So then how this available light portrait, shot on a full frame camera with a 50mm lens at f/1.2 (yes, f/1.2!)?

Well yes, it is shallow, but not too shallow.  Because I have enough distance.

Remember: depth of field (“DOF”) is a function of three things: aperture, distance, and lens focal length. The closer I get, the lower my f-number, and the more I zoom in, the more I get shallow depth of field.

So  portrait like this, with the person small enough like this, gives me plenty of DOF. Of course I would not want to do a full headshot at these large apertures, but in this type of portrait the shallow DOF is not too shallow, and the super blurry background makes things better.

So  -get yourself an affordable 24- 35- or 50mm lens!

As you can see, he is backlit – and I used whatever light was available.

This means that to avoid the usual “silhouette”, I needed to expose very long – 1/25th sec at f/2.8, using 6400 ISO; using the 24-70 lens set to 25mm, which on a 1D is 25 x 1.3 = a “real” 33mm. (See how nice the “real” 35mm is? That’s why somne cameras, like my Fuji X100, have fixed lenses of that focal length).

So – 6400 ISO? Is that doable?

Sure. Of course if we were to zoom in all the way we would see grain, but this image is pretty OK – especially after a little noise cancellation in Lightroom.

The moral: do not be afraid to go to high ISO values when needed. It’s better than not getting the shot.

Why high key b/w?

• First, because I very much like the look.
• Second, because by using high key B/W, I ensure that attention is drawn away from everything except the face – that is what we end up looking at. Eyes, face.
• And high key minimizes facial flaws, wrinkles, blemishes: the lighter you make it, the less these will show up. I set my TTL flash to +1 stop FEC usually, or more.
• And B/W also offers the option to reduce blemishes: just increase the relative luminance of the red channel (like using a red filter in the old days).

That’s four good reasons to do this if you want someone to look great and flawless. And who doesn’t want to look young and flawless?

Here’s one, a simple one. Lit by a softbox on the leeft, an umbrella on the right, and against a grey backdrop. That gives us this:

Bit boring? Yes it is. So I add a gridded, “egg-yolk yellow” gelled speedlight aiming at the background. (I use the excellent Honl Photo grids, gels, and other small flash modifiers):

Much better. Then we added another light – a green-blue gelled speedlight shining in from the left:

Then we reversed the gel colours:

Then, tried another background colour, rose purple:

And finally got to a background coloured Just Blue, which had been Merav’s idea all along:

Which one did you prefer? Can you see how different they all are?

To shoot this I used this setup:

This works as follows:

1. Put the bottle on a table, with white paper underneath
2. Put up a grey backdrop, far from the bottle so it does not get any light
3. Get the main lights right – use a light meter to set them to your desired values (I used f/9 and 1/125th second at 200 ISO). Main strobe is fired with Pocketwizard; secondary strobe by its cell.
4. Add a background light: a small flash also fired by a Pocketwizard, through a Flashzebra cable. Set to 1.4 power. Equipped with a 1/4″ Honl grid and a gel.
5. Add a side light: a small flash also fired by a Pocketwizard, through a Flashzebra cable. Set to 1/4 power. Equipped with a gel.

Simple. Once you know!

Why the rum? It was the only bottle I had in the house. Amazingly, for the first time I can remember, I had not a single bottle of beer or wine or anything else available in the house. Time to hit the liqor store!

Pretty in Pink (Photo: Michael Willems)

Namely.. the blur at the bottom.

This surely looks like something I did in Photoshop – perhaps even Lightroom? But no – I did this while shooting, using the camera.

How?

Here’s how. I simply placed an object (a mirror, in this case) in front of me, very close to my lens, and shot right over it. That blurs the bottom of the image, because the mirror is completely out of focus.

And call me crazy, but I like doing things in camera when I can. This image is basically “straight out of camera” (“SOOC”). Shot using a Canon EOS-1D Mark IV, 1/60 sec at f / 5.6, ISO 400, and lit with two speedlights, one on camera, one off camera. Using TTL, with flash compensation set to +1 stop to expose high-key. This is visually stunning, and also smooths skin.

By the way – I blurred to make it a “work safe” image. If you want to see some of my art nudes, head over to my occasionally-updated Tumblr site at http://mvwphoto.tumblr.com

Richard Dawkins (Photo: Michael Willems)

MUA (Photo: Michael Willems)

Kim in a mirror (Photo: Michael Willems)

In all of these, I am using the Rule of Thirds to create a visually pleasing composition. (And do you like the reflections in the latter two shots?)

