The Lighting Setup

I wanted something up to  date for lighting so I kept it fairly simple. I set up two 1 x 4 feet strip lights with grids on either side roughly 30 degrees behind me. The strip lights were roughly 2 feet away from me. I decided to use strip lights instead of just a direct flash because I wanted a bit more diffusion… less harshness.

I stood about 10 feet from the light grey background to get a darker grey by avoiding light spill from the strip lights. I then proceeded to adjust my lights to my camera settings. I wanted a deep DOF so my settings were: f13, 1/200 sec, ISO 200. With that done, I found that firing my flashes at 40% power work perfectly. All I needed now was a fill light to eliminate the strong front shadows in the face and on the clothes.

So I set up a 2×2 softbox on a boom about a foot above my head on camera left to get some nice deep shadows under the chin and in the eyes (for a bit of edge and mystery! hahaha). In some of the final shots, I didn’t want shadows under the eyes so I lowered the fill light a bit. Since it’s a fill light I knew the power had to be less than the strip lights. 10% power about 2 feet away was perfect ! Here’s the lighting diagram.

The Planning

Once the lighting was to my liking, I needed to plan how I would pose. So I took some notes while looking at every piece of clothing I was going to shoot. Of course this just gave me a general idea of some poses to guide me and the rest would be improvised as I felt it. But this planning exercise was very important and should not be overlooked as it helps define your shoot. I then put a marker on the floor to set my focus point and to know where to stand after checking each shot. I would suggest shooting tethered with the laptop or monitor facing you so you don’t have to run behind the camera after each shot.

Shoot wide and crop later. With the size of sensors today, we can easily afford to crop into our photos so shoot as wide as you can. Remember that it’s better to crop than to have that perfect shot with a body part out of the frame. Doh!

The hardest part of the whole shoot was to get into character. Models don’t have it easy, I can tell ya! Respect! Remember that I took 163 shots and only liked 22 so that means that only 13% of the photos were good. My trick to get into character was to put some awesome music and let loose for a few minutes before shooting. Dancing really wound me down.

Here are some of my favorite shots. I kept the same lighting setup of all the shots.

Before you ask me how I post processed the final images, let me tell you! In Lightroom, I only did basic curves adjustments and reduced the red (-20) and orange (-30) saturation. Then in Photoshop, I used Topaz Adjust with the default portrait_drama setting to give it that extra pop. Topaz Labs are awesome! The best plugins I ever bought for Photoshop.

So go ahead and go take a few self portraits for yourself. You’ll have fun and you’ll learn about posing. You’ll be able to appreciate your models a lot more after that I guaranty it!  Share your self portrait links in the comments! We’d love to see them!

You liked this post? Then check out these ones as well!

• Using One Light for Drama – Lighting Tutorial
• Shooting on the Brooklyn Bridge – Lighting Tutorial
• Off Campus Learning Links for June

Roberto talks about composition and gives the following guidelines:

• Choose a selective focusing technique
• Placement and composition of your main subject
• Use converging lines
• Use repetitive elements
• Use Framing techniques

http://www.robertovalenzuelaphotography.com or follow Roberto on twitter at http://twitter.com/robertophoto

Roberto also mentioned the Magic Lantern Guides Camera Books that help your learn your camera and what the controls do.

Show Host

Kerry Garrison
http://kerrygarrison.com Twitter Facebook FriendFeed

You can listen to this podcast now using our player widget in the right hand sidebar

This podcast is also available on iTunes.

Since this was a step by step guide describing various cosmetology techniques, I had some free time in between shots to experiment and click away. Why do a separate session just for those shots when I could save time and shoot them in between the step by step shots? What was challenging was to work around the working hairstylist without interfering too much. I couldn’t direct the models. I just had to get what I could and anticipate what they might do.

For most of these drama shots, I basically just kept one strobe on  with a 2×3 softbox that I would move around. You’ll also notice that almost all of those shots were done in back lighting to get even more shadows. I would position the strobe between 90 and 45 degrees in front of the camera.

Here are a couple of shots that I did using this one light approach.

As an early Christmas present, here’s a time lapse video  done with my iPhone 3G using the iTimeLapse app. Fun stuff!

You liked this post? Then check out these ones as well!

• Shooting on the Brooklyn Bridge – Lighting Tutorial
• Off Campus Learning Links for June
• The Serious Side of Photography

Kerry and Jules also announce their upcoming workshop on Jan 26th. For more information on the Light, Location, and Love workshop, please check out:
http://cameradojo.com/2009/12/09/light-location-love-workshop-with-jules-bianchi-and-kerry-garrison/

Be sure and check out Jules’ website at http://julescafe.com.

Don’t forget about our CameraDojo MediaSmart Server Giveaway

Show Host

Kerry Garrison
http://kerrygarrison.com Twitter Facebook FriendFeed

You can listen to this podcast now using our player widget in the right hand sidebar

This podcast is also available on iTunes.

To help you do this Travel and Documentary photographer Mitchell Kanashkevich has put together one of the better E-books that has come out in the last little while – Seeing the Light. As Mitchell says in the introduction of the E-book – ‘light is inseparable from the subject matter, it’s as important as the person in the image.’

