Studio Portraits

Studio lighting has always been intriguing to me, but I never really had the chance to work with them. Luckily my good friend Luke had access to some studio gear, so we had some fun.

Here is a photo that I did with a simple two light scenario. One huge softbox up high and another aimed at the background behind the model ...exposure was f/8 at 1/200th ISO 100


Studio lights rock!
These lights (monolights) are big in comparison to normal flashes and the size is shown in the power they put out. I hate when i have to wait...especially for small flashes. With the studio lights on the other hand, the power recycle times are so short. This allows the light to be ready quickly for the next shot so you don't miss expressions from you model.

Relax!
I find that taking pictures of people is more about getting them to relax than anything...Sure, you have to light the scene and make them look good, but if they're uncomfortable this ain't gonna happen. I like just talking to the model, reassuring them the pictures are coming out well even if I know there's something wrong. I've been reading a lot of Joe McNally's new book and even in there he explains this. Many times I'm behind the camera and I'm thinking "Do I really know what I'm doing?"..."Is this going to work?"..."oh shit!, Is this thing on?"..."lens cap idiot...take off the lens cap!"...once your internal monologue goes public it's over. They are looking to you to make them feel confident and that their pics are going to be awesome. If they relax it's easy to get some great expressions and get a glimpse of what their personality is like. Just relax and they will too...

Reflectors for the win!
I use a large gold reflector to bounce light back up at the model. Some people call this clam shell lighting; One light is directly above the camera angled down and the reflector is directly below angled up creating a "clam shell"...easy lighting technique for portraits

I hope this helps and if you want a head shot, let me know :P

New Wacom Bamboo!

Computer tablets have been around for a while, but I never was into them, until now. What first caught my attention was all the buzz on the internet about the new Wacom Intuos4 tablets. My big question is why so many pros swear by them? Do they really make that much difference?

Problems!...
My problems:
1) I didn't want to buy one and then find out a hated it...$300+ ...ouch!
2) No one has these things on display so i could try it out...wtf?

So I went to the local graphic designer at my work. He's a cool guy and he let me borrow his Intuos3 for a week. Lesson learned...This thing is weird...the surface is slippery, the aspect ratio is square, not wide screen, and then there's getting used to the ergonomics. I switched my whole desk around! This sucked and even with everything I tried, I couldn't get my handwriting to look better than a kinder gardener's chicken scratch. WTF?! Why do people like these things? This made me even more intrigued and it pushed me to try other tablets.

Thank you Samy's!...
I did more research and the new Intuos addresses a lot of these issues. I needed to find one on display at a store, and I did. Thank you Samy's Camera in Santa Barbara. They actually have the large version of the Intuos4 on display with a crazy MacPro Tower. Sweet setup...Let's just say I was there for a while playing...that thing rocked, but it was huge! I don't have space for that beast on my desk...how are you supposed to bring it around...

Katarina to the rescue!!
Finally I spoke to my friend Katarina and she told me she has a Wacom Bamboo. This was the answer. She let me borrow it for a week and after that, I never looked back. This has all the cool stuff the intuos4s have without the big price tag...sure the 4s have more pressure levels, buttons galore and so on, but I'm not pro. I don't need all that. I just need something simple that works for photoshop post processing.

The Bamboo answers the questions that the Intous3 got wrong. It has a cool textured surface that feels more like real paper, wide screen aspect so you don't lose workspace to keep the proportions the same as your wide screen and it's small. It's basically a baby Intuos4. and the best part is it's only $70 bucks! Deal...

Recommendations!
If you decide to get a tablet I would recommend a few things.

1) Check out this guide first. It shows you proper ergonomics and will help a lot!!! I'm using the "trade-off" position for my purposes.
2) You need to have desk space...the Bamboo is small and I still could use more space on my desk. I couldn't imagine how to use the larger versions
3) Find one to try first. You need to feel a tablet before you buy it
4) I put my pen stand between my keyboard and the tablet. This way when I'm browsing, there is a fluid motion when I have to put the pen down and type.
5) When using the pen, I like to press the buttons with my thumb rather than my index finger. This is way more comfortable!

