Photography classes for 2014

I've finally finished all the preparations for my upcoming photography classes. 

There will be a range of subjects to choose from and I'm even offering a one to one class for those of you who don't have the time to attend a "normal" class.

All the details can be found in English here.

I look forward to seeing you.

Thanks for reading.

On location portrait photoshoot

I received an email from the pharmaceutical company Nobel Biocare asking if I would be free to take some portraits of a dentist for an article that they will soon be publishing.

When I  responded positively that I was available, I was sent details of the shoot and the requirements of the image that was needed. Basically it was a vertical format, preferably three quarters or head and shoulder with a slightly out of focus background. Another proviso was that the dentist shouldn't be wearing his work clothes. 

All very straight forward except it was to be taken in his surgery during business hours. There would be patients in the vicinity. I decided to travel light and although all my gear remained in my car, I used only my 5d MKII with my new 24 - 105 zoom, a Speedlite 430 EX2 and an interesting diffuser that I picked up on a Swiss auction site for a few Francs. I love this device as it gives a lovely almost shadow free light.

The new diffuser in place

I arrived half an hour early at the practice and looked around whilst Dr Sleiter tended to business. As the background had to be slightly soft, I looked for a location that had something on the walls that wouldn't detract too much. I saw two rooms that I thought would be suitable for the image. In one room, the ambient light was measured at 1/80sec at f5.6 and the other recorded 1/200 sec at f5. These apertures were chosen to render the background as slightly out of focus.

When Dr Sleiter was free, he changed out of his dentist clothes and selected a shirt which (in my opinion) wouldn't clash with the surroundings or background.

We started in the first  room and I selected 1/80sec at f5.6 manually on the camera. The walls weren't white and this was seen in the image as the flash reflected from them. The resulting image is warm, which I quite like.

 

 1/80sec @ f5.6 with flash

My only concern was the background. I wasn't sure if it would distract too much on the magazine page where it was appearing.

After a couple of more pictures we moved to one of the surgeries where it was a lot brighter. I started (with the settings established earlier) with a head and shoulders of Dr Sleiter standing then I had an idea. What about making the foreground out of focus?  

1/200 @ f5 with flash

 To be safe, I first asked him to sit on one of the dental chairs and I took a head and shoulders pic of him.

 1/200 @ f5 with flash

Then I swung the dental equipment in front of him to give some sort of "meaning" to the image. This is my favourite of the bunch as it immediately says to me "dentist in his environment".

All in all an enjoyable assignment that went very smoothly with the minimum of equipment and setting up.

It will be interesting to see which image they use in the magazine.

Thanks for reading.

Reflecting on keeping it simple

Back in June and early in July, I wrote about an impromptu photo session with Kristina. The gear I used couldn't have been simpler.

A camera body (in my case, the EOS 5d MKII), a standard 50mm lens, a flash (Speedlite 430 EXII) and a silver reflector.

Although I have a backpack full of camera gear I chose to work as simply as possible because it would make me concentrate on the picture and the framing as I wouldn't be able to zoom back and forth.

The shoot was in my bedroom at home and I spread two black fur blankets on the bed for a minimalist, non intrusive background. 

The bedroom faces west and because the shoot took place in the afternoon, we had strong light coming through the window which wasn't necessarily a good thing!

I posed Kristina mostly with her back to the light source to give her blonde hair some backlighting. This of course threw her face into shadow. This was solved with the aid of my Lastolite reflector. This reflector has been a constant in my camera bag for over twenty years. It is small, light and portable and a great help at "kicking" some light into the shadows.

 The reflector shown folded and open. 

This was the gear used for all three shoots

 

At the start of every pose, I would take a meter reading from her face with my aperture on the camera set to about f4. the ISO was set to 400. The exposure was then noted and transferred to manual mode. This was for two reasons. The exposure was unlikely to change and the wide aperture meant that the background would be slightly out of focus. Because of these parameters, I had to make sure that the eyes were always in focus. That's what people look at first on a portrait.

On this image, the reflector is just in front of  Kristina's 

knees throwing light back onto the face. f3.5 1/400sec

I was so please with the results that a few days later I received a call to take a basic head and shoulders portrait for a magazine story.

Although I had all my gear in the car, I turned up for the shoot with the above equipment.

To better show the difference when using and not using the reflector I took these two pics.

Before and after using the reflector 400 ISO

1/80 sec @f5.6

Of course you don't have to buy a reflector and can make your own. A colleague of mine used to use an A3 sized piece of card with aluminium foil stuck to it. Make sure though that it's the dull side that is reflecting and not the shiny side. The light will be softer and less prone to making your subject squint.

One negative aspect of making an A3 reflector as mentioned above is that it wasn't foldable, was cumbersome in the field and prone to getting scratched, torn etc. my advice would be to get a Lastolite or similar. take a look at their website. They have some interesting tutorials.

That's it for now. Hope you've enjoyed this piece. If you have any questions, please don't hesitate to ask.

Tom

Kristina. Impromptu photoshoot

My wife's sister came to visit us over the weekend.

At my suggestion we arranged an impromptu photoshoot. Using only one lens (a 50mm f1.4), a silver crumpled reflector and a Canon Speedlite on my 5d MkII which I always bounced.

We went through a couple of changes of outfits and 167 images.

I started off with a few head and shoulder shots just to relax her (she's a bit self conscious) and always let her see the results every few minutes.

Two hours later we had a great selection of images.

What do you think?

There is a more complete selection on my website here.