Tag Archives: Honl

Trixie

Posted on February 25, 2013 by Michael Willems

I shall now repeat a flash trick I have mentioned here before years ago. Time for a refresher. You all know how important it is to avoid, at least when the flash is on your camera, direct flash light reaching … Continue reading →

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Portrait lesson

Posted on September 9, 2012 by Michael Willems

A quick portrait lesson today. Here’s student and photographer Emma, in a coaching session on Friday: For this photo I used a 16-35mm lens, set to 16mm. On my full-frame Canon 1Dx camera, that is a proper wide angle lens – like … Continue reading →

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Light.. action!

Posted on March 16, 2012 by Michael Willems

I shot a few shots of Kelly, the hair stylist for a shoot the other night. Here she is: Nice. So how did I light that? Here’s how. I used my 1D Mk4 camera in manual mode, equipped with a Pocketwizard to … Continue reading →

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Cool colour

Posted on February 4, 2012 by Michael Willems

I shot some demo product shots with my student Merav today, and I thought I would share them here to underline the importance of colour. Here’s one, a simple one. Lit by a softbox on the leeft, an umbrella on the right, … Continue reading →

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A simple lighting setup?

Posted on September 9, 2011 by Michael Willems

What one person finds complicated, another finds simple. And vice versa. A friend who visited the other night reminded me of this, when I talked about the simple four-flash light setup I was using for a headshot: And as he … Continue reading →

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Fashion flashin’

Posted on September 5, 2011 by Michael Willems

Sunday morning, around mid-day, in downtown Oakville I shot a fashion shot for a magazine front cover. Outdoors fashion is, as always, a matter of many things coming together at once. One of those is light. Without light, even on … Continue reading →

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A little known fact

Posted on May 27, 2011 by Michael Willems

When you shoot Nikon and use the CLS/iTTL systen, you can fire remote flashes and set them to manual instead of TTL. This is well known since you set the options through the on camera menu. In the Canon world, … Continue reading →

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Studio light note

Posted on May 22, 2011 by Michael Willems

Welcome, all, including new students and reader. Continuing in the studio lighting technique series of posts, today, let’s look at the effect of a background light. A simple portrait (yes, as you see, I am my most patient model): That … Continue reading →

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Designing a one-light self portrait

Posted on May 17, 2011 by Michael Willems

Here is a self portrait, and the process that went through my head making it. I thought that would be good to share. Here’s how to make a dramatic self-portrait in ten steps. First, I thought “let’s do a quick … Continue reading →

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Reflect on this

Posted on February 19, 2011 by Michael Willems

I taught a very enjoyable class on “Portrait Photography” last night. I taught six students about studio lighting. Strobes, modifiers, light meters, backdrops, that sort of thing. And one message was: it can be simple. One student wrote me just … Continue reading →

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