­ble time.….

self portrait fog

Filed Under: Photographs, Photography blog entries, Photography tips Tagged With: , , ,

Bring your camera everywhere — resolutions

January 7, 2008 By 2 Comments

It’s so obvi­ous. Just bring your cam­era every­where and you’ll take more pic­tures.
By tak­ing more pic­tures, you’ll learn what works well and what doesn’t.
You won’t regret miss­ing shots.
When you SEE that great light you’ll be there to record it.

So that’s one res­o­lu­tion that I’ll try to stick with this year. I intend to bring my cam­era every­where. (I have a lot of gear so I’m only bring­ing 1 DSLR body, 1 lens and 1 flash)

Another res­o­lu­tion will be to do more reviews. I get a fair amount of email ask­ing me what I use in terms of equip­ment or what I sug­gest. This com­ing year, I intend to share more of what I think are great photo prod­ucts. From photo gear to soft­ware to wires to books — reviews are coming.

Happy new year every­one! All the best for 2008 — Keep on shooting!

Filed Under: Photography blog entries, Photography tips Tagged With: , ,
« Older Posts
Newer Posts »