I got myself a copy a couple of weeks ago and have found myself dipping back into it many times since.

The book is broken down into 3 main areas:

1. Flash
2. Reflector
3. Natural Light

Each section introduces you to the topic, looks at equipment you might need and then gives you some great teaching on how to use it and ’sculpt’ your subject with the light from that technique.

Each page of the E-book gives you wonderful case study images and illustrates how they were lit with helpful diagrams – as you’ll see in these example pages:

Before you get yourself a copy – make sure to check out the free preview pdf which tells you more about the E-book and gives table of contents. Also check out Mitchell’s other E-book tutorial on the sales page – Understanding Post-Proccessing, an E-book on post-processing photographs in Photoshop and Lightroom. Through in-depth step by step tutorials, illustrations and explanations, it will help you produce striking images with plenty of impact.

Both E-books are value for money at $12 – grab your copies here.

Post from: Digital Photography School - Photography Tips.

Seeing the Light – A Great E-book from Mitchell Kanashkevich

I know – the blog has not gotten much attention lately.  My apologies – but after the job loss, and pounding the pavement, my schedule has tightened up considerably, so the “planned posts” have pretty much been exhausted as I let myself get behind.  The good news is that with several opportunities on the horizon, I am a little less stressed about “real world” economics, and can dedicate some time back to the blog.  A few items of note:

#1 – The Year End Blowout Bash is underway – and LDP/Canon Blogger is giving away a ton of goodies.  I posted details about this last week, but in the interests of giving it a little more “face time”, I would encourage everyone to start thinking about their “giving” themed photos – could mean some seriously cool prizes coming your way to start the new year off right!  More details on the prize package and such here:

#2 – The 3rd edition of the LDP Newsletter is forthcoming – with some little known tidbits about the guests on most recent podcasts, including nuggets from David DuChemin and Andie Smith, as well as the monthly roundup, great quotes and christmas/holiday ideas for the photo buff in all of us.

#3 – With many things under way both professionally and personally for this time of year – the posting schedule that I had been adhering to for most of the year (hardware, software review, composition, podcast, etc.) is likely not going to be followed as strictly as things will be done more on a “catch as catch can” sort of thing.  If you like tuning in for one thing or another – keep on reading because the stuff you like will be there, just maybe not on the schedule you are accustomed to.

#4 – Last up, I’d like to point out that the donations tab is still active, and all are welcome to contribute via that conduit – but in the interests of getting some tangible things back to the reader and listeners that have been so encouraging, I am going to be coming out with some short eBooks (5-10 pages max) and there is a new link for the website to bookmark for that content:  http://www.canonblogger.com/store  While I am getting a fairly good idea of things readers and listeners would like to see/hear, feel free to send in questions, comments, suggestions and the like for store content as I am open to input.

So, with the vegetables out of the way, I’d like to delve into the “meat and ‘taters” segment of today’s post and that lies in the title:  bokeh

For those of you that may not be aware, bokeh refers to the blurred portions that are out of focus behind your subject matter.  The quality and nature of that out of focus portion can really enhance a photo, and can even become the subject matter itself when looked at creatively.  Now, I‘ve talked here on the blog about bokeh in the past, but in the spirit of the holidays, I thought it would be fun to share some samples of images where I actually forced the entire scene out of focus, to basically make the bokeh the subject:

The Beauty of Bokeh #1

The Beauty of Bokeh #2

The Beauty of Bokeh #3

The Beauty of Bokeh #4

The Beauty of Bokeh #5

As the samples show, you can make some pretty fun use of blur and bokeh.  Shapes lend themselves well, and varieties in colors, as well as monochromes too.  Another thing – when getting bokeh and blur – don’t worry too much about noise and crank the ISO if need be – it’s all about your creative mind.  You can remove noise if you must, but the idea is to capture something in a new way and getting bokeh this time of year specifically can be a lot of fun.  A few suggestions though:

1. Look for shapes, as suggesting what the subject might really be can catch visual interest by teasing the eye – you know what it is by the shape…
2. Look for light, because without much variation in light or bright spots, the bokeh will end up looking like just some smudges of a limited tonal range
3. Use your best lens(es) as these produce softer bokeh – less angular edges, and more rounded or smooth textures, which is usually better for bokeh (“better for bokeh”, did I just say that?)
4. Shoot wide open, then switch to manual focus and intentionally blur – push the lens further out of focus for variations on your bokeh elements.   Watch what happens and adjust to taste.

So, there’s a few ideas for you – there could be an eBook coming out on this later with more samples and suggestions so let me know if this whets your appetite.  Do you like the idea?  Want to see more?  Get more tips on shooting for the abstract?  Do the photos above help or hurt the idea?  Do you like them or think there are better samples?  Got any of your own?  Feel free to post links to your own libraries of bokeh and blur for everyone to enjoy – there might even be a newsletter mention in it for ya!

That’s gonna do it for today – coming up later this week, the aforementioned newsletter, another podcast, and much more, so keep on shooting, until then, may your batteries be charged and your memory cards filled with lots of photos this holiday season.  Now get out there and shoot ya some!