lighting

Maxine’s Curves.

Anything can and will go wrong on a shoot, it happens and it happens to the best of us. On a recent shoot with Maxine things “went wrong” in that we couldn’t find the intended location, the area we were in had terrible weather and we were losing light pretty fast. When things like this happen it’s important to keep the spirit up and roll with the punches. With the initial idea being scrapped we drove down to Old Town Albuquerque to try and make up for a shoot that didn’t happen and the results were well worth it.

In the car ride (that got extended) Maxine, my assistant/girlfriend, and I had conversations about shooting women with curves (as Maxine obviously does) and how to get the best images out of it and we specifically talked about how it’s not hard to get great images with curvy models. Essentially when working with curvier models you don’t want to hide the curves, you want to highlight them and use them to your advantage. Curves can be incredibly flattering and work very well aesthetically but in order for get them to work you need to know how to pose the model. Posing is important for any model, it’s the basis of modeling in general and every model is different in what works but I’ve noticed that curvier models are very specific. You need to know where their curves are, where they look the most flattering and extend those areas out so that they get more of the attention than anything else.

Shooting curvier models is a lot of fun. It’s not nearly as challenging as you would think it would be and to be honest is more visually interesting to look at. If you want to get better at directing and posing I would recommend working with more models with curve because it makes you more attentive to what you are doing with your directions.

Short and Sweet with Sam.

There are a couple of things that I take pride in as a photographer. One of those things is just always doing constantly solid work but there are a lot of other qualities that my clients and model friends appreciate when I work with them. Those would be my fast turn around times on edits and the fact that my shoots don’t last to long. On average a shoot with me probably only last about 30 minutes. In that time we’ll take well over 100 images and when I get into editing around 20-30 will make the culling but and then only a hand full of those will be posted, that’s just standard. This recent shoot that I did with Samantha was just that where, we met we shot, we got some solid stuff, I took it home to edit and that all took just about 3 hours in total work time (not including travel time too and from location.) Doing great work doesn’t have to take weeks to do. Simple locations, poses, edits and good work flow can offer a lot to making great images on a short time table and it always impresses people when you can do great work so quickly.

On location with Maxine… In a Pool

It’s very easy to get Cabin Fever when shooting in studio often with great frequency. It almost feels like my last couple of shoots have been strictly studio on account of scheduling purposes. Studio comes with like a lot of benefits such as controllable lighting, minimal distractions and a comfortable space to interact with your subjects. But nothing really quite compares to the visual interest created by an on location shoot. Maxine reached out to me having a very solid concept in mind for a futuristic pool shoot with the location already set up. Needless to say I was blown away by the location itself. The owner of the property showed great hospitality and even enthusiasm for the shoot we were doing. The location was nothing short of beautiful with excellent scenery, an incredible pool and perfect natural lighting once we hit golden hour.

Maxine as a model was a thrill to work with. The thing that made her so great to shoot with was her ability to communicate. She was able to tell me exactly what she wanted out of the shoot and I was able to give her direction and explain what I was doing without any problem. When there is a good amount of chemistry between photographer and subject it goes a long way in getting the best results out of a shoot.

Though I have been spending more and more time in studio shooting in that environment I still mostly think of myself as an on location shooter. I enjoy working with the natural light and the environment around me to get the best possible results so it was amazing to be able to take advantage of a stellar location and work with an incredibly bright model.

Batmanda Out of Costume.

I love shooting cosplay. It’s where I got my start in photography but it’s also good to do other things. I’ve shot a lot of my Geek friends in costume as well as in street clothes but I never got around to doing it with Batmanda until now. We picked a grungy almost goth theme, she brought a couple different outfits and we just played around with it. The big thing that I wanted to do was brush up on my directing a posing skills. Batmanda is easier than most to direct and pose simply because we’ve worked together so much already and in terms of personality we are relatively on the same page in terms of sense of humor and attitudes. That kind of connection makes for some amazing images.

First Shoot of 2015 Tara Noir.

The first shoot of this year I wanted to do something that was super stylized and different from what I’m used to doing. I came up with the concept of a classic black and white portrait session in a sort of neo-noir setting.

Most of the shots that were done inside of my apartment using a 1k light with a soft box balanced for daylight as a key and a 60 watt lamp with a indoor balanced bulb as a back light creating some contrast. Now some of my images came out a little on the under exposed side, but by shooting in raw and making sure I was at least close enough to retain detail, it wasn’t hard to save files in Lightroom where I tone all my images.

A ballsy move on my part was trying to shoot at f:2 on my 85mm f1.8 and 50mm f1.8 in an attempt to get the depth of field as shallow as I could so I could blow out the backgrounds in order to keep some of the things in the background from seeming out of place. The reason this is so ballsy is because you run the risk of not getting your photos in focus properly making images look soft. However I feel like I managed that problem well.