Remember:

• If your subject is in the middle, dead centre, you must have a good reason for this.
• In the absence of such a reason, place your subject off-centre
• Have any “motion” (eg where your eye is drawn because this is the direction the subject is looking in) happen towards the centre!

The rules are just guidelines – but again, use them if you have no specific reason not to.

And in doubt: shoot two, and select your favourite later.

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And let me know what you think!

The text reads, in part:

WHY is finding an amazing wedding photographer so difficult? :/

I am a Bride who is getting married this summer and have yet to find a decently priced, exceptional, amazingly talented, fun photographer.

WHY because the word “WEDDING” is involved photographers think they can change you $ 3,000.00 for wedding photos? Oh, because no bride is going to go without so they are going to pay it, because they HAVE to. They are ripping people off for all they have! Why when you want to get married it costs you AT LEAST 15 grand after all is said-and-done? Its such CRAP!! I love all you $ 3,000.00 photographers out there but i think your prices are WACK. All your doing is hanging out at a wedding taking tons of photos and editing them.. and thats owrth 3 GRAND!!! You’re making so much money its crazy. I just wish people would be more realistic. I mean the “average” persons salary for 1 freaking month is somewhere around 3 grand. (Thats making 19$ an hour) So you’re going to take someones WHOLE MONTH paycheck for one flippen day of photos? Just because you CAN!!?????? So that maybe they will not be able to feed themselves or pay any other bills they have, right? It makes me SICK!

That would be funny if it wasn’t sad.  Of course photographers cost money – photography costs money! Setting the right price is part of my “Running a small photography business” course at Sheridan College.

It is simple: in a free market, you need a price that:

1. The market will bear (obviously for this lady that would be lower).
2. Is not too far removed from current market pricing for the same product.
3. Will not have you go bankrupt.
4. Ensures you can do it “well enough”.

A two hour family shoot, once you have all the packing and unpacking and setting up and preparing and editing afterward factored in, can take at least ten person-hours.  The equipment used can cost at least $15,000 – up to multiples of that. That is why it costs money to have photos taken.

The bride above is free to go with Uncle Fred, but before she does, she may want to think of this as life long memories that must be captured, and captured reliably, and captured well. In any case, when she does the math, she will see that a plumber is much more costly than a photographer.

If you are a budding pro: do not underprice yourself – or you will go broke. Plot your expenses – all of them, including travel time, taxes, car costs, and new cameras every three years – and offset those against the expected shoots per year. Now you know what you need to make to break even – and ideally you make a profit, of course.

To all photographers: do not be negative, and do not tell people they have to pay you because you need the money. Clients are interested in CLIENT VALUE, not in Photographer Need!

Looking at it more positively, and from the client’s perspective, a few more thoughts on this here:  www.michaelwillems.ca/benefits.html

When shooting a model, or fashion, or art portraits – anything creative –  it is important to try different poses all the time. A good model changes his or her pose every two or three seconds. It is the photographer’s duty to go with that; even to encourage that with less experienced models.

So in seconds you go from this – and all these are from yesterday, all shot within minutes:

To this:

To this:

To this:

And so on… all in seconds. Try different poses, angles, look, zoom angles.

That is difficult sometimes, because in a shoot like that, you have to shoot quickly. No time to meter, to set up lights. So I:

• Know my camera very well.
• Use a zoom lens (24-70 in this case)
• Use very simple lighting – two flashes, one on camera bounced, one off camera bounced or direct.
• Set my flashes to TTL flash control
• Vary looks, vary zooms, vary apertures, vary angles – sometimes you do not know what works until you see it.

By doing it this way, I can react quickly to the different areas and poses. And that, in this kind of shoot, is key

So when you shoot anything, think “what type of shoot is this”. In this type of shoot, quick reactions are key. In other types of shooting, I can spend ten minutes setting up lights for each shot – both are valid ways of shooting. Know which one you are doing and shoot accordingly.

How do you do this?

• Emptied the room.
• Lit by three speedlights: one bounced, one umbrella’d, and one gelled and flagged, using Honl Photo modifiers.
• Fired by Pocketwizards.
• The families are sitting, standing, leaning.
• Tallest people sit.
• People angled.
• Grouped in pyramids and triangles.
• Settings match ambient light to flash: 1/60 sec at f / 5.6, ISO 250.

…and then you take 50 shots, since four boys are not always easy to shoot – it takes a little effort to get them all to look at the camera!