All this being said, I love my Bamboo...I use brush tools extensively and the pressure levels are priceless. If you use Photoshop, this is a great tool for post processing. I'm sure there are many other great uses for this tablet as well.

The Pic - the pic above was really easy to light...I basically used a Maglight L.E.D flashlight and zoomed it on the bamboo logo. The flash light was positioned high and slightly behind the unit and to the camera's right. No flash for this one :)

-Morgan

Polynesian Dance Portrait

Just last week I was asked to take some photos for a local Polynesian dance club that's based here in Santa Barbara. Well, the shoot went well but we had to battle a lot of problems...

1. Huge fire in SB = sky looks like a scene from Lord of the Rings! Straight Mordor status!
2. 30mph winds = Hair nightmare and umbrellas, softboxes and other big light modifiers are out of the question
3. Seaweed = girls don't like seaweed...enough said...
   

Considering the girls needed these pics for an upcoming flyer, they needed the photos right away. What to do? Find a shady spot! I saw another guy taking some photos near the rocks and I thought, "what a great idea!". So I moved the girls into a nice position on the rocks (where the wind was not so powerful) and I took this shot.

Settings: This is a fairly easy photo to take...I first exposed for ambient light in the scene and then I stopped down about 2 stops so I could darken the distracting rocks. I wanted to have the girls as the focal point so I dialed in my flash to expose them properly. This was with one bare flash gelled with a 1/2 CTO filter (to add some warth) up high off to the camera's left triggered wirelessly via Elinchrom Skyports (Cool little devices). I had my bud, Tuan, aim the flash high and at the girl in the back to feather the light. I had to dodge and burn a little in post processing to get everyone evenly lit, but I didn't have to use too much.

Quick recommendation when taking pics with multiple people: take a bunch of shots at the same location...i took about 5 shots of this scene and each one had a problem or two. Someone wasn't smiling, someone blinked, someone was looking somewhere other than the camera, etc. Doh! By taking multiple shots I was able to clone one girl's face from another picture into this one so everyone looked nice. It's a bit of work in photoshop, but can you tell which one has been worked on?

I hope this helps and remember if you're flashing, try to get the flash off of the camera and the results will be way more dynamic. You don't need to get a wireless system like me. I actually started with a simple wire solution. Even if your camera doesn't have a flash output, you can buy an adaptor that goes on your hotshoe and it will convert it for you so you can use an off camera wire. Check out Strobist for more in depth info on off camera flash. Lastly I've been reading Joe McNally's new book "Hotshoe Diaries". This is a really cool book if you want to learn more about off camera flash.

Hiking in Ithaca

Last week I went over a pic I took on my way to Ithaca to visit my girlfriend. This week I want to go over a pic that was taken while I was there. It was a great weekend and we spent a lot of time hiking around Ithaca and taking pictures of the waterfalls. Then I was like "Wait! I need to take a pic of you hun!". She is awesome and doesn't mind when I want her to model. So this is the shot that I came up with. What do you think? Isn't she beautiful?! I think so :) I wanted it to look like something out of a hiking magazine or maybe an ad for Northface...haha!

1) Off camera flash - The way I got this photo was with off camera flash. We were in a valley that was blocking the sun, so we were in a good amount of shade, but the waterfall was still lit nicely by the sun. At first I tried the shot without the flash and I got her sillouette. Then I remembered I had my flash! I read a lot of Strobist and the guys at that site swear by off camera flash and for good reason. Basically, direct flash blows. Well I shouldn't say that, it's good for some things, but if you want to add dimension to the lighting off camera is the way to go. If you want to learn more about lighting, go to Strobist. The guys over there are great and there is a lot to be learned there. I brought my Canon 580EX and I was holding it camera left as high as I could reach. My camera was on a tripod which helped with this one. I triggered the flash with Elinchrom Skyport triggers.

2) Setting up the exposure - This exposure was fairly easy. I started by metering for the waterfall in the background without my girl in the shot. Then I underexposed about one stop to bring out the blues in the sky. Once I got a nice exposure I just added the flash. The flash was in manual mode so I just dialed in a power level that exposed her properly. This takes some guessing at first, but it's fairly easy to find the right exposure.

Hope this helps with your environmental portraiture...here's a diagram of how I set things up...

Using slow shutter to get rid of people

Last week I visited my girlfriend in NY. It was a great trip and I was able to get some really nice photos. On the way, I had a layover in Chicago and while I tried to find my gate I stumbled upon this really cool hallway. Just think, neon lights that stretched nearly a football field or more with abstract translucent walls. Problem was there were so many people walking around it was hard to get a good shot. And it was dark. The lights only came on in short bursts. What to do? Slow shutter to the rescue!

Tripod is key - When i first walked in the room I thought to myself "How cool!". Everyone was busting out their camera phones, but I had my new 5D! Haha...so I busted it out and the first shot sucked...this is what I got. Not a good pic in my opinion. I couldn't get the lights to "pop" just hand-holding and the people were killing the composition. What to do? Tripod! I threw my camera on a tripod, which i had with me (a small one that fits in my carry-on), lowered the ISO (100) and stopped down to a small aperture (f/11) resulting in a shutter speed of 3.2 seconds. I moved to a center location, recomposed and the shot above is what I got. I photoshopped some of the highlights and shadows to bring out the lights, but by lowering the shutter speed all the people blurred away even in a busy airport. Hope this helps and be sure to bring your tripod on your next trip! I know it helped me out :) check out a better quality version on my porfolio site...www.morganmessina.com

Auto Photography the cheap way - Go to the dealership!

I have to admit, I love cars. They are beautiful, fast and expensive. So that being said, I don't know that many people that have really nice cars. So how can you improve your auto photography you may ask? I just went down to my local Porsche, Mercedes, and BMW dealership :) I got this tip from a good friend of mine...Vasilis Inembolidis...you should check out his work too...Here are some tips...

1) Time of day - It stays bright here in California until about 7:00pm now. The "Golden light" starts before sunset and lasts past sun down. I'd say from around 6-6:30 through 7:30 is your window. This way you can get some shots with direct sunlight (at this time the sun gives a nice warm glow) or after the sun goes down(the sky becomes one big soft box). This is great for cars considering they reflect everything! and I mean that, everything!

2) It's all about the details - It would be really hard to take a good full body shot of a car at the dealership...other cars everywhere, distracting buildings, trees everywhere...the list goes on....so zoom in and get those details. Expensive cars have all these fine details and clean lines. Take advantage of that and you'll get a nice detail pic without all those distractions...

3) Ask nicely - The dealerships close at 6pm on the weekends here. That means I didn't have to deal with sales people, but I was prepared to ask anyway. I figure just ask before shooting. While I was on one shoot a security guard asked me what I was doing. I told him that I was just taking shots for personal use and he was okay. He was a little skeptical at first; he explained that there was some vandalism that had taken place there, but I just stayed cool and he was okay with it.

4)Reflections - Car paint acts like a big mirror. You will see everything surrounding the car in your shots if you're not mindful about the reflections. I tried to position myself at an angle where the only reflection was the sky. On clear days this is easy so you may want to wait for a clear day or a day where the clouds are even.

Good luck with your car shots! I know this technique has definitely added to my portfolio. Check out all my auto pics at www.morganmessina.com. Now I just need to find a Ferrari dealership :D

Flowers...

It's spring...what can I say? Flowers are everywhere right now and they make great subjects...Here's what I used in this shot...They make great gifts for the special someone in your life too! Bonus points :)

1st...Whibal...i just recently bought a whibal...this is basically a grey card so you get the right colors during post processing...I used one for this shot and I find that the results are a lot warmer than what the camera produces. Cool tool and easy to use...

2nd...Reflector...Believe it or not but this was shot in midday sunlight...usually this light is super harsh, but I have a 5in1 reflector. I used the translucent panel which softens the harsh light to a soft glow. Cheap and easy...just hold the panel above the subject and bam! instant soft light. They come in tons of different sizes so get the one that's best for you...

3rd...Macro...Get as close as you can...some lenses (macros in particular) allow you to get really close to the subject allowing you so see all the fine details.