What I wanted to accomplish with this shoot was to actually have a solid concept and style for me to shoot for as opposed to doing what I normally do which is to just show up to a location with whatever the model is already wearing and just messing around until I find something that works. I believe that goal was reached and I hope to take this experience and try and apply that into future shoots by already having a concept in mind. One thing that I can improve on though is keeping a better attention to detail and making sure everything in the scene fits as so that way I don’t have to shoot at f2 to make the image look right.

Tara at Home

Tara has a familiar face if you follow any of my photography work. Ever since we first met about a year ago for a costume contest she participated in, we’ve continually worked together. Whenever I have a new piece of gear I want to test out or if I just get the itch to shoot, Tara has always been willing to pick up the phone. This time around we got to do a style of photoshoot that I’ve been wanting to do for a long time- to photograph a model in their own home.

Ever since I got a new set of studio lights I’ve been trying to get an excuse to use them. They come in handy whenever I have to do any kind of video work but not having a studio space makes it difficult to justify using them for shoots. Since Tara agreed to do a shoot at her place I wanted to take advantage of the resource.

Another side benefit of shooting at a models own home was the ability to do wardrobe changes on the fly. In retrospect there was a lot more that we could have done in terms of wardrobe but time played a factor on top of trying to keep everything with in Tara’s comfort zone.

We didn’t spend all of our time indoors. I don’t know who’s idea it was but at one point we all went about a quarter mile out to the Sandia Mountains to do some more out door photos as well… Because why not.

You can really see what a difference controllable indoor studio lights make. When you’re out doors you don’t get nearly as much control and you have to work around what the daylight gives you both in how you’re shooting and in post processing.

Now for a quick disclaimer for models (especially starting out.) You shouldn’t just invite random photographers you barely know over to your place to do photoshoots. Tara and I have worked together many times before this and have developed a rapport together and has established a certain level of trust. On top of that both our significant others were present during this shoot not only to help out but to mingle with each other and have a good time. Photoshoots are always a fun thing to engage in but you should always be careful because unfortunately there are shady, and sometimes even dangerous people out there posing as photographers.

Photographing Live Music and Working with the Situation You are Given.

Concerts are designed specifically to be a listening experience where you get to hear music coming out in it’s rawest form. Instead of having a compressed sound file play out of your speaker you have the true source in front of you blasting the sound for the entire room to move to. This experience however is not built for photography.

The lighting is often dim, made to be highly stylized for the audience’s enjoyment but not so much for a camera sensor. You are confined to a space where you can’t get up close and personal with the subject, whether you’re in the pit or back stage. You’re compositions needs to be tight in order to keep gear and moving band member out of the way to get the shot. So at the end you just have to work with whatever you’ve been given and try to get the best shots possible.

The first thing you have to keep in mind when shooting live music is time. Major bands will normally only give you 3 songs to shoot and then you’re done. Others are just short set list where they only get 3 songs to begin with. The main way around this is to not only shoot when the band is playing. You should be willing to shoot during the set up, between songs and get the band members interactions between songs. The one thing you always have to do as a photographer is to be ready for anything and capture the moment.

The time tip is relatively situational being that if you’re shooting a smaller band you might have more than 3 songs. But one thing you will have to deal with is the lack of space to work with. If you’re in the photo pit with tons of other photographers you have multiple things you need to consider; Where are all the other photographers, What gives you the best shooting lanes to get a variety of shots and what lens you want on your camera. In the pit the best lens choice that I can think of personally is a 70-200 2.8 to give the sense that you’re right there up close to them with your shots. However using a wide angle can be useful in order to get the entire band in frame and give the photo grander context. But at the end of the day you got to do the best with what you got.

The biggest pain in the ass is going to be getting photos of the drummer. The drummer is all the way at the back of the stage with the worse lighting and with the most of amount of thing in your way. If you are able to get good shots of the drummer more power to you but it’s one of the most difficult things to shoot and often they are out of the way of the action.

So we discussed getting your shots in and getting them composed properly now how do we get the proper exposure. Most shows are going to have terrible lighting. Most show lighting is built around to be a visual experience but it doesn’t translate well on camera. The two work around to this problem is high ISO and processing the images in black and white. Shooting at high ISO will of course bring in the grain and cause problems in the color detail. So when the light is so dim and giving off strange colors the the sensor can’t process, well black and white is a great solution.

Just because the lighting is a challenge doesn’t mean you can’t use it creatively. When a show does use some kind of creative lighting can cause creative flaring and even hair line highlights. and when processing in black and white it you don’t have to worry about the tones.

The main thing to remember is to have fun and not every shot is going to be perfect. You’ll take some good ones some bad ones but every now and again you’ll get some great ones. You just got to keep shooting.

Photographing Albuquerque Comic Con: The Challenges of Low Light and Crowded Spaces

This past weekend was Albuquerque Comic Con (ACC) and as previously mention I went to to cover the event in a photographic fashion. This year the event was being held at Hotel Albuquerque down in Old Town and while it was a great venue it came with some of the hardest conditions to shoot in. 2 factors played into making this assignment challenging .1) The lighting was awful. It was a dimly lit hotel all over the show floor using mainly tungsten light bulbs with some areas letting natural light in through windows. 2) Incredibly tight spaces with a large turnout made crowding and moving about the area difficult. Both situations were manageable however with just a little know how, patience and letting go of some nit picky things.

The main thing I needed to figure out was how I was going to deal with the low lighting. Being that the light was so low I pushed the ISO to 6400 on my D600 and was shooting at a wide open aperture. The workhorse lense I was using all day was my 85mm f1.8g and it pretty much never came off the camera body. Ideally I would have liked to stop down to f2.8 or f3.2 to get some added sharpness and depth of field but I needed all the light I could get so wide open at 6400 was where I had to go.

OnTheFloor-7

As a result I had to sacrifice keeping slight amount of grain out of the images and the risk of missing focus on the subjects in order to get properly exposed images and cut down on motion blur. As an added bonus for shooting at f1.8 I created some excellent Bokeh (out of focus areas) to cause awesome subject isolation. Now a lot of other photographers that were there covering the event were handling the low light differently by using a flash. There is nothing wrong with using a flash but I personally don’t like using an on camera flash that is going to cause some awkward shadows in the background and not to mention being that I wasn’t there shooting in an official capacity I didn’t want to draw too much attention to myself while I was on the floor. (Note: I was aloud to shoot this event I just wasn’t there for a publication or affiliated with the con itself.)

So the main thing I did to handle the crowded spaces was to stick with my already tried and true style of shooting candidly/journalistically. As previously mentioned in a past article on convention photography you see that a lot of people will stop the cosplayers in the hall and ask them to pose or take a photo with someone else. At this event especially it caused some problems with blocking traffic and resulted in some missed opportunities to capture moments as opposed to posses. So by shooting in aperture priority and high ISO and keeping tabs on what shutter speeds I was getting I just kept shooting on the go. There were times when I would miss focus or get some annoying backlighting messing up my exposure but for the most part this style served me well. I couldn’t quite nail focus on every shot I took but being that I was shooting candidly and not posed portraits I didn’t lose much sleep over not having the sharpest image possible.

Now it wouldn’t have been a convention if my cosplay friends hadn’t asked me to take some portraits of their cosplays. This is how the final challenge of the con took place, finding a secluded area to shoot that has useable lighting. Long story short I was able to find a place outside with no people around to get some portraits of my friends. Now I could lower my ISO to low and noise free levels and stop down my aperture to f3.5 and f4 to get that added sharpness.

OnTheFloor-3

Overall it was a great event and I got some stellar images out of the whole thing. So far I’ve been getting incredible feedback and it’s always great to shoot cosplay.

Photo Shoot at the Bosque

To kick off this holiday weekend I ended up doing a photo shoot. This time it was with a friend of mine who goes buy the name of Kenya who I’ve done work with in the past, specifically on the cosplay side but this time we ended up doing a more casual kind of shoot at the bosque down in Albuquerque.

Kenya Chan on a log in the Albuquerque Bosque

I’ve used the Bosque before on several occasions in the past specifically for the nature element of it which is a nice change of scenery from the often gritty city environments you find around albuquerque. Don’t get me wrong I like gritty but you got to change it up every once in a while. In fact there was an overpass bridge that went over the Rio Grande which gave a good urban piece with some juxtaposition next to nature. To add to that there was a bridge under that bridge which I really got a kick out of.

One thing that I love about shooting outside of a studio environment is the opportunity to capture something organic. I’ve done some studio photography in the past and though I did enjoy it, I felt limited in what I could capture in such a small place. Granted studios have their advantages such as being a controlled environment where you know what you can expect and they afford you the ability to get away from prying eyes for the more risque photo shoots. But being that I come from a more journalistic side of photography when I do the more commercial work I like to be able to move around and use scenery to my advantage.

Kenya by the Rio Grand

Now shooting at a location as opposed to a studio does have it’s share of difficulties. Specifically with lighting. Sometimes there’s not enough, Sometimes it’s too harsh and sometimes something is casting some kind of shadow making the light uneven. There are several things can do about this, 1) is be aware of the light you have and where it’s coming from and 2) is editing the RAW Files in Lightroom. You shouldn’t rely on editing to fix your exposures but there is no harm in tweeking your files in post to get then to look the way you want. There are times where an image can look lost but some simple edits can bring it back. There are other things you can do with reflectors and supplemental lighting but that wasn’t readily available to me for this shoot (Once again a benefit to studio and haveing an assistant.).

Kenya and light through the trees.

Overall this was a really fun shoot and I’m looking forward to hopefully having some more over the holiday break since i will have more time on my hands than I will know what to do with.

If you want to see more of Kenya (Specifically in cosplay) You can like her on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/KenyaChanCosplay

TCK-Media

Realize Your